"Is that the new sowing-machine? What are you sowing?"
"Rapeseed."
"Do you find the machine better than the old way of sowing?"
"Yes, it's more even; but it won't do for any but large fields. Small patches are better sown with the hand."
"I must confess, I find something particularly attractive in the act of sowing with the hand: it is significant that the seed should first rest immediately in the hand of man and then fly through the air to sink into the earth. Don't you think so too?"
"Maybe so; but it just comes to my mind that you can't say the sower's rhyme very well with the machine. Well, you must think it."
"What rhyme?"
"Farmers' boys used to be taught to say, whenever they threw out a handful of seed,--
"'I sow the seed:
God give it speed