40 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
the rest—it is almost dark with scarlet. I wish I could 
do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and gold 
and crimson and green, something more than see it, not 
exactly to drink it or inhale it, but in some way to make 
it part of me that I might live it. 
The July grasses must be looked for in corners and 
out-of-the-way places, and not in the broad acres—the 
scythe has taken them there. By the wayside on the 
banks of the lane, near the gateway—look, too, in un- 
interesting places behind incomplete buildings on the 
‘mounds ,cast up from abandoned foundations where 
speculation hasbeen and gone. There weeds that would 
not have found resting-place elsewhere grow unchecked, 
and uncommon species and unusually large growths 
appear. Like everything else that is looked for, they are 
found under unlikely conditions. At the back of ponds, 
just inside the enclosure of woods, angles of corn-fields, 
old quarries, that is where to find grasses, or by the sea_ 
in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow 
by the mere road-side ; you may look for others up the 
lanes in the deep ruts, look too inside the hollow trees 
by the stream. In a morning you may easily garner 
together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut the larger 
stems aslant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green 
glass. You must consider as you gather them the height 
and slenderness of the stems, the droop and degree of 
curve, the shape and colour of the panicle, the dusting of 
the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind. The sheaf 
you may take home with you, but the wind that was 
among it stays without. 
