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preferred before the black and Tartarean types, more solid 

 in shape as in colour. Its stem tapers like a Gothic spire, 

 and the grains hang in the pattern of a delicate candelabra; 

 and jangle like the hanging glass. The general tint of 

 the field is paled almost to whiteness, but look at the 

 lower part of the single stems. They might have been 

 dyed by poppies or pimpernels. Each is as pink as the 

 stalks of the sycamore leaf are red ; and the colour 

 tapers as subtly from base to crown as the form of the 

 shaft. 



It is arguable that our harvests grow more lovely as 

 they dwindle in extent. As white oats excel the black in 

 grace, so the red wheat tends to oust the white. It is 

 redder than of old, though always the wheat makes up 

 in colour what it loses in form. If it has almost the stiff 

 ness of metal it has the colour of gold, yea, of fine gold ; 

 and daily as we walk past fields of it we become aware 

 that the scene grows richer and richer with the days. 

 You cannot discover such a scene and not wish to grow 

 wheat, however little its wealth of colour is convertible 

 into golden metal. 



4- 



A strange and ingenious machine is being used this 

 autumn for the first time by an expert of our agricultural 

 station. It is new in itself and has an aim and object that 

 are more or less new to the art of observation. The 

 apparatus is a combination of a butterfly net and a 

 balloon. When towed through the air it is so contrived 

 that it opens and shuts its netted mouth and thus encloses, 

 like a bat s, nightjar s, or swallow s mouth, any moth or 

 other insect that is unfortunate enough to meet its pas 

 sage. . It is a super-butterfly net in the strictest sense of 



