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THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE SEASONS— SPRING. 



soil thrown in and then thoroughly worked together. 

 This put the soil in fine condition. I might add, per- 

 haps, that the manure was well rotted. The seeds were 

 placed eyes down and only three or four inches apart, 

 planted like peas, only not quite so thick, and were cov- 

 ered with mellow soil pressed firmly down upon them. 

 Before they were up well, good brush, four or five feet 

 long, was used instead of poles. I brushed them the 

 same as peas, only using larger and higher brushes. 

 When the beans reached the top, they were pinched 

 back. This crop yielded fully as well as could be 

 expected. I tried the same plan last year with good re- 

 sults. I planted part of my crop in good, rich prairie 

 loam, without manure, putting the vines about three 



and a-half feet apart and the hills eighteen inched 

 apart in the row. They were cultivated well, the same 

 as the others ; the weeds were kept down and the soil 

 mellow ; hoeing around the plants and using a garden 

 plow to cultivate between the vines. Those planted 

 close together and brushed were much the best. Of 

 course, the manure aided considerably, yet I am satisfied 

 from the two experiments that the brushing was the 

 best. This year I have planned to have the manure 

 scattered broadcast and thoroughly worked into the 

 soil, and shall plant two plots, one in hills and the other 

 in drills, and shall use poles in the hills and good 

 stout brush in the drills. 



N. J. Shepherd. 



THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE SEASONS— SPRING'. 



E WHO dwell in the country 

 may miss many good things 

 which combine to make the full- 

 ness of life for our brother, the 

 urban dweller, but as a recom- 

 pense we have one pleasure 

 that never palls — that of watching the seasons as 

 they come and go. Here we find that infinite 

 variety that constitutes the best relish of life ; a 

 variety produced by nature, endless, ever changing, 

 not subject to the finite limitations that make the 

 contrivances of men of so little avail to refresh and 

 rejuvenate the inner self. 



The ancients, who looked upon the manifestations of 

 nature as a constant series of miracles, never with sur- 

 prise but always with veneration, must have received 

 such satisfaction from observing the seasons' changes 

 as served to make life worth living for that alone. The 

 man of the pavements, the citizen whose scenery, the 

 year through, is bounded by a limitless vista of brick 

 and mortar, can know nothing of this, however closely 

 he watches the calendar and regulates his strolls in the 

 park thereby. There are definite characteristics per- 

 taining to each of the seasons, individual physiognomic 

 attributes that are not marked upon his calendar and 

 which can be learned only from close contact with the 

 world out-of-doors. If one will go far enough a-field 

 he may learn to tell, by reading the face of nature, not 

 only the season but often the month, the day, sometimes 

 the very hour. The first is written in general and large 

 aspects, such as the colors in field and forest ; the density 

 of the boscage, the quality of the atmosphere, the 

 labors upon which husbandmen are engaged. The 

 second may be most surely marked by the blossoming 



of a wild-flower or by the blooming of a tree. For 

 some years I have been accustomed to watch for the 

 fifteenth of April as the day of days in the spring. Then 

 I go into the orchard and beneath a certain group of 

 plum trees drink in great draughts of fragrance and 

 delight the eye with long gazing upon billowy masses of 

 white bloom. Above me the honey-bees hold high 

 carnival, reveling in unwonted stores of nectar, and 

 making the air musically vibrant with their incessant 

 humming. Rarely do the plum trees lead me astray as 

 to the date, whether the season has been backward or 

 forward ; the forces that work within them have been 

 busy, whether skies were bright or leaden, to the end 

 that 1 and the bees may have our fill of sweets that day. 



The hours have their more minute signs, and they are 

 not to be found in the same lazy way that we tell the 

 month or the day. Now we must note the drooping or 

 lifting of a leaf, the opening and closing of flowers, the 

 coming and going of insects, and the quality of their 

 notes, which is shrill and eager in the morning when they 

 first go about the pressing business of their lives, but 

 grows more slow and mellow as the day advances and 

 their quest for wealth and fame and political preferment 

 grows less strenuous. 



There are large effects in the landscape which even 

 the least careful and least te'chnical observer recognizes 

 as the sign-manual of spring, or summer, or autumn. 

 Such are the budding verdure and freshness of vegeta- 

 tion of the first ; the expression of the landscape is ani- 

 mated ; a note of expectancy is in the air ; there are 

 wonderful possibilities ahead ; the bloom of the fruit 

 and the germ of the sown grain are full of promise of 

 future corn and wine. Then follows the deep, dark, 

 sensuous fullness of the foliage of mid-summer ; there 

 is a sense of satiety in the completed growth of vegeta- 

 tion ; and rest, and a waiting for the harvest. Then the 

 harvest comes, a synonym for ripeness and final comple- 

 tion, and with it is the brilliant, diversified spectrum of 

 the autumn. These things "he may read who runneth. " 



There is a curious analogy between some of the 

 minutiae of spring and autumn that one who looks only 



