strawberry and the apple,
and such vegetables as celery, ought to lengthen human life,--at least
to correct its biliousness and make it more sweet and sanguine.

The first impetus to strawberry culture seems to have been given by the
introduction of our field berry (_Fragaria Virginiana_) into England in
the seventeenth century, though not much progress was made till the
eighteenth. This variety is much more fragrant and aromatic than the
native berry of Europe, though less so in that climate than when grown
here. Many new seedlings sprang from it, and it was the prevailing
berry in English and French gardens, says Fuller, until the South
American species, _grandiflora,_ was introduced and supplanted it. This
berry is naturally much larger and sweeter, and better adapted to the
English climate, than our _Virginiana._ Hence the English strawberries
of to-day surpass ours in these respects, but are wanting in that
aromatic pungency that characterizes most of our berries.

The Jocunda, Triumph, Victoria, are foreign varieties of the
Grandiflora species; while the Hovey, the Boston Pine, the Downer, are
natives of this country.

The strawberry, in the main, repeats the form of the human heart, and
perhaps, of all the small fruits known to man, none other is so deeply
and fondly cherished, or hailed with such universal delight, as this
lowly but youth-renewing berry.

IV

IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

I suspect that, like most countrymen, I was born with a chronic anxiety
about the weather. Is it going to rain or snow, be hot or cold, wet or
dry?--are inquiries upon which I would fain get the views of every man
I meet, and I find that most men are fired with the same desire to get
my views upon the same set of subjects. To a countryman the weather
means something,--to a farmer especially. The farmer has sowed and
planted and reaped and vended nothing but weather all his life. The
weather must lift the mortgage on his farm, and pay his taxes, and feed
and clothe his family. Of what use is his labor unless seconded by the
weather? Hence there is speculation in his eye whenever he looks at the
clouds, or the moon, or the sunset, or the stars; for even the Milky
Way, in his view, may point the direction of the wind to-morrow, and
hence is closely related to the price of butter. He may not take the
sage's advice to "hitch his wagon to a star," but he pins his hopes to
the moon, and plants and sows by its phases.

Then t