Country Life
By IAN NIALL
THE scent of freshly cut hay drifted down the slope to where I walked this evening. Flies were congre- gating under the overhanging trees, and I had to brush my way through them. Cutting hay releases a scent as much a part of summer as the perfume of honeysuckle, meadowsweet or old tea-roses. It also disturbs a legion of flies and tiny insects, some of which cluster in the hedge bottom while others settle on the swath that lies bleaching in the sun. As the grass stubble dries, the juices of severed plant stalks congeal and the lesser herbs, expoSed to the sun and deprived of the natural moisture, begin to yellow, wilt and die. To walk the hayfield is to change the colour of one's shoes, for pollen and fine dust adhere to them and lodge in the creases and cracks in the leather. Woe betide the person allergic to the grass harvest, for hay fever comes with less warning than the discoloration of one's shoe- leather! It takes a while before the shorn field recovers and an aftergrowth rises. The rake gleans the field, the baler thumps and clatters away and, walking on the headland that was once well sheltered, one comes across discoloured eggshells that tell of a pheasant's nesting. Whether the brood survived or not one can only guess, for the jungle is no more and the field belongs to the insectivorous small birds, while the grasshoppers still sing. oblivious of danger.
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