NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



an old-fashioned country church. Always in groups, 

 here a group of females, there a few yards away a 

 group of males. The females may be known by their 

 more slender and graceful appearance and, as the 

 season advances, by their outstripping the males 

 in growth. Indeed, they become real amazons in 

 comparison with their brothers. The staminate, or 

 male, plants grow but a few inches high; the heads 

 are round and have a more dusky or freckled ap- 

 pearance than do the pistillate; and as soon as they 

 have shed their pollen their work is done, they are of 

 no further use, and, by the middle of May or before, 

 their heads droop, their stalks wither, and their gen- 

 eral collapse sets in. Then the other sex, or pistillate 

 plants, seem to have taken a new lease of life; they 

 wax strong, they shoot up with the growing grass 

 and keep their heads above it; they are alert and 

 active, they bend in the breeze, their long, tapering 

 flower-heads take on a tinge of color, and life seems 

 full of purpose and enjoyment with them. I have 

 discovered, too, that they are real sun- worshipers; 

 that they turn their faces to the east in the morning 

 and follow the sun in his course across the sky till 

 they all bend to the west at his going down. On the 

 other hand, their brothers have stood stiff and 

 stupid and unresponsive to any influence of sky 

 or air so far as I could see, till they drooped and 

 died. 



Another curious thing is that the females seem 

 211 



