INTRODUCTION 



If it adds to the summer pleasure even of a few, it 

 will have served its purpose. 



In early July the fields that border the roads are a 

 joy and a delight. The grass is just ready for the 

 harvest, the fields of wheat ripple and wave and yield 

 to the passing breeze, and color other than green is 

 seen in the distance. 



When a delicate mist of white with a pinkish cast 

 hangs over a meadow, it means that the Fleabane, a 

 blossom that looks like an attenuated White Aster, 

 has taken possession. If the white is more opaque, 

 it indicates the presence of the Ox-Eye Daisy, a plant 

 loved by artists but not by farmers. A yellow field 

 may be one of two: a field of Early Mustard or, as 

 is more likely, a field of Buttercups, beautiful to look 

 at, but whose presence convicts the farmer. There 

 are many fields of Red Clover, sweet with the music 

 of bees; more rarely in certain elect places one finds 

 fields of Alsike Clover, pink and white; everywhere 

 along the way the White Clover is in bloom and now 

 the Yellow Clover, having the yellow of the Mustard, 

 and the poise of the Clover, runs along the sterile 

 places and climbs the sandy slopes of the roadside. 



The Docks having established themselves by sheer 

 strength are sending up their flowering spikes, green 

 at first, but soon to be golden brown, the outward 

 and visible sign of an inward vitality rare to see and 

 difficult to overcome. The wild Lettuce, the Mullein, 

 the Chicory, with many others, having left their 

 rosettes behind them, are stretching up and looking 

 out over the world to see what there is to conquer. 



The Burdocks are fighting for the footpath, the 

 tall, gaunt, awkward stems of the Teasel bearing their 



