JUNE. 145 



collected and disposed tastefully, as I have seen 

 them by ladies, in vases, polished horns, and 

 over pier-glasses, they retain their freshness 

 through the year, and form, with their elegantly 

 pensile panicles, bearded spikes, and silken 

 plumes, exceedingly graceful ornaments. 



Hay-harvest has commenced, and, in some 

 southern counties, if the weather be favourable, 

 is completed ; but next month may be consider- 

 ed as the general season of hay-making. 



Summer Floods. Floods in the summer 

 months are not unfrequent; and when they 

 spread into the mowing-grass do immense da- 

 mage, filling it with sand, and covering it with 

 an adhesive slime that no future showers will 

 wash off. Sometimes they come in the midst 

 of hay-harvest, and then may be seen haycocks 

 standing in the midst of the water, or floating 

 down the flooded valleys in vast quantities — 

 here people intercepting it with boats, or 

 pulling it out with rakes and hooks ; there 

 plucking it away from the arches of bridges, 

 which it would soon choke and cause to blow 

 up. After the subsiding of the waters, hedges 

 and copses may be seen loaded with it, a me- 

 lancholy monument of incalculable damage. 

 Yet rivers never look so well as when they are 

 swelled bankfull in summer. They have a 

 noble and abundant aspect, and rush on their 



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