ne'er will find a better friend
Than sparkling water, pure and free,
Most precious boon to you and me.
It cheers the faint, it crowns the feast,
Makes food to grow for man and beast;
In sickness soothes the fevered frame,
There's healing in its very name.
And what can more life-giving be
Than cooling breezes from the sea,
Whose bosom bears upon their way
The stately ships from day to day?
A treasure trove of priceless worth;
A jewelled belt for mother Earth,
Encircling with its silvery bands,
She binds together many lands.
To cure disease dame Nature brings
Her remedy in mineral springs;
Water without, water within,
Equally good for stout or thin;
And more than man can e'er devise
Invigorates and purifies.
Travel the world from end to end,
You ne'er will find a better friend.

CHAPTER XXV.

PHYSIOLOGICAL IRRIGATION.

The scientific irrigation of land is pretty well understood by those
who have financial interest in soil requiring it. The wonderful beauty
and freshness of flower and fruit give evidence of what scientific
irrigation can do. So from a commercial and esthetic point of view the
proper amount of daily moisture for land, tree or vine, is of such
importance that it receives the consideration of those interested. How
many persons, however, in the course of a lifetime have given ten
minutes to serious consideration of the question: _How much water
should be imbibed daily under the varying conditions of the body's
garden?_ Those who give no consideration to the problem of how to
attain and maintain a healthy and vigorous physical basis are persons
who usually drift into habits for which they will, sooner or later,
have to pay the penalty.

For the first twenty or more years the body is, as a rule, unfortunate
in not having an intelligent tenant. For man misuses his physiological
estate, and lets things go to rack and ruin ere he wakes to realize how
it might have been as to length of days and strength of body and mind.
Enlighten him, after he has reached adult years, on the values and
needs of physiological and psychological functions; you will find that
however eager he may be to follow the light he is handicapped by
vicious habits and by confirmed, destructive changes which had seized
on him when he was quite too young and incompetent to care for his
body. What a topsy-turvy world this is, to be sure!