We are so fond of abusing our climate that we
have com- pletely hidden—at any rate from the poets—the delicious advantages of an English autumn. Our grain crops bear more heavily than those, say, of Northern Canada solely because they can enjoy so long a period of growth ; and nine times out of ten autumn-sown wheat and autumn or winter-sown oats are freer from disease and bear more heavily than those spring-sown. Indeed, it is only of late years, after lunch scientific labour, that we have developed wheats which will endure to be sown in late spring. Autumn is the wheat's springtime. Even the fall of the leaf is not altogether a process of decay. It is rather a spring-cleaning. The twigs suck back the sap and throw off the old leaves by a very vigorous process and at the same time continue the formation of catkin and flower-bud. Doubtless most animals nurse the poet's theory that autumn is a period of melancholy resignation ; but there are exceptions. Robins and tits are now singing from morning to night ; and certain humble ignorant creatures celebrate their heyday. These last include moles, spiders, midges, and earth-worms !
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