The young leaves or tops, when chopped up, are good for poultry, especially for turkeys. So nettles are useful, you see--not merely stinging weeds. The Nettle, too, is a relation of the hemp plant from which we get our string and ropes.

You may sometimes see or hear of the White, Red, and Yellow Dead Nettle, but these are not really nettles at all. Their leaves are somewhat similar, but they are quite different plants.

Traveller's Joy

Hanging over this great patch of nettles by the hedge there is another weed, the Traveller's Joy, or Old Man's Beard. Its stem has climbed not only up the hedge, but high into a hawthorn bush which stands there. It has many small white feathery flowers with a pleasant scent. On each leaf stem there are usually five leaflets, one at the end of the stem and two pairs lower down. These leaf stems are long and tough, and it is chiefly by them that the plant can climb as it does; they twine round any branch or twig they touch, and give the Traveller's Joy a firm support. I have seen trees in woods covered with this plant to a height of twenty feet from the ground.

In the autumn and early winter you would admire the Traveller's Joy as much as you do now. The flowers will certainly be gone, but each seed which takes the place of a blossom will have a little plume of silky white threads attached to it--a sort of feathery tail. These serve as wings by which the seeds are often carried long distances by the wind. The seeds of some other plants which we shall see have something of the same kind.

There is another climbing plant in the hedge, the Large Bindweed or Convolvulus. To look at it, however, we will go round into the garden where there is more of it than Mrs. Hammond cares to see. It is certainly a beautiful plant, with its large three-sided pointed leaves, and its great pure white bell-shaped flowers--something like the mouth of a trumpet.

Large Bindweed

In the farmhouse garden, however, it is certainly a weed--a plant in the wrong place. We see that at once. Close to the hedge are some gooseberry and currant bushes, and into these the Bindweed has climbed. The Bindweed's stems are twined round the stems and branches of the bushes till they are almost hidden by it, and are bent down by the weight.

The Bindweed climbs, as we see, by twisting its stem round the tree to which it clings; but though it is a climbing plant its stems can grow for a foot or more from the ground without support. Some of the shoots of the Bindweed are two or three feet away from the stems of the fruit bushes, but they have grown unsupported till they could reach an overhanging bough and cling to that.

Every now and then, Dan, who looks after the garden when he has time, cuts oft all the Bindweed close to the ground, and pulls some of it up by the roots; but fresh shoots soon appear again. It is of little use to dig up the ground near the bushes, for the Bindweed is twisted all among their roots.

You think the Bindweed and the Traveller's Joy beautiful flowers, and so they are. At the same time these plants are far more troublesome and dangerous weeds than the Stinging Nettle. Nearly all plants that cling to other plants do harm; they prevent the stems and boughs to which they cling from swelling freely. See how tightly the Bindweed stems are twisted round the boughs of this currant bush. Ivy, Bindweed, and other clinging plants often kill or seriously injure valuable trees in this way.

CHAPTER V

CLOVER

I said all I could to make you admire the Nettle, and to see what a handsome and even useful plant it is. I am afraid, however, that you do not care much for it; I do not see that any of you have gathered a handful to take home. When we go in to dinner presently, if Mrs. Hammond were to say, "Will you have green peas or nettle-tops?" I believe you would all say, "Peas, if you please!" So we had better look for a flower that you may like better. We will go to Ashmead, where the cows are grazing, and will find some Clover.

Mr. Hammond grows Clover in some of his fields every year. Those of you who have been at Willow Farm before, and have walked about the farmer's fields, know this, for we saw the bailiff sowing Clover broadcast. Besides the fields of Clover, however, there is always plenty of it growing among the meadow grass. We find some directly we go through the gate into Ashmead. It is a plant with a bright purplish-red blossom. Let us sit down and examine it carefully.

The blossom is a little knob, or ball of colour, almost round. It is made up of a great many little purple stalks, standing upright and very close together. Pull a few of these stalks from the blossom and put their lower ends between your lips. They are quite sweet like sugar. Nearly all flowers contain honey, or rather nectar of which the bees make honey. Some flowers have much nectar, some less, and some have none at all; the Clover contains a great deal.

Now look at the leaves; each has three leaflets. If you can find a leaf with four of these leaflets, the country children will think you very fortunate, for a four-leaved Clover is said to bring good luck, just as a four-leaved Shamrock does in Ireland. A four-leaved Clover is, however, rather rare; I hope you may find one, but I am rather afraid you will not.

Here is another Clover, not quite so handsome as the Red Clover at which we have just been looking; the flowers are white, and are rather smaller. This is White or Dutch Clover. It is a perennial plant, and one which spreads over a great deal of ground if it is allowed to do so. We saw, you remember, that the ivy-leaved Toadflax on the wall by the foldyard steps sent out fresh roots from its stems as it grew. The White Clover does the same. The stems creep along the ground, send out fresh roots, and in this way the plant spreads quickly.

Keeping a few stems of both these clovers in our hands we will go a little further up the lane. There, in a field, we shall see something that even country people cannot see every day. The Clover which farmers usually sow is either the Red Clover or the White, or else another kind called Alsike. This year Mr. Hammond has sown a field with a fourth kind--Crimson Clover.

Did you ever see a more beautiful sight? The whole field is a blaze of rich crimson colour. I shall never forget the day I first saw a field of Crimson Clover. I was so delighted that I asked the farmer--not Mr. Hammond, but another friend--if he would have a field of it for me to admire every year! He said he would tell me by and by. At the end of the year he said he did not find it such a useful food for his animals as the Red and White Clovers, and he should not sow it again--at least not very soon. You see pretty things are not always the most useful.

Let us see what differences we can find between the three clovers we have gathered. We look first at the blossoms. That of the Red Clover is, as we have said, like a little round ball, or knob. The flower of the White Clover is of much the same shape, but is less fine. The flower of the Crimson Clover is altogether different in shape. It has indeed many small crimson stems, but these do not form a round ball. They are arranged in the form of a little circular cone or pyramid which