198 
RURAL HOURS. 
scythe and pitchfork. And yet this odd notion is wholly opposed 
to all the positive laws, the noble order of nature ; they might 
as well expect their raspberry bushes to turn capriciously into 
blackberries, their potatoes into beets, their lettuce into radishes. 
Most of the weeds which infest our wheat-fields come from the 
Old World. This deceitful chess, the corn-cockle, the Canada 
thistle, tares, the voracious red-root, the blue-weed, or bugloss, 
with others of the same kind. There is, however, one brilliant 
but noxious plant found among the corn-fields of Europe which 
is not seen in our own, and that is the gaudy red poppy. Our 
farmers are no doubt very well pleased to dispense with it ; they 
are quite satisfied with the weeds already naturalized. But so 
common is the poppy in the Old World that it is found every- 
w^here in the corn-fields, along the luxuriant shores of the Medi- 
terranean, upon the open, chequered plains of France and Ger- 
many, and among the hedged fields of England. The first wild 
poppies ever seen by the writer were gathered by a party of 
American children about the ruins of Netley Abbey, near South- 
ampton, in England. 
So common is this brilliant weed among the European grain-fields, 
that there is a little insect, an ingenious, industrious little crea- 
ture, who invariably employs it in building her cell. This wild 
bee, called the upholsterer bee, from its habits, leads a solitary 
life, but she takes a vast deal of pains in behalf of her young. 
About the time when the wild poppy begins to blossom, this little 
insect flies into a corn-field, looks out for a dry spot of ground, 
usually near some pathway ; here she bores a hole about three 
inches in depth, the lower portion being wider than the mouth ; 
and quite a toil it must be to so small a creature to make the ex- 
