the heart of man exults, the earth and the air are full of rejoicing. The landscape, however familiar, at this season of the year presents scenes of ever-changing beauty. Fleecy clouds, no heavier than gossa- The work of the morning is well performed, mer vapors, float between the sun and the earth, and then comes the noontide meal. The cotcasting faint shadows in spots upon the yellow tage maid trips forth, bearing the frugal yet undulations of the wheat-fields, literally dim- substantial repast, such as hungry men and pling their fattened surfaces into smiles; while maidens most need. A shady spot is selected other clouds, more dense, pile up like snow- near a spring, which offers its crystal waters to capped mountains in the noonday heats, and the thirsting lips; and happy but fatigued reapthen, as departing spirits, vanish into thin air. ers gather round. Jokes, keen repartee, and The open glades of woodland sparkle in the re- joyous laughter are often heard, betraying the cesses, while the preserved monarchs of the for- body healthy and the mind at ease. The toil ests, which have escaped the woodman's axe, of the after-day finished, the sun sinks slowly todarken and frown, and give dignity and grand-ward the west, and the weary laborer homeward eur to the joyous scene. The streams ripple wends his way. Mingling in the returning and dance over their gravelly beds, and the throng is the well-kept wagon, overflowing with playful fish, jewel sparkling, leap into the air, luxuriant sheaves, which are soon to be winnowand then bury themselves away amidst a spray ed of the chaff-for such a term ungrateful man of diamond jets. Softened, yet clear against applies to the cunningly-devised enfoldings the sky, are seen the spires of the distant village which have protected the grain in its infancy beautifully contrasting with purple hills. Over and in its matured strength. With these innoall nature rests the charm of rich abundance, cent associations, and by these grateful labors, the crop of wheat is secured, the very toil pro- | time to sit beside his own reapers, to eat of his moting health, and every incident favoring serenity of mind. bread, and he reached her parched corn, and Ruth ate what sufficed, and left. And Boaz in presence of the elders of the people took Ruth for his wife; and the devoted daughter-in-law of the poor widow, a stranger and a widow herself, a humble gleaner in the rich man's fields, became, as a reward for her virtues, a princess in the land, and her descendants were Jesse and David, and the Star of Bethlehem shone on the "son of David" and the descendant of the humble Ruth. In the parable of the sower, our Lord mentions an increase of thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold. Such an increase, although above the average rate, was, in ancient times, greatly exceeded, if we are to believe Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny. Herodotus says that the common yield of the soil of Babylonia was usually two hundred fold, but in favorable seasons three hundred fold. Pliny estimates the crops of the best lands of Byzacium at a hundred and fifty fold, and the general crops of Egypt, of Betica, and of the Leontines of Sicily, at a hundred fold. He mentions a wheat plant of four hundred stalks from one seed, sent him from Byzacium in Africa by the procurator of Augustus, and says that Nero received another from the same place bearing three hundred and sixty stalks. Among the things immediately connected, by association, with the wheat-field is the mill, where the ripened grain is manufactured into flour. There is something wonderfully cool and refreshing, in the hottest summer day, about these old mills. They are favorite spots with the juveniles, who delight to listen to the clatter of their machinery as it mingles with the hum of the surrounding forest. Their situation is always romantic, for it is in some quiet nook, shaded by rich trees, luxuriating beside the gurgling stream that pours in silver spray over the rude dam. The surrounding rocks are covered with spray, and where the shadows on the water are the deepest and coolest, the sun-fish disport themselves, tempting the angler's art. The old moss-covered wheel, as it rolls over and over, is musical by its industry, and the falling water quiets the most disturbed mind into sweet repose. One of the most touching stories ever told is that of Boaz and Ruth. The boasted enlightenment of the nineteenth century, and the effulgence of a superior religion, have done nothing to improve upon the deep affection, the heartfelt devotion, and the beautiful romance of the simple record. In this story, more than any where else in the Sacred Writings, do we find the most complete and beautiful picture of agricultural pursuits as conducted in the patriarchal ages. Naomi had left the land of her nativity, and, with the husband of her choice, had settled among strangers. In time she was blessed with two sons and two daughters-inlaw. Providence, however, dealt bitterly with her, and husband and sons were laid in the grave. Naomi now yearned for the home of her youth, for the land of Judah, and she proposed to her daughters-in-law that they should cach return to their mother's house, and that she would pursue her way alone. Orpah kissed Naomi, and returned back unto her people; but Ruth said: "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to re-wheat plant from the Governor of an Algerian turn from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." So Naomi returned, and Ruth with her, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the harvest. Virgil, Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient writers who took an interest in agricultural affairs, prove that in their time, in countries favored by nature, the farmers cut forage from their wheat twice in the year, and then grazed their cattle on it, obtaining by this means a large increase of the crop. The most robust varieties of wheat are seldom injured by the cold of winter, as might be apprehended from advanced vegetation. Among naturalists of later times we find that M. Deslongchamps counted four hundred and fifty grains yielded by one seed, and that he saw one hundred and fifty-two stalks coming from one root. Shaw acknowledges the present of a province having eighty stalks, and mentions one of a hundred and twenty stalks in the possession of the Pasha of Cairo. Sir Humphry Davy, in his Agricultural Chemistry, mentions one of a hundred and twenty, and Duhamel speaks of two seeds, each of which produced one hundred and forty stalks, and six thousand grains. Francis de Neufchateau quotes the history of tufts from rough grains, containing from one hundred to three hundred and seventy-six ears. At Kerinon near Brest, were seen, in 1817, one hundred and fifty-five ears growing from one root. D'Albut, chief gardener to Louis Philippe, reports a plant growing near Mantes which produced fifty-two ears and two thousand two hundred and forty grains. Deslongchamps, by planting wheat in drills (after the manner of the Chinese), frequently obtained twenty and thirty ears from one seed. Now Naomi had a wealthy kinsman whose name was Boaz, and Ruth proposed that she should glean in his fields. While engaged in this labor Boaz asked, Whose damsel is this? So the servant set over the reapers showed him all that Ruth had done for Naomi since the death of her husband, and how she had left father and mother and the land of her nativity and come unto a people whom she knew not heretofore. And the heart of Boaz was touched at the evidence of so much devotion, and he privately commanded his young men to let Ruth glean without hinderance even among the sheaves, and ordered them to let fall some of the stalks that Charles Miller, of the Botanic Garden, at Camshe might glean them. He invited her at meal | bridge, England, in June, 1776, selected a grain of wheat that seemed ready to branch out, pulled it up, and on the 8th of August, divided it into eighteen parts, each of which he replanted separately. Every one of these new plants put forth several lateral shoots, when they were again uprooted in September, divided, and replanted. The seventy-six shoots thus obtained underwent a similar operation in the course of the ensuing March and April, finally developing in all five hundred plants, from which came twenty-one thousand one hundred and nine ears, producing forty-seven pounds and a half of grain, or four million seven hundred and sixty-eight thousand and forty seeds. Hardy as wheat is, it is subject to many diseases, and also suffers from insects. The weevil is quite familiar. Its young is supposed to be deposited in the ears of wheat, which they leave about August and go into the grouud, where it is probable they remain during the winter in the pupa state, and become flies the next season, when the wheat is in bloom. "Pop goes the weasel," is an expression on every one's tongue, yet few understand the origin of the saying. By giving its history, we may also learn something of the habits of the weevil. According to "reliable tradition," a famous Methodist preacher, by the name of Craven, was once preaching in the heart of Virginia, when he spoke as follows: "Here are present a great many professors of religion, who are sleek, fat, and goodlooking, yet something is the matter with you. Now you have seen wheat which was plump, round, and good-looking to the eye, but when you weighed it you found that it was only fortyfive or perhaps forty-eight pounds to the bushel, when it should be, if a prime article, sixty or sixty- | of the earth, break through the thin shell which three pounds. Take a kernel of this wheat between your thumb and finger, hold it up to the light and squeeze it, and 'pop goes the weevil.' Now, you good-looking professors of religion, you are plump and round, but you only weigh forty-five or forty-six pounds to the bushel. What is the matter? Ah, when you are taken between the thumb of the law and the fore-finger of the Gospel, 'Pop goes your weevil.'" In rainy seasons wheat is subject to a disease known as the blight. On examining a grain thus affected with a powerful microscope, it is found to consist of hard shell filled with white powder, the dust containing no trace of starch; it consists entirely of microscopic threads which are dry stiff worms. When placed in water these worms exhibit hygroscopic motion for a few moments. When the wheat is new, they soon make other manifold movements which are unmistakable signs of life. When the grain is old, it requires several hours, or sometimes even days, before they resume motion and life. In a single grain of affected wheat, there are generally several thousands of these worms. They have no sexual distinctions; they are the offspring of other forms. Before a blight comes on there are found from ten to twelve larger worms in each kernel which is about to be affected, and the females of these larger worms have been observed to lay eggs. If blighted wheat is sown with sound, the worms, after a few weeks, and when the sound wheat has germinated, are awakened into life by the moisture BLIGHTED WHEAT. has confined them, and follow the dictates of individual enterprise. The great mass of them die, but a few reach the germinated wheat, and effect a lodgment in the stalk under the forming leaves. They are carried up in dry weather by the growth of the plant, and in wet by their own exertions. As they are dried up most of the time, they suffer no considerable change until they enter into the forming kernels and lay their eggs. By the time the wheat is ripe the parent insects are dead. Those remaining are dried into almost nothing, the egg-shells are absorbed, and the grain is apparently filled with nothing but white powder. As The Greeks claimed to be the inventors of bread, and this trait of their national vanity was exhibited in spite of the fact that they were dependent upon Egypt for wheat. The art of making loaves, however, passed from Greece into Rome. The distinctions of leavened and unleavened bread are of time immemorial. early as the days of Pliny the Gauls made use of yeast, and their descendants are still famous for their light rolls, and for being great consumers of them. For many centuries among the rich circular slices of the crusts of bread were used instead of plates, and after dinner these "dishes for the occasion" were distributed among the poor. Harvard University, the mother of all our colleges, and now so rich in funds, was at one time obliged to depend in part for the support of her little band of officers on the annual contributions of wheat collected by the peck from scattered log-granaries of Massachusetts. It is mentioned in the memoir of Lord Macartney's embassy to China, that wheat is planted with a hoe in holes, and covered as in planting beans, and that the harvest by this method is not only larger on a given area, but the quantity of seed thus economized was estimated as sufficient to feed all the inhabitants of Great Britain. A New Zealand chief, when on a visit to the English settlement in New Holland, on leaving to return home, was observed to take with him a quantity of wheat. On reaching his friends he greatly surprised them with the information that it was the grain from which the English made the biscuit which they ate on board the ship. He divided his precious store among those present, recommending them to plant what they received in the ground. A few following his directions, the wheat sprang up and grew well; but the barbarians, impatient for the product, and expecting to find it, like the potato, gathered round the roots, dug it up, and finding no bulbous formation, burned up the crop in disgust. At the massacre at Big Bottoms, after the Indians had killed the whites, before they set fire to the block-house, they carefully removed the meal and grain which they found, and deposited it at a distance in small heaps on the ground, in order that they might not, in burning it, give offense to the Great Spirit. natural consequence, diverted capital from other channels to be employed in tilling the soil, and, with this impulse, in the brief space of half a century we find the vast and fertile valley of the Mississippi reclaimed from nature and waving with golden crops. The settlement of California opened a still larger granary, one that is surpassing the wheat-bearing capacity of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio combined. From the census we learn that Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massa Humboldt states that a negro slave of Fernando Cortez was the first who cultivated wheat in New Spain. He planted three grains of it found among the rice included in the military stores brought from the parent country. He also noticed in the San Franciscan convent, where San Francisco now stands, preserved as a precious relic, the vessel containing the first wheat which Fray Iodoro Rixi de Gaute had sown in that city, he having commenced its cultivation upon ground attached to the convent before the primitive forest had been entire-chusetts, New York, New Jersey, North Caroly felled. lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida, do not raise wheat enough for their own consumption. That eight States only raise a substantial surplus, the remaining four, viz., Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Iowa, raising only a nominal surplus. Eight principal man The highest price that flour has reached during a period of sixty years was in 1796, when it sold at sixteen dollars a barrel. In 1817, it was quoted at fourteen dollars. In 1847, the period of the Irish famine, flour never exceeded ten dollars. The prices of breadstuffs were higher in 1855 than for sixty years, if we ex-ufacturing States, and ten planting States, do cept the seasons of 1796 and 1817. From the minutes kept at the office of the Van Rensselaer Mansion at Albany for sixty-one years, where large amounts of rents are payable in wheat or a cash equivalent, on the 1st of January of each year, we learn that wheat has only five times been two dollars or upward a bushel, while it was seventeen times at one dollar, and twice at seventy-five cents. The average price for the whole period was one dollar and thirty-eight cents, and for the last thirty years one dollar and twenty-five cents. Fluctuations in the price of flour are ascribed to speculations by capitalists. That moneyed men may affect a locality for a few days is possible, but no combination of all the bankers in existence can command the price of breadstuffs. The world consumes eight thousand millions of bushels of grain of some kind every year, and the cost is about four thousand millions of dollars. What we shall give for this important necessity for the preservation of our race, is hidden among the mysteries of nature, depends upon the machinery of the seasons, upon the will of God. In the deep caverns of the north He prepares the hoar frosts which kill the roots; from the evanescent clouds come the rains and the dews which rust the stalks; the rays of his sun wilt up the germinating flower; and from Him come also those secret influences which ripen the crops and spread them upon the ground, in every quality of real wealth more valuable than gold. The progress of the cultivation of wheat in our own country presents not only a subject of intense interest, but also one of great national congratulation. Prior to the year 1800, agriculture was confined to the Atlantic States. Preceding that time, the revolutionary condition of France, and the war which involved the whole of Europe, taken in connection with the limited space devoted to wheat culture, enabled our farmers to realize such high prices, that, as a class, they reveled in unbounded prosperity. In 1796, the high price obtained for flour, as a not raise their own bread. California now raises a trifling surplus, and New York nearly balances her production by consumption. A very few years only must elapse ere all these statistics will be changed. In twenty years the rich fields of the great West have been opened up to the agriculturist, and in that time Buffalo and Chicago have become the greatest grain marts of the world. Who can calculate the wonderful changes of another score of years? Texas, at present the producer of cotton and sugar, will soon step into the arena, as the great wheatgrowing State of the Union. It is calculated that at the very moment she obtains the means of internal transportation, by the completion of railways already begun, her wheat crop will be worth millions, and absolutely surpass in value her exports in the more talked of product cotton. Buffalo in the State of New York, and Chicago in the State of Illinois, are the two great grain ports of the world. Thirty years ago, the first cargo of wheat was landed upon the wharves of Buffalo, and at that time Chicago may be said to have had, comparatively speaking, no commercial existence whatever. Now, Buffalo has a commerce of thirty millions of bushels of wheat annually, and Chicago is destined soon to rival her sister city in the accumulation of the prime necessary of life. Thus we have at a glance a succinct view of the almost incomprehensible growth of the "Great West,” and an apparent security that "the season" may be unfavorable in the Atlantic States, and yet, in the heart of our continent the grain may ripen into an abundance; or if this should not be, still, in the far-off fields of California, and in the distant prairies of Texas, the crops may be abundant; so that nothing but an unusual visitation of Providence (such as we have no reason to expect) would destroy it at one time over all our widely-extended fields.* *The grain depositories of the world rank in import ance as follows: Buffalo, Chicago, Archangel, Galatz, Itraila, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Dantzic, Riga. |