THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GRAIN OF ADELAIDE WHEAT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 48, 25 February 1874, Page 2

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GRAIN OF ADELAIDE WHEAT.

[' Lyttelton Times,' February 6 ] Yes, here I am, stowed away in the dark hold of a ship; flattened almost into a pancake, and doing my beet to burst through the bag tbat holds me; the trials I have gone through and still bave to go through, are so appalling that the wonder is that I exist at all. I have been threatened with blight, and rust, and tfikeall, and rain, and wind, and heat; caterpillars have nibbled at me, and locusts bave eaten my broad green leaves, and slugs have crawled about my tender roots, and even now the rats and the weevil may gobble me up before I reach the sboreß of old England. I have, however, amidst all my troubles, the consolation of knowing that I have been an object of the deepest solicitude to many, and that my health from babyhood upwards has been tenderly watched over by all the country. Parsons of all creeds have prayed for my well being, and men of all trades enquired anxiously after me, even great foreign merchants, wbo have never seen the country in which I was reared, bave spent many hundreds of pounds in enquiring about my health by telegram, and newspaper editors, who are said" to care for nothing but advertisements, have sent .round nica young men with note books, and oh,

such lovely gaitars, to see for themselves whether I was likely to develop into a plump hardy, maturity or not [ I am deeply grateful for all tbis consideration, and am glad to know tbat I nm destined to feed such a uoble and unselfish race, who take •so much trouble, and put themselves to so much trouble and inconvenience to watch over and report on my progress in life. The dear spot of mother earth into whose soft lap I was cast by the farmer lies many milts to the northward, and tince was not long ago whsn everybody who was supposed to know anything said to ask her to grow grain in such a wild and windy country was sheer folly. But one aud another tried it, and it answered, and then the spot where I was reared was taken possession of by a sturdy farmer, who, having exhausted the land upon which he had been living heretofore, thought it wise to try his fortune further afield. He was supposed to pay 20s an acre for the land, but the Government gave him a long time to do so, and he thought he might perhaps be able to exhaust that land too befoie he was called upon to pay much for it, so that the speculation wasn't a very dangerous one as far as he was concerned. The country was a series of low hills, with little valleys between, thick with bußhes of mallee about fifteen feet high, and this was all the timber to be* had except now and then a wild looking she-oak. At dawn and at sunset the magpies whistled about the branches, and the melancholy frogs boomed forth the news to one another in the muddy waterholes, but all through the day there was a deep silence over wood and wold, and a burning sun that made the vapours dance across the fields, and shone down piteou6ly upon the world as though it wanted to burn it upatonce. Oh, that South Australian sun is so cruel and fierce, as none but dainty plants and' brown- faced men can tell! I have seen his great yellow face come peeping over the hills in the morning hot and flushed from his night's debauch, angrily scorching up the tiny pearls of dew that hung about my tender leaves, and mounting higher and higher in his cruel pride, and rolling his golden orb through the cloudless blue of heaven with ever increasing fierceness to both man and beast. Still as a slave before its lord I slunk low in weakness before his fearful gaze. My master's house was not a very cheerful kind of place ; it was simply a hole dug out of the ground and roofed over with earth. Someof his neighbors bad houses built of slabs, but everything was very primitive indeed, for nobody had any money to spare, and the only luxury they ever allowed themselves was the occasional 'luxury of getting drunk,' which wasn't very costly, and had the advantage of enabling them to forget their troubles for a time, of which ( they had plenty. At the back of the house was a hole dug to hold such water as could be stored, and this hole was covered with brushwood to prevent evaporation, and in front of the house were the old candle boxes, out of which the horses fed, a rude pig-sty, an. old dray, and generally a calf tethered to a post, no garden, no stable, everything of the miserablest and meanest. All through the spring I throve and grew rank and green; gentle showers fed my thirsty roots, and pleasant breezes fanned my tender leaves; the farmer walked about the fields and thought of the wonderful crop ho was to get, ond dreamt of making his fortune. By-and-by, the soft ears of grain burst through their dainty sheath, and hardened , and throve in the sunshine. Tho farmer rubbed his hands and got drunk on the strength of his expectations; but alas for mundane hopes, one morning there came a gentle puff of warm wind from the north, then the dust began to fly along the well-trodden tracks, and a haze as of smoke gathered about the horizon, and puff after puff the wind came warmer and fiercer, and made the long stalks of grain shake for fear; and all song of bird and chirp of .insect ceased, for they knew that the north wind, in its fury, was coming down from far inland deserts, where long lone plains of barren stone and stunted herbage lay shrivelled and unseen by the eye of man from yeor to year. Everything in nature seemed to shrink and tremble as the wild hot winds went sweeping by, parching up all tender plants, and blades of, grass, and soft green shoots of trees as though the breath of hell were being blown across the world, and the fiend in his fury flying on the wings of the wind were blighting aud blasting Great Nature's patient handiwork with that wanton malignity which characterises his deeds. Behind the wind came the fire. Perhaps a careless traveller dropped a spark from his pipe as he rode across the open grass country, perhaps a broken bottle caught the sun's rays and turned them into flame, perhaps the forked lightning, which darts its fiery stings toward the earth whenever the hot winds blow, was the source of the mischief, who oan tell? But the red flame leaped from tree to tree in the dark bush amongst the hills, and set its ruby crown .upon the heads of the, tallest pines, and lingered about in sheltered gullies and destroyed every green thing, and, aided by the cruel wind, threw itself across the beds of streams, and caught and gathered force, and sped away triumphantly along far miles of yellow grass, and wound in many tortuous curves about the dry log fences, and writhed across dusty tracks and made with mad cruel, haste for farms, and fields growing ripe for harvest, andappalling men's minds with almost

hopeless fear, till tbe black clouds tbat canopied. the burning plains poured forth their treaeures of rain,and Heaven's mercy, pitiful of man's impotence, chocked the fierce fire fiend and made him loose his hold upon the earth; but not till after many days did he desert the upland forests, whence he scowled out upon us with his cruel flaming eyes as the darkness fell and the hum of labor ceased. Thanks to genial rains, cool nights, and calm days, my shrivelled grain aod bruised stem gathered strength and grew; but the promise of my youth was not fulfilled in my prime, and the farmer cast many a rueful look upon his fields, and shook his head when his wife wanted a little money for shopping; and seemed to make out things to be a good deal worse than they really -were, which is, I am told, a characteristic of bis class all the world over. Perhaps this is why nature torments him so, upon the same principle as boys tease monkeys, because they bear it so ill. However, after all my troubles, I grew plump and ripe at last, and tbe treasures of the earth grew golden, and the year's labor was crowned with the year's reward, and the busy harvest season came. From day day throughout all the country side, the hum of the reaper was heard going its never-ceasing round, and I knew that my fate would be sealed ere long, nnd so bowed my head in meek submission, Nor had I long to wait; great, sharp, iron-teeth impaled me and held me tight fill a swift set of beaters, revolving in an iron box, came round and tore the grain from the straw, and sent it flying up into a big wooden box, where it fell amongst millions of its fellows, some stripped entirely of the chaff, some still clothed in it, and a few noble heads that would not part with their golden treasures even after such treatment as this, but foolishly held out till they had to be beaten with a stick wielded by the sturdy arm ofthe fafUfer after the wheat was winnowed. So, Btnothered amidst the grain aod chaff, I travelled on to the corner of the field, when a door was opened at the back of 'the box and a large rake inserted to drag us out i upon a heap that had gradually accumulated upon the ground, where we lay for days exposed to all weathers. Such is the carelessness of the farmer. At length we were winnowed and bagged. The great art in winnowing seemed to be to leave as much small grain and drake in the sample as possible, only removing the chaff. Thig didn't please the merchant at all, but the farmer said if one would not buy another would, and he knew that the storekeeper to wbora he owed a heavy bill, and who bought for some of tbe town millers, would wink at a little dirt and rubbish, in order to get his aeconnt settled. This isn't as it ought to be, but precisely as it is. I was sold to a wheat merchant in the country, who, when he had got togother a good sized parcel, telegraphed to a broker in Adelaide to know what he could get for it, and the broker replieJ, offering a price which satisfied my owner, who had to pay tho broker a half-penny a bushel for his trouble. Then I was pur into a railway truck and taken to Port Adelaide, and put on board this vessel bound for England. For the sake of the poor . people there, who

seem fnll of wants and miseries unknown to my native land, I hope to arrive safely, and, ih the end; fulfil the benevolent designs; of (he All-wise Father, who loves to' give- his children biead, and makes the bounty of one land contribute to alleviate the poverty of I the other.