HAYAr'Ak'jyG BEGINS. 103 



below, one can sec the same thing more strikingly dis- 

 played : for there the crop is crimson clover, a wide ex- 

 l)anse of such colour as we rarely find on English 

 meadows ; and it has been cut into squarely for fresh 

 fodder, so that a great rectangular patch of green runs 

 abruptly into the serried ranks of wind-swept crimson 

 heads. Add the mingled scent of the new-mown hay 

 and the still-flowering clover, and you have such a pro- 

 fusion of rustic sense-pleasures before you as satisfies 

 the vacant mind with that monochronic 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 

 >et 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-fertilised, 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 



