high

and all should rejoice at this season The period of fruition has come in the harvest. Peach, plum, pear apple, corn and wheat are ripe to gladden the hearts of the people.

Since the harvest has failed in so many parts of the country, it should be a season of thankfulness to the Latter-day Saints that the Lord has blessed them with a bounteous store. If you, mothers of Utah, could only see how some of the mothers of the east are in despair at the failure of the crops, you would impress upon the minds of your children the fact that the Lord is certainly pouring blessings without stint upon the heads of the Saints, and teach them to serve the Lord, and give praises unto Him.

While we are viewing this great abundance, let us take the corn for

by.

it is nevertheless beautiful, and man finds it to be very necessary for his welfare.

A CORN FIELD.

During the summer, while visiting on a large farm, I had ample opportunity to study the fields of grain. and especially the corn field.

Here the corn had been standing night and day during the summer. and it had its own story to tell. It

is an annual and previous to its having been planted, it was a child and had a mother's care. Last spring Lloyd Tubbs,the young farmer,planted it in the mellow soil, which had been thoroughly stirred with plow and harrow, thereby making a very soft bed in which the kernels lay.

A coverlet of earth was next spread over it, and the farmer patted it down gently with a hoe. Soon the moisture of the earth began to act upon it and cause the grains to swell, when it commenced to assume new life and put forth sprouts downward into the earth to get a firmer hold, and upward to the air and sunshine. The young plant would not have had strength enough to sustain this double effort, had it not been provided by Mother Nature with food stored up within the kernel.

Any mother who chooses may easily observe the process of sprouting and show it to the children by soaking the corn in warm water over night and afterwards keeping it between layers of damp cotton in a warm room from twenty-four to forty hours.

Lloyd told me that the corn jumped from babyhood to old age in a hundred days, and that when the weather was warm and sunny and it had just the right quantity of water to drink, it made very rapid progress. Then the corn would be beautiful and green above ground and the roots in the soil would be white. "One time in July it rained every day for more than a week," Lloyd said, "and the ground became so soaked with water that it was like mud." During that period the corn did not grow at all, but went into a sickly melancholy and became so blue that it turned from green to yellow. It needed hot weather, or, in other words, good "corn weather." After that downpour of rain, the corn grew rapidly, and so did the weeds all around it.

The young farmer had planted the corn in straight rows, leaving strips of soil between the rows, like little alleys. The weeds grew thick along these narrow ways, and Lloyd was in great distress, for he knew that if they were allowed to stav, they would consume from the soil the food and water which were necessary for the young corn. He called them thieves, and one day he drove Jim, a big, black horse, very carefully through the narrow ways. Jim dragged an odd-looking machine, arranged with teeth in it, like a comb. These teeth went through the weeds and soil, the same as a comb goes through the hair, and after Jim and the machine, called a cultivator, had gone along. the weeds were laid flat, never to grow again. But others kept coming in their places, and I do not remember how many times Lloyd,without getting out of patience, had to go over the fields to cultivate. However, he was amply repaid for his trouble by seeing the corn grow as tall as himself, when it was strong enough to take care of itself and he could turn to some other work.

The corn continued to take in water containing food, through the roots, and breath in air through the leaves. Both were necessary for life, as was also the blessed sunshine. And while this process of digestion and growth were going on, the plant was giving off oxygen for animal life.

After the corn had grown four or five feet, tiny, tender ears began to grow close to the parent stem and to branch out at the side, similar to the growth of the ears from the side of the head. Each ear, consisting of many kernels, was dressed in a suit, the fashion of which has not changed for many centuries.

How conservative Dame Nature is! Nor has this suit been fashioned carelessly, as you will observe, if you care to give attention. Many, many

wraps, as the mother, who takes them off, will notice, are used to protect the ears; and while the corn is young and fresh, each one fits without a wrinkle. These wraps are lapped so carefully over each other at the edges, that not a drop of rain can beat in on the tender kernels. When the corn was very young in the ear, there was hanging from the tip long, silken threads of a light color; but as it grew older, these changed to brown. It is strange about these threads that they precede the growth of the kernels and that each kernel has but one hair. At the top of the corn, there is the plume or tassel, as it is sometimes called. On these plumes was produced a powder that was blown through the air like dust. Whenever a speck of this dust fell on one of these threads, it grew down the inside of the thread to the place on the cob where the thread had its roots, and just there the corn began to grow. The dust from the corn tassel is the pollen, like the yellow dust found on the dandelion. You will notice that each silken thread ends at a kernel. If the varieties should be mixed in the ear, the cause is due to the pollen of another variety falling upon the threads of those particular kernels.

In observing some ears of corn on the table, I noticed that the kernels were not arranged, as usual, in orderly rows on the cob, whereby Lloyd again came to my rescue by stating that it was quite unusual to have such disorderly rows and that if I would take the trouble to count a thousand ears, I would always find an even number of rows, such was nature's love of law and order. That the kernels for a hundred years to come would scarcely fail to be placed in an even number of rows on the cob, just as they were when Columbus discovered corn in the new world.

The end of the summer was at hand, and the corn had almost fin

ished its labor. The only work which was left for it to perform, and which was the most laboriou of all, was to lay up a store of food in the kernels to provide them with sustenance when they in their turn are planted in the ground. This food stored up in the embryo to support it through the period of germination or starting in life, has great value, which must not be lost sight of. And here, parents and children, in fact, all, may learn a valuable lesson from the plants. That is, to provide for the future and for the perpetuation and sustenance of coming generations.

All should be unselfish in this, counting the labor of planting and caring for a tree as trifling compared with the inestimable value to the future of the race.

Everything awaited the harvesting, and all were eager to see the corn husked; but the kernels were not the only value which the farmer was to derive from his labor. The large silo stood ready to receive the coverings of the ears and the tall stalks, very tall now, which were to be cut into food and stored through the winter for black Jim's dinner, for the cows and the sheep.

The following pathetic little letter came to this office some weeks ago, and its answer involved so many things that would be of interest to other young wives and housekeepers, that it was decided to insert it in the Journal and to invite "J. B. L.," and any other perplexed young matrons to write again and often.

It is not only a pity, it is often disastrous that parents will permit their young daughters when ignorant of their first wifely labors, to marry. We would cry out in dismay if a young man wanted to marry our daughter if he had no trade or profession with which to support his wife and family; yet we allow our girls, who are utterly incapable of keeping house, who know little or nothing of cookery and sewing, to marry, knowing well that the years of experiment and experience gaining will be most costly and expensive to the husband. Not only so, but because of her ignorance and of the many and heavy burdens which crowd so swiftly on her shoulders, the young wife is pretty certain to have either her health or her spirits broken by the time she "has learned how."

No wise man will oppose his daughter in getting an education; but if she expects to be a wife and mother in the future, she must begin her education by learning the foundation principles of her lifetrade. An education will make a blacksmith or a carpenter a better workman for the learning acquired; so will the housewife be the better qualified for her work if she be intelligent and well educated. But a father would not send his son to school till he was twenty-three years old, then let him marry and begin

at the same time to learn his trade of carpentering or blacksmithing.

There is a period in every girl's life when she should not be allowed Between the inside a school room. ages of twelve or thirteen to the ages of sixteen to seventeeen, girls should have a free, active life, filled as full as health will permit, with physical labor and exercise. At this period, too, a girl is far better under the direct care of a wise mother (alas, not all mothers are wise), or of some matron who will watch and train the budding womanhood, both mentally and physically. A girl who has failed to receive this care and home training has been robbed of one of the most precious gifts of her inheritance. However, it is always possible to learn how, and to do better.

My Dear Journal:

I have wanted to write you for a three long time, two months and weeks at least, but have been afraid or ashamed to do so.

But I shall

now make a clean breast of my affairs, for I know you can and will help me.

Just a word of apology for myself before I tell my troubles.

I was born and raised in the city. After I was graduated, I went into papa's office as his secretary. I was there every week day except my many holidays, which were always spent away from home. Mamma kept two girls and a laundress, so she never needed my help. At school I met John, and three months ago we were married. Only three months today, yet I am in despair. We live in a little country town. John clerks for fifty dollars a month. We have two rooms and a summer kitchen. Now for my troubles: