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 them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped every year to pick the berries.  How could they be otherwise than full of associations!  They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in any catalogue:  and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book!

Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all the year round.  When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he may send his mind out to the snowy fields—­I’ve done it a thousand times!—­and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay his respects to each tree—­in a small orchard one comes to know familiarly every tree as he knows his friends—­stop at the strawberry bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them as he may have.

So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of fields, gardens, and hillsides.  So many truths spoken by the Master Poet come to us exhaling the odours of the open country.  His stories were so often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen:  his similes and illustrations so often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the fields.  “Consider the lilies how they grow.”  It was on a hillside that he preached his greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a place to meet his God, where did he go but to a garden?  A carpenter you say?  Yes, but of this one may be sure:  there were gardens and fields all about:  he knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the land:  he must have worked in a garden and loved it well.