CORNFIELD FLOWERS 



THERE are no weeds in a virgin wilderness, and the briar 

 and the thorn are as truly the children of nature as the vine 

 and the fig. Weeds came into being when mankind began 

 to till the earth ; and they are simply the plants which com- 

 pete persistently with the crops on cultivated soil. To the 

 farmer in his strictest moods every plant in a cornfield is a 

 weed except the wheat ; but the weeds of English cornfields 

 include some of the brightest, as well as the most delicate, 

 of our wild flowers. Scarlet is the most brilliant of 

 all colours, and the only scarlet flowers found in this country 

 are both blossoms of the corn. The corn poppy blazing 

 among the swelling ears of corn in July has a shy counter- 

 part close to the ground in the little red pimpernel. But 

 even the pimpernel tends to decline from the true brilliance 

 of scarlet, and to bear flowers of a duller red ; while the 

 small corn poppy, though it is so like the more abundant 

 species that it is little more than a dwarf variety, often 

 bears blossoms which are nearer rose than true scarlet, and 

 recall red window-curtains faded in the sun. 



Poppies and corn marigolds and the hemp-nettles and 

 most other cornfield flowers are attracted by a broken and 



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