The Illinois Farmer. 



VOL. VII. 



SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 1862. 



NO. 6 



June. 



On many accounts June is one of tte most 

 interesting months of the year. The forest 

 has put on her full livery, and it is pleasant 

 to walk through her long aisles of deep 

 shade, festooned with climbers and redolent 

 with sylvan flora, you tread on the dry leaves 

 and the echo comes back from yonder ridge, 

 you linger by the brooklet that whispers 

 .through the ravine and steals beneath the 

 glossy drapery that would hide it from the 

 Bun. Not when autumn showers down the 

 ripened nut-brown fruit, and while the 

 thousand hued leaves fall into wintry wind- 

 rows, is the forest so attractive, so contem- 

 plative, so full of beauty as when full robed 

 in her wedding attire for June. 



It is June that offers up the first fruits of 

 the season — the acid berries, so acceptable 

 to the invalid scorched with fever, and this 

 year doubly valuable to the wounded soldier, 

 be he patriot or rebel, and they also doubly 

 arm the farmer for his labor. Roses, phloxes, 

 and the whole family of summer flora are 

 presenting daily boquets to feast the eye. 

 But amid the beauties of the opening sum- 

 mer, with a commingling of fruit and flow- 

 er of waving grass and tillering grain, the 

 farmer must pour out his sweat like rain 



from 



" Mom to dewy eve." 



He must ply his task ; the garden, the 



orchard, and the farm crops all need his 



kindly care. His is certainly a pleasant 



task if he but will it, for his labors are 



among the useful and the beautiful. His is 



almost a creation, for when he waters the 



plants with his sweat, where falls the dust 



from his feet in frequent visits to his trees, 

 it is there that the unseen hand follows and 

 presses a more vigorous growth. Our sym- 

 pathies go up for our brothers of the press, 

 who sit and write in second and third stories 

 where the glorious sun shines in, but once 

 a day, and shut out by high brick walls the 

 remainder of the time, breathe air laden 

 with coal smoke, and the odor from thous- 

 ands of kitchens, instead of the pure air of 

 the country. The blossoming of the peach, 

 the apple, the cherry, or the pear, is nought 

 to them but in the recollection of their boy- 

 hood ; the swelling of the embryo fruit that 

 May has turned over to the care of June, 

 and on which the sun is beginning to paint 

 its colors more beautiful than any effort of 

 man's art, is a sight that never tires. The 

 unfolding of these gifts of nature, as day 

 after day they progress to maturity, is a feast 

 of the eye only second to that of their ri- 

 pened rinds presented to the taste. The 

 feast of strawberries all smothered in cream 

 is at hand, the cherries begin to redden , 

 while the gooseberry and currant are taking 

 the place of rhubarb, that has for the past 

 six weeks supplied us with pies and tarts ; 

 the apple is putting on its orb-like form, 

 while the spring grain is waving its sea of 

 verdure over the prairie swells, and the corn 

 is marching its long rows over the wide 

 fields. Most assuredly June is invested with 

 many, very many beauties. 



— ^An old lady had fallen into a well, and was 

 rescued from drowning with some difficulty. 

 She declared that "had it not been lor 

 Providence and another man, she never would 

 have been got out alive." 



