WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 155 
and all these are the merely uscful, and, in that sense, 
the plainest of growths. There are, then, the poppies, 
whose wild brilliance in July days is not surpassed by 
any hue of Spain. Wild charlock—a clear yellow—pink 
pimpernels, pink-streaked convolvulus, great white con- 
volvulus, double-yellow toadflax, blue borage, broad 
rays of blue chicory, tall corn-cockles, azure corn-flowers, 
the great mallow, almost a bush, purple knapweed—I 
will make no further catalogue, but there are pages more 
of flowers, great and small, that grow at the edge of the 
plough, from the coltsfoot that starts out of the clumsy 
clod in spring to the white clematis. Of the broad sur- 
face of the golden wheat and its glory I have already 
spoken, yet these flower-encircled acres, these beautiful 
fields of peaceful wheat, are the battle-fields of life. For 
these fertile acres the Romans built their cities and those 
villas whose mosaics and hypocausts are exposed by the 
plough, and formed straight roads like the radii of a 
wheel or the threads of a geometrical spider’s web. Thus 
like the spider the legions from their centre marched 
direct and quickly conquered. Next the Saxons, next 
the monk-slaying Danes, next the Normans in chain- 
mail—one, two, three heavy blows—came to grasp these 
golden acres. Dearly the Normans loved them; they 
gripped them firmly and registered them in ‘Domesday 
Book. They let nota hide escape them ; they gripped 
also the mills that ground the corn. Do you think such 
blood would have been shed for barren wastes? No, it 
was to possess these harvest-laden fields. The wheat- 
fields are the battle-fields of the world. If not so openly 
invaded as of old time, the struggle between nations is 
still one for the ownership or for the control of corn. 
When Italy became a vineyard and could no more feed 
the armies, slowly power slipped away and the great 
