how he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet
spots, and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots
--until his acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every
characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses
and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in early
spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their first
flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to see
them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is a
fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, with
us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard seems
still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for the
first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing--one of
the finest of all--to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after weeks
of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first drops
throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry soil. Then
the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the meadows and
blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of the rain as
it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir of life! What
rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking and swaying of
the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the grooved leaves catch
the early drops, and, lest there be too little rain after all, conduct
them jealously down the stalks where they will soonest reach the thirsty
roots? What a fine thing is this to see!

One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to
have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals.
There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence corner.
Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry patch,
now come gorgeously into full white bloom--and heavy with fragrance. I
set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, cultivated