HAYMAKING BEGINS. 101 



wind-swept crimson heads. Add the mingled scent of 

 the new-mown hay and the still-flowering clover, and 

 you have such a profusion of rustic sense-pleasures before 

 you as satisfies the vacant mind with that monochrome 

 hedonism which, in spite of the ethical philosophers, is, 

 after all, one of the purest charms in our little human 

 life. 



Hay, say the dictionary-makers, is dry grass ; and 

 yet it is curious, when you come to look into it, how 

 small a portion of the sum- total the grass itself really 

 makes up. To be sure, grasses form the tallest and 

 most conspicuous part of the herbage : their tufted 

 heads, now purpled with the downy bloom, overtop all 

 the shorter ingredients, and so of course strike our eyes 

 most forcibly as we gaze across the swaying and surg- 

 ing mass. But in truth they are only that element in 

 the meadow which has been forced upward by the com- 

 petition of the other kinds ; they have tall thin blades 

 adapted to the circumstances ; and they must get their 

 spikes of blossom well above the interfering things at 

 their base, because they are wind-fertilized, so that they 

 want abundant free space for the pollen to be wafted 

 from head to head. If you look closely into our English 

 greensward anywhere, you will see that all the grasses 

 put together hardly make up one half of its component 

 elements. 



See here in the pasture, a large part consists of 

 buttercup stems, uncropped by the cows ; of plantains, 

 with their ribbed leaves almost rivalling the blades of 

 the grasses ; and of little spreading daisies, with their 

 close rosette of foliage pressed hard and tight against 

 the naked ground, so as to prevent the struggling 

 young seedlings of the grass from pushing their way 

 between the overlapping tufts. It is just the same in 



