JOY IN HARVEST 253 



and the divided farms and fields become a great plain. On 

 the uplands, as over some of the spacious Berkshire downs, 

 the coming of harvest time is a growth of colour only, an 

 emergence as in the daffodil's flower from green into gold. 

 But everywhere in field, on plain and over down, the ripen- 

 ing of harvest puts an end to all sign of progress in the 

 seasons. Nature takes a rest, watching for a while the 

 prospect from the hill she has climbed before she goes 

 down by another, a more precipitous route, to a second 

 spring. 



Every additional day of age adds to the risk that the 

 corn crop runs. It can stand sharp and prolonged frost, 

 though it may suffer if at all 'winter-proud.' It will endure 

 even to be grazed by a flock of sheep. Wet and drought 

 have no very apparent influence on the crop at the early 

 stage. Scratching larks may make as untidy a mess of 

 some patches as hens of a henyard, but the plant suffers 

 curiously little ; and even when starlings descend in their 

 myriads and nip off a certain number of shoots, the plant 

 will continue to tiller and send up a sheaf of stems from one 

 root. But when the straw is long and the ear heavy, the 

 wheat becomes tender and vulnerable. A July thunderstorm 

 will have as much effect on it as the wind on a smooth sea, 

 and leave it frozen into great scoops and waves. A much 

 ' laid ' field will resemble a contour map with its ridges and 

 table-lands and sloping valleys ; and you will be able to trace 

 the passage of the storm even on the stubble after the crop 

 is cut and carried. It is now doubly liable to attacks of both 

 weather and animals. Even so unlikely an animal as a 

 vixen with her litter will make a mess of it. The sparrows 

 can conveniently perch on it, and it is only to the harvester 

 that such a laid crop is difficult to manage. Even if he can 

 drive his machine through it, and the weight of the laid and 



