THE WHEAT-FIELD 207 



Another cow- wheat, the common yellow one, has 

 seeds resembling the cocoons of the wood ant, 

 and it is said that these insects carry them off 

 in mistake for what they look like, and thus 

 plant them at a distance from the parent colony. 



We are getting into bad company when we 

 reach the cow-wheats. They and the rattles and 

 the red bartsia are enemies of the farmer in a 

 double sense. Not only do they rob better plants 

 of standing room and manure, but their roots 

 pierce the roots of the grasses and rob them of the 

 food they had manufactured for themselves. 



Almost as bad as parasites seem the convolvulus 

 and the buck-wheat or black bindweed, for they 

 can only live to mingle their seed with the grain 

 by climbing and hanging on the stalks. In places, 

 every stalk is wound with the spirals of the 

 clinging weed. There is no more cutting them 

 free than there would be cutting free so many 

 victims that an octopus has grasped. They must 

 grow together, not only till the harvest, but till 

 the threshing, and the seeds of the hangers-on are 

 so nearly the same size as those of the host that it 

 is a difficult matter to winnow or sift them out. 



The tare of Scripture is no doubt the darnel 

 grass, a widely distributed species that grows so 

 thickly in Malta that that is probably its head- 

 quarters. It has got all over the world with the 

 wheat, and is universally disliked. ' Among the 

 hurtful weeds,' says Gerarde, ' darnell is the 

 first.' Virgil before him christened it infelix 



