The one element that causes the farmer most distress in his cultivation of the rice is the uncertainty of the weather. When the rainy season has been one in which abundance of rain has been poured down upon the earth, so that the fountains that lie beneath the wells and close by the ponds are filled to overflowing, then his mind is comparatively at rest. He knows there is a perennial supply that can constantly be drawn upon, when the water begins to ebb away in the fields where the rice is growing. Should the showers that the thunderstorms pour down occasionally from the clouds that gather so quickly in the sky come with any kind of regularity, his mind is still more relieved, and he can think with equanimity of the day that is coming when he will gather his precious crop into his garner. Such an experience, however, as this is not one that falls very often to the lot of the anxious farmer. The rainy seasons are apt to be capricious, and to withhold the rich stores of rain and moisture without which not only his rice, but his beans and his potatoes will be scorched in the field and will wither and perish before his very eyes. It is pitiful to watch the efforts that he has to make to try and preserve his crops from destruction when the year is a dry one. The days go by, and every morning his first looks are towards the hills around which the clouds have gathered during the night. There seems a great promise in the dense masses that have gathered around some lofty peak, and it is hoped that to-day at last, after weary days of expecting, the rain that is to save the crops will come down in abundant showers. The sun by and by rises in a great red orb of scorching heat, and his rays flash as though they had come straight from a furnace, and they touch the clouds that have taken refuge on the hills, and slowly they vanish into thin air and are gone. Another day of heat, and the sun in a cloudless sky draws up the water that is standing at the feet of the rice, and he looks upon the ponds and they dissolve in vapour, and he touches the vines of the sweet potatoes with his breath and they turn pale with anguish, and the tubers within the ridges wither up and die for want of moisture. Days and sometimes weeks of this go by, till one wonders at the vitality of nature that can endure such a fiery ordeal and have anything left to tell the tale.