Holidays in the Harvest Fields There could be no more
cheery holiday trip than a walk among English harvest fields this August. Do wealth and beauty so coalesce anywhere else? During an evening stroll I happened to see all the three grain crops and earlier had passed the fourth, and rarest, a really magnificent crop of rye growing on a famous common which the Agricultural Com- mittee had ploughed up for potatoes. The first field was of oats already in shock, as the English say, or in stook, as North Britain prefers ; but the Scottish farmer in question used a word new to me, "cole," pro- nounced "cool." Every shock had its long axis running East and West. His experience had proved that the grain dried more quickly and perhaps more evenly if it thus was warmed by the sun on each side. Some gardeners so orientate their rows of peas for a like reason. A path scarcely a foot wide through the midst of a wheat field revealed a real field of a cloth of gold ; and the ears were scarcely below eye level of a tall observer. A field of barley that succeeded looked almost paltry beside the wheat, which is probably the crop of crops, but that too was above the average, though it will need continuous sun to pass the brewer's test. He is the one buyer who has an apparatus for taking sections of the grain before venturing on a purchase A week or two of sun would mint gold.
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