If verdant elder spreads

Her silver flowers; if humble daisies yield
To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass,
Gay shearing-time approaches.

Before shearing, the sheep undergo the operation of washing, in order to free the wool from the foulness it has contracted.

Upon the brim

Of a clear river, gently drive the flock,

And plunge them one by one into the flood:
Plung'd in the flood, not long the struggler sinks,
With his white flakes, that glisten thro' the tide ;
The sturdy rustic, in the middle wave,
Awaits to seize him rising; one arm bears

His lifted head above the limpid stream,

While the full clammy fleece the other laves
Around, laborious, with repeated toil;

And then resigns him to the sunny bank,

Where, bleating loud, he shakes his dripping locks.

DYER.

The shearing itself is conducted with a degree of ceremony and rural dignity, and is a kind of festival, as well as a piece of labour

At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd.
Head above head: and, rang'd in lusty rows
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears:
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores.
With all her gay drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron'd,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king.

rays

A simple scene! yet hence BRITANNIA sees
Her solid grandeur rise: hence she commands
Th' exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the sun without his rage.

THOMSON.

A profusion of fragrance now arises from the fields of clover in flower. Of this plant their are the varieties of white and purple. The latter is sometimes called honeysuckle, from the quantity of sweet juice contained in the tube of the flower, whence the bees extract much of their honey.

A still more delicious odour proceeds from the beans in blossom; of which THOMSON speaks in this rapturous language—

Long let us walk

Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossom'd beans. Arabia cannot boast

A fuller gale of joy, than, liberal, thence

Breathes thro' the sense, and takes the ravish'd soul.

Beans and peas belong to a large natural family of plants, called the papilionaceous, or butterfly shaped-blossomed, and the leguminous, from the pods they bear. Almost all these in our climate afford wholesome food for man or beast. Of some, the seeds alone are used, as of pea and bean; of some, the entire pod, as of French or kidney-bean; and of some, the whole plant, as of clover, lucern, and vetch.

In the hedges, the place of the hawthorn is supplied by the flowers of the hip, or dog-rose, the

D

different hues of which, from a light blush to a deep crimson, form a most elegant variety of colour. Some time after, the woodbine or honey-suckle begins to blow; and this, united with the rose, gives our hedges their highest beauty and fragrance.

The several kinds of corn come into ear and flower during this month; as do likewise numerous species of grass, which, indeed, are all so many lesser kinds of corn; or, rather, corn is only a larger sort of grass. It is peculiar to all this tribe of plants, tó have long slender leaves, a jointed stalk, and a flowering head, either in the form of a close spike, like wheat, or a loose bunch, like oats. This head consists of numerous husky flowers, each of which bears a single seed.

In the large kinds, which are usually termed corn, these seeds are big enough to be worth separating; and they form the chief article of food of almost all the civilized nations of the world. In Europe, the principal kinds of corn are wheat, rye, barley, and

oats.

In Asia, rice is most cultivated: in Africa, and the West Indies, maize or Indian corn.

The smaller kinds, called grasses, are most valuable for their leaves and stalks, or herbage, which makes the principal food for all domestic cattle. This, cut down and dried, makes hay, the Winter provision of cattle in all the temperate and northern climates. Grass is most fit to cut after it is in ear,

but before its seeds are ripened. If it be suffered to grow too long, it will loose all its nutritrious juices, and become like the straw of corn. The latter part of June is the beginning of hay-harvest for the southern and middle parts of the kingdom. This is one of the busiest and most agreeable of rural occupations. Both sexes and all ages are engaged in it. The fragrance of the new-mown hay, the gaiety of all-surrounding objects, and the genial warmth of the weather, all conspire to render it a season of pleasure and delight to the beholder. It is at this season that we can peculiarly feel the beauty of these charming lines of MILTON

As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a Summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight,
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound.

On the twenty-first of June happens the Summersolstice, or longest day. At this time, in the most northern parts of the island, there is scarcely any night, the twilight continuing almost from the setting to the rising of the sun; so that it is light enough at midnight to see to read. This season is also properly called Midsummer, though, indeed, the greatest heats are not yet arrived; and there is more warm weather after it than before.

The principal season for taking that delicate fish, the mackerel, is in this month.

Currants and gooseberries begin to ripen about the end of June, and prove extremely refreshing as the parching heats advance.

Though the other senses are so much gratified in this month, the ear looses most of its entertainment, as the birds, now the season of courtship and rearing their young is past, no longer exercise their musical powers.

The groves, the fields, the meadows, now no more

With melody resound. 'Tis silence all,

As if the lovely songsters, overwhelm'd

By bounteous Nature's plenty, lay intranc'd
In drowsy lethargy.

After the end of June, an attentive observer heard no birds except the stone curlew (thick-kneed plover of Pennant) whistling late at night; the yellowhammer, goldfinch, and golden-crested-wren, now and then chirping. The cuckow's note ceases about this time.