bee, manna to the herds, and life to all creatures,--what
spectacle so fills the heart? "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down on the
plowed fields of the Athenians, and on the plains."

There is a fine sibilant chorus audible in the sod, and in the dust of
the road, and in the porous plowed fields. Every grain of soil and
every root and rootlet purrs in satisfaction, Because something more
than water comes down when it rains; you cannot produce this effect by
simple water; the good-will of the elements, the consent and
approbation of all the skyey influences, come down; the harmony, the
adjustment, the perfect understanding of the soil beneath and the air
that swims above, are implied in the marvelous benefaction of the rain.
The earth is ready; the moist winds have wooed it and prepared it, the
electrical conditions are as they should be, and there are love and
passion in the surrender of the summer clouds. How the drops are
absorbed into the ground! You cannot, I say, succeed like this with
your hose or sprinkling-pot. There is no ardor or electricity in the
drops, no ammonia, or ozone, or other nameless properties borrowed from
the air.

Then one has not the gentleness and patience of Nature; we puddle the
ground in our hurry, we seal it up and exclude the air, and the plants
are worse off than before. When the sky is overcast and it is getting
ready to rain, the moisture rises in the ground, the earth opens her
pores and seconds the desire of the clouds.

Indeed, I have found there is but little virtue in a sprinkling-pot
after the drought has reached a certain pitch. The soil will not absorb
the water. 'Tis like throwing it on a hot stove. I once concentrated my
efforts upon a single hill of corn and deluged it with water night and
morning for several days, yet its leaves curled up and the ears failed
the same as the rest. Something may be done, without doubt, if one
begins in time, but the relief seems strangely inadequate to the means
often used. In rainless countries good crops are produced by
irrigation, but here man can imitate in a measure the patience and
bounty of Nature, and, with night to aid him, can make his thirsty
fields drink, or rather can pour the water down their throats.

I have said the rain is as necessary to man as to vegetation. You
cannot have a rank, sappy race, like the English or the German, without
plenty of moisture in the air and in the soil. Good viscera and an
abundance of blood are cl