2 4 o IN HIGH SUFFOLK 



to the time at which it must be cut. Hay must fall 

 when the grasses are in flower. Walk into a hay-field, 

 in the second week in June, and you will see the pollen 

 dropping from the fescue and timothy, and the yellow 

 from the buttercups lodges on your boots. Then the 

 beauty of a good meadow can be seen and understood. 

 The trefoil and yellow suckling are ankle deep, and a 

 little above rises the perennial red clover the white 

 being not yet in full bloom. The true grasses reach 

 to the knee, the growth becoming less dense as it rises 

 higher, and the crowning glory of beauty is the wide, 

 ox-eyed daisies more dear, however, to the artist than 

 the farmer. Dotted among the grasses are carmine 

 meadow vetchling, and a dozen other small leguminoste, 

 golden weasel-snout, buttercups, and wild blue gera- 

 nium. In a picture of Albrecht Diirer's, which we once 

 saw, the artist had evidently painted the section of a 

 hayfield. One seemed to be lying on the cut grass, 

 and looking at the wall left after the last sweep of the 

 scythe. Every flower, every stalk of grass was painted, 

 the white daisies filling the top of the canvas. Not 

 only sight but scent is needed to judge the maturity of 

 the crop. In a walk through the " mowing grass," to 

 determine the condition of the blossom, the fragrance 

 of the odours from the almost invisible flowers of the 

 grasses, and of the tiny clovers, crowfoot, and trefoil, 

 that " blush unseen " in the thick growth at the 

 bottom, is almost stupefying, and is certain, in some 

 cases, to bring on a violent attack of hay-fever at night. 

 If the flower is out, then the hay must be cut, no 



