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Gr»ii Is Nature’s Constant Benediction
Lying in tlie sunshine among the buttercups and the dandelions of May, scarcely higher in intelligence than the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earlier reool lections afce of grass; end when the fitful ferer is ended, sad the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is dosed, grass heals over the scar wihich our descent into the bosom of the earth has made, and the carpet of the infant becomes the blanket of the dead. Grass is the forgiveness of nature ... her constant benediction. Fields, tramped with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green 'hgain with grass and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grassgrown like rural lanes and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass draws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and emerges upon the first solicitation of the spring. Sown by the winds, by the wandering birds, propaigated by the subtle agriculture of the elements which are its ministers and servants, it) softens the rude outline of the world. It boars no blaaonry of bloom to charm and to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet, should its harvest fail for a single year, famine would depopulate the world. —John J. Ingalls (1833-1900)
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