DROUGHT 93 



inhabitant, the birds and beasts, insects and plants have no 

 second sight. Our island climate is proof against correct 

 prophecy. Yet seasons have types of weather ; and the 

 old ignorant country sayings, like the pet phrases of a 

 parrot, come into their own often enough to ensure their 

 survival. The best are not assertions, but aspirations ; 

 and at the head of these comes the golden value put upon 

 a quarter of a bushel of March dust. There is peculiar 

 value in drought. It is, for example, the condition 

 precedent to the fine wool of Australian sheep, though it 

 slays its thousands by its wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

 Excesses are not common in England; and a spring 

 drought, a word we delight to use on the barest excuse, 

 is marvellously beneficial, not least, as in Australia, to the 

 lambs. The golden quality of March dust had doubtless 

 no reference to animals. It came in a botanist s prayer, in 

 the calendar of a gardener or farmer who liked to lay his 

 tiny seeds in dust composed of no larger particles than 

 themselves. Below they would feel a kindly moisture, 

 rising just to their roots and no farther, and above the 

 tender seed leaves would be unbruised. The cradle where 

 the truest wealth of the world is rocked is a dusty seed-bed. 

 Of all things, insects, both those we welcome and 

 those we shun, benefit most from dry winters and springs. 

 Wet is the worst enemy even of our hive bees ; but it is 

 more deadly to their cousins, the bumbles, to the wasps 

 and gnats, to hibernators, to chrysalis, and to eggs. So 

 if, after denying the efficacy of the prophets and of those 

 who would find useful correlations between March and 

 July, an inference from cause to effect may be ventured 

 the summer succeeding a dry winter will be most 

 grateful to the entomologists, not least to those highly 

 practical entomologists whose nestlings can only flourish 

 on that carnal diet. 



