ATTAR OF HAY HARVEST 



the meadow lands, imparts a kind of healing shock 

 to a tired mind and body. This is one of the great 

 restoratives of Nature, so simple and yet so magically 

 quick in effect. 



This attar of the meadow hay is precious for 

 other reasons than that of perfumery. It is given 

 out by the essence of nutriment directly to the 

 beasts, and indirectly to men, which we call cou- 

 marin. Coumarin is to hay what aroma is to wine. 

 Without it the crop would be wanting in flavour, 

 and so in value. It is the same benign essence, the 

 same aromatic odour, though here unused to-day, 

 which we notice in a dried bunch of the little whorled 

 flower, the woodruff. The plant which gives this 

 finishing touch to the hay crop is the sweet-scented 

 vernal grass. A week ago, in gilt-green meadows, 

 vernal grass might be seen anywhere, and yet it was 

 easy to overlook among a dozen other flowering, 

 seeding grasses. For several weeks, before the 

 machine and scythe were at work, the field was con- 

 stantly changing in colour, shade, and a million 

 minutiae. Indeed, when it gathered weight, and was 

 nearly ripe, its complexion changed from hour to 

 hour often, on a day of sun and cloud, from minute 

 to minute. It answered to the sky almost with the 

 sympathy of the sea, when its swelling tide of grass 

 was high. 



These changes we noted at a distance. But a 

 study of the minutiae, if only life and June were a 

 little longer and less crowded, would reward one 

 still more. No time, as it is, for any study in detail 



