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PLOUGHING THE FIELDS.

PERHAPS Some of our young friends may be ready to say, "And what of ploughing the fields: we have often seen a man and a boy with their horses ploughing the fields, and there did not appear anything interesting about it, only it seemed very hard work."

Well, now let us see, after all, if there is not something about this ploughing, and about what comes out of this ploughing, that is, or should be, very interesting to young people.

We suppose, in the first place, that all the little boys and girls who read these pages are very fond of a good basin of bread and milk every morning, and that they are pleased when they see a nice apple or plum-pudding on the table for dinner. Did they never ask where the flour came from which made the loaf and pudding? and do they not know that if there were no ploughing there would be no pudding!

"Ah!" perhaps some of you will say, "I see how it is now: let us hear more about it." Well: you shall, and you ought to hear something about it just now; that is, about how corn is made to grow; for at the time we write this, the great men of our nation, who make our laws, are, we hope, under God's blessing, going to make a law by which we may have plenty of corn at a cheap price. Then, we hope, the poor and their children will have bread enough-not without working for it, we do not mean that, but at a much cheaper price than they can buy it for now, and so get more of it.

Oh! how nice it will be for many poor children then, who have lived on potatoes and salt, to have a good basin full of bread and milk for breakfast and supper, and a good pudding for dinner; and how pleased their mothers will be to give it them, and how glad their fathers will be to see them eating it!

We must, however, tell you about this ploughing.

But first, we wish every little reader would take his bible-surely he has one of his own-and turn to the third chapter of Genesis, and read there how God cursed the earth for man's sake, because he had done wrong, saying, "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The meaning of this is that man should no longer live as he did before on the fruit of the trees of the garden, but he should labour to produce food out of the earth, which would only grow weeds except he did; and ever since then man has had to work before he could eat bread.

How they went on at first, and before the great flood, we are not told, but in the days of Joseph, you know, they grew much corn in Egypt, and we read in other old books of the people growing corn for food; but whether they had ploughs drawn by oxen, we are not told. We rather think they performed the hard work of preparing the ground with their own hands; and that ploughs were invented at a later period.

We need not, perhaps, tell you what a plough is-you have all seen one. You know that it is a sharp blade of iron with a point, fixed on pieces of wood, and drawn along by horses or oxen, with a man to guide it behind. The sharp point is fixed ready to enter the soil, and when the horses pull, the iron blade, which is a little aslope, turns up the ground as it goes along.

Ploughing is only done to prepare the ground for seed-corn especially. Well: after this is done, a

man walks down the land with a basket of seed-corn slung round his neck, and taking out a good handful at a time, he throws it over the land so as to let some

fall everywhere. You might think he would miss some places, but if you look at a field of springing corn you will see that he has done it very well, for it is coming up all over.

After this the harrow is used, which consists of several pieces of wood nailed across each other, with sharp spikes fixed in them, pointing downward. This is drawn over the ground to tear down the ridges of earth left by the plough into the ruts into which the seed corn had fallen, thus covering up the seed in the earth. And there it is left for the rain, and the snow, and the sun, to do their appointed work in aiding it to strike, and take root, and spring up into the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear. God maketh it to grow, though we know not how.

Then come the harvest, and the gathering of the corn into barns, and the thrashing, and the grinding of it into flour and then come the loaf and the pudding. The work of the ploughman and the ploughboy is very laborious. Out in the open air, in all weathers, they come home again weary and hungered.

"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way." But it is an honourable and useful employment to raise food out of the earth, and pity 'tis that many so employed are not better provided for themselves. We have lately heard some sad tales of the sufferings of many poor labourers and their wives and children. But the eye of God is upon them, and their cry hath entered into his ears. (Read James, chap. 5.) We hope better days are coming for the hard-working sons of the soil who labour so hard to provide for all of us our supply of daily bread.

We wish to see the days come when the fieldlabourer shall dwell in his own happy cottage in peace and comfort-when his rosy and chubby children, well fed and clothed, shall be also well taught and trained, and when they shall all dwell contentedly and happily among their richer neighbours.

Perhaps my young readers have sometimes seen, one Monday morning in winter, a crowd of ploughmen and plough-boys, with their faces painted, and fantastically arrayed in gaudy dresses, some as men and some as women, dragging a plough along the streets, rattling their tin boxes, and running about from door to door begging halfpence. This is an old heathenish custom which has been practised for many generations, but it is a very silly and foolish custom. We are glad to find that it is not so much practised now as it once was, and we hope that all our English labourers will soon be ashamed of making tom-fools of themselves for boys and girls to run after and laugh at. Besides, we fear there is something worse than foolishness about it-we fear there is much wickedness—and all good people should discountenance such unmanly and disgraceful exhibitions.

Better far will it be with all our villagers we trust ere long. Many of them have been sadly neglected both as regards their temporal and spiritual condition. Badly paid for their labour, they have sunk into wretchedness and discontent. Without education or proper religious instruction, they have neither feared God or regarded man. But their wants and their woes have called for help, and they are finding it. Ashamed of having neglected them so long, many are now considering what can be done to improve their condition. May God bless their efforts to do them and their children good!

Above all, we hope that efforts will be used to teach them and their children real religion-the fear of God, and the love of Jesus Christ the Saviour. Happy day for Britain, when all her hardy and industrious sons, whether toiling in fields or workshops, adequately rewarded for their labour, spend their earnings in making their families comfortable, and live in prospect of a better world.

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