40 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



the rest — it is almost dark with scarlet I wish I could 

 do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and gold 

 and crimson and green, something more than see it, not 

 exactly to drink it or inhale it, but in some way to make 

 it part of me that I might live it. 



The July grasses must be looked for in corners and 

 out-of-the-way places, and not in the broad acres — the 

 scythe has taken them there. By the wayside on the 

 banks of the lane, near the gateway — look, too, in un- 

 interesting places behind incomplete buildings on the 

 mounds cast up from abandoned foundations where 

 speculation has been and gone. There weeds that would 

 not have found resting-place elsewhere grow unchecked, 

 and uncommon species and unusually large growths 

 appear. Like everything else that is looked for, they are 

 found under unlikely conditions. At the back of ponds, 

 just inside the enclosure of woods, angles of corn-fields, 

 old quarries, that is where to find grasses, or by the sea 

 in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow 

 by the mere road-side ; you may look for others up the 

 lanes in the deep ruts, look too inside the hollow trees 

 by the stream. In a morning you may easily garner 

 together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut the larger 

 stems aslant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green 

 gla.ss. You must consider as you gather them the height 

 and slenderness of the stems, the droop and degree of 

 curve, the shape and colour of the panicle, the dusting of 

 the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind. The sheaf 

 you may take home with you, but the wind that was 

 among it stays without. 



