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, and their flocks and herds, to dwell in the land of Goshen.

His mind, too, will revert to the commandment given to Moses, “When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest”; so that he will meet the villagers with a word of welcome, when they invade his fields for the same time-honoured purpose.

He will remember the story of Ruth and Boaz, told in the exquisite poetry of the Bible diction, than which nothing in the whole range of literature can compare in noble simplicity.  And the corn fields of the New Testament, where the disciples plucked the ears of corn, and were encouraged, and the accusing Pharisees rebuked; with the conclusive declaration that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.  And, finally, the familiar chapter in the burial service, which has brought comfort to thousands of mourners, and will so continue till the last harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels will be the reapers.

The word “gleaning” is never heard in Worcestershire for collecting the scattered wheat stems and ears; it is invariably “leasing” from the Old English, lesan, to gather or collect anything.  When wheat was fairly high in price the village women and children were in the field as soon as it was cleared of sheaves, and they made a pretty picture scattered about the golden stubble, and returning through the meadows and lanes at twilight with their ample gatherings.