tious, and sometimes profligate-have happily passed away; but the kindly entertainment of field-labourers by masters, at the close of the most laborious and important season of the agricultural year, is retained as a graceful custom, the interests of both classes being closely interwoven, while alike dependent upon the bounty of a common Providence for the fruit of their toils.

It is curious to observe that the mode of preparing grain for the use of man, or reducing it to meal by a pair of millstones, each with a system of grooves cut in the grinding face, is the same in principle at present as it was thousands of years ago, the difference being chiefly in their size, and the power employed in driving them. The lower primitive millstone was stationary, of a flat circular form. An upright pin or pivot fixed in the centre formed a kind of axis, and passed through a hole in the upper stone, which was fitted with a handle to drive it round, and make it revolve over the lower stone, crushing the corn between them. These ancient mills, of which several examples remain, were portable domestic implements, sometimes small enough to be held in the lap:-they were worked by women. Hence in the prophetic denunciation of a great and mighty empire, it is said, "Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: take the millstones and grind meal." "Two women," said our Lord, 'shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left." The Romans occasionally employed cattle to drive their mills, and eventually had recourse to the power of water. We have watermills, wind-mills, and steam-mills; but in some of our remote islands, as St. Kilda and the Shetlands, the old

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hand-mills are still in use, and each family grinds its

own corn.

The seed and the sower-the full corn in the earthe fields white unto the harvest-and the daily bread prepared from the produce, are objects of frequent and interesting reference in the inspired pages. "Verily, verily," said our Lord to his disciples, “I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." The apparently humi liating and destructive process by which the seed-corn is made to develop a living principle, and is multiplied abundantly, is thus selected as an image of the vital and fruitful effect of his own painful and ignominious death.

"He died! but as a corn of wheat expands by perishing,

And lifts on high 'mid summer's heat, a full ear ripening,
So from the travail of his soul, when giving up the ghost,
He gathers now from pole to pole, a vast redeemed host.
Men of all lands, of every speech, have offer'd life through him,
Far as the ocean's waves may reach, or winds their wild song hymn
And e'er the death knell of the world tolls on the judgment day,
And stars from their high seats are hurl'd, to make his chariot way;
From north to south, from east to west, a ransom'd seed shall come
With victor palms, in white robes dress'd, to share his heavenly home."

In the arrangements of Providence, an exuberant vegetation is not only furnished for the sustenance and welfare of the perishing body, but a complete provision has been made for the salvation, refreshment, and comfort of the immortal soul. He who causes

"the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth," has most mercifully provided a fallen race with the means of spiritual and eternal life, by the gift of his Son to atone for their sins, and the promise of his Spirit to renew their hearts. Hence bread, in

all nations the principal article of food, essential to the support and strength of the human frame, is made by the Saviour a similitude of himself, as the great and only medium of the soul's happiness. "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.-I am the Bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger." There is a blessedness to be found in association with him, which supplies every want, and satisfies every desire of the spirit yearning after good. By trusting to the atonement of the cross with an enlightened confidence, and a sincere faith, views of God are obtained as a Being who pardons sin; and while a peace which passeth all understanding reigns in the heart and mind as the consequence, a lively hope in the Divine promises enables the believer to rejoice in the prospect of glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life. Alas! that multitudes should be so deluded as to give their whole attention to the riches, pleasures, and concerns of time, which are so sure to pass away, and so certain to impress the mind with an irrefutable consciousness of their vanity, in the hour of separation from them. Let the reader take heed that the remonstrance is not justified in his case, Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not ?"

GREEN, LEGUMINOUS, AND FORAGE CROPS.

Green crops, consisting of vegetables cultivated for their bulbs, tubers, or leaves, are raised for the support of live-stock on farms, chiefly with the view of providing manure for the land, and restoring the fertility abstracted from it by the white, or corn crops.

The opinion is common that such produce does not repay the cost of culture, considered simply as food for cattle; and that it would cease to be grown, if it were possible to provide manure in a more economical way. But at present the old Flemish proverb is "No green crops, no cattle; no cattle, no manure; no manure, no corn."

true:

In point of importance, among crops of this description, the turnip, brassica rapa, holds the highest place; and its careful culture is regarded as the foundation of the excellence which British husbandry has attained. It belongs to the cruciferous family of plants, the characteristics of which are, that each flower has four distinct petals, placed crosswise, and contains six stamens. It is found as a weed in this and most other European countries; but our indigenous plant is not susceptible of being improved by husbandry. The Romans reared the cultivated vegetable with great skill and success, and deemed it next to corn in point of utility. In Holland and Flanders, it has long been known; and was probably introduced from thence to our gardens and fields about the commencement of the seventeenth century. In the "Philosophical Transactions," we are told, that during the occurrence of a dearth in England, in 1629-30, "very good, white, lasting, and wholesome bread was made of boiled turnips, deprived of their moisture by pressure, and then kneaded with an equal quantity of wheaten flour. The poor of Essex had recourse to this kind of bread in 1693, owing to scarcity of corn. The field culture of this esculent spread very slowly; but it now prevails to a greater or less extent in almost every county. In Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincoln, and Northumberland, it is conducted with superior

skill, and upon the largest scale. Young plants while in the seed leaf are liable to the attack of a small beetle, the haltica nemorum, called the turnip-fly, by which in dry seasons the crops over whole districts are destroyed; and no certain means are known of effectually preventing its ravages, though some useful checks are applied. The cabbage, rape, carrot, parsnip, and mangel-wurzel, cultivated to a varying extent as field crops, appear to have been reclaimed from wild weeds found in this country, and which are general in Europe. It is probable that the improvement of the plants and the development of their esculent qualities, took place under the joint action of culture and a climate more genial than our own, though when once developed the qualities are retained without degenerating under a different condition of climate. The power which the Creator has put into the hands of man of improving vegetation by his skill in the arts of husbandry, is a most important boon, enabling him to vary and increase the stock of food; and largely as it has been exerted, we may only have received as yet the first-fruits of its capacity. "And the ground shall give her increase," is an anticipated sign of times which are still future.

The potato, solanum tuberosum, once the green crop of Ireland so eminently as to be the mainstay of its population, belongs to a family of plants many of which possess a narcotic principle, and some to such an extent as to render them poisonous; nor is the juice of the leaf and stalk, or even of the raw tuber of the edible vegetable wholly free from the principle, though it is quite removed by roasting or boiling. The original habitation of the plant is South America. It has been cultivated there by the natives from the