DEVOTiJD TO AGRICUIiTTJIlE, HORTICTJLTTJKE, AOTJ KLNDRED AKTS. 



NEW SERIES. 



Boston, July, 1870. 



YOL. IV.— NO. 7. 



R. P. EATO^T & CO., Publishers, 

 Office, 34 Merchants' Row. 



MONTHLY. 



SIMON BROWN, ) -^^^^ „ 

 S.FLETCHER, '[Editors. 



SPECIALTIES OF JULY. 



Now let me tread the meadow paths 



While glittering dew the ground illumes, 

 Ab, sprinkled o'er the withering swaths. 



Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes; 

 And hear the beetle sound his hoin ; 



And hear the skylark whistling uigh, 

 Sprung from his bed of tufted corn, 



A hailing minstrel in the sky.— JbAn Clare. 



usT as we her- 

 alded in the 

 month of June, 

 and declared 

 we had never 

 seen such beau- 

 ties in Nature, 

 nor had ever 

 realized such 

 ^^ charming sen- 

 ^^' sations before, 

 do we now wel- 

 come July, — 

 July! the 

 month of the 

 early harvests, 

 when golden 

 grains and yel- 

 low fruits begin 

 to drop into 

 the lap of the 

 husbandman, to fulfil the promises of May 

 and June. 



The world around us now assumes a charac- 

 ter—a July character — so unlike any of its fel- 

 lows that it scarcely seems to belong to the 

 same family. Not only are the sights, the 



external aspects of nature, greatly changed, 

 but the sounds, also, are peculiar to the season. 

 Kine cease to low, the meadow lark whis- 

 tles from the topmost bough of the old apple 

 tree, or some tuft of tall grass near his brood- 

 ing mate ; the martins and swallows skim the 

 air, snatch up unwary insects who are on the 

 wing, and convey them to their clamorous 

 youag who receive them with open mouths 

 and thankful tones. Now "the beetle sounds 

 his horn," and the brooding bittern "booms" 

 to her mate as he soars in circles a thousand 

 feet above, as a signal to her locality among 

 the rushes of the swamp. 



Now rains are less frequent, the dust flies ; 

 the plants wither, when we "have one of those 

 days which make the house too hot to hold us, 

 and force us to seek shelter in the open air, 

 which is hotter; when the interior of the 

 blacksmith's shop looks awful ; when the birds 

 sit open-mouthed upon the trees ; when pe- 

 destrians along dusty roads quarrel with their 

 coats, and women go about their work gown- 

 less, and the weeping-willow dips its green 

 fingers into the clear cool water." 



Such are mild and lovely aspects of nature. 

 That they generally rule the year in our cli- 

 mate, forms one of our greatest blessings. 

 We are fortunately exempt from those sudden 

 and terrible manifestations of God's power in 

 the earthquake, the tornado, the sirocco of 

 Italy, or the awful simoom of Arabia and 

 Syria. 



