frost, but in a day or two it would pick up again as if
nothing had happened. And I have seen beans, 2 feet high, cut down and
doubled up, revive and rear up their heads quite happily, though at
harvest the exact spot in every stalk could be seen where the wound
had taken place.

In May, if the weather is cold and ungenial, wheat turns yellow; this
is the weaning time of the young plants, which have then exhausted the
nourishment contained in the seed, and in the absence of growing
weather they do not take kindly to the food in the land, upon which
they now become dependent.

"The farmer came to his wheat in May,
And right sorrowfully went away,
The farmer came to his wheat in June,
And went away whistling a merry tune."

His wheat was what is called "May-sick" the first time, but had
recovered on the second visit, for another old saw tells us that, "A
dripping June puts all in tune."

May is said "Never to go out without a wheat-ear," but I do not think
this is invariably true, though by splitting open a young wheat stem
it is easy to find the embryo ear, only about half an inch long. I
have heard people exclaiming at the beautiful effect of the breezes
passing over a luxuriant field of growing wheat, giving the appearance
of waves on a lake; but when the wheat is in bloom, it is doubtful if
this is a reason for congratulation, as the blooms are rubbed off in
the process, which may be the cause of thin-chested ears at harvest,
when, instead of being set in full rows of four or five grains
abreast, only two or three can be found, reducing the total number in
an ear from a maximum of about seventy to fifty or less.

"God makes the grass to grow greener while the farmer's at his
dinner," is a proverb which may be applied to almost any enterprise,
for optimism is largely a physical matter, and "it is ill talking with
a hungry man."

I suppose that no man, even with the dullest imagination, can fail to
walk across a wheat field at harvest without being reminded of some of
the innumerable stories and allusions to corn fields in the Bible. He
will remember how, when the famine was sore in the land of Canaan,
Jacob sent his ten sons to Egypt to buy corn, and how Joseph knew his
brethren, but they knew him not; with the touching details of his
emotion, until he could no longer refrain himself, and, weeping, made
himself known. How he bade them return, and bring their aged father,
their little ones,