The Poppy ,Seed What a mysterious seed is the poppy's!
In one wheatfield where poppies had been virtually unknown, the plains grew up in such density that the corn had to be ploughed in and a spring crop sown. This Was in Berkshire. In another part some years ago a grass field was grazed to the very bone owing to want of feed ; and this baring of the grass was followed by germination of poppy seed in as thick a mass as ever is seen in any cornfield in poppyland. Again, some years ago I saw an old well cleared out and presently the circle of mud round the hole became braze of scarlet poppies. The seed is, of course, one. of the long-bird seeds, but besides this it seems on occasion to lie low waiting for the optimum of conditions for germination. The thistle is another mysterious seed. In my garden one compost heap has become a solid mass of thistles. all of them rooted in the subsoil a yard underneath the vegetable refuse During the last war the parapets of some trenches on the chalky so!' were rimmed with flowers, among which poppy, charlock and milfoil or yarrow predominated. It may be that chalk is an especially effectw- preservative of seed.
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