The ancient poets mingled the ears of wheat and the poppy in their verses:
| “The meanest cottager |
| His poppy grows among the corn,” |
says Cowley, in his translation of Virgil; and in our own day Mr. Hood, in his pleasing picture of Ruth, introduces both plants, when describing her beautiful color:
| “ | And on her cheek an autumn flush. |
| Like poppies grown with corn.” |
In short, so well established is this association of the poppy and wheat, by the long course of observation from time immemorial to the present season, that the very modistes of Paris, when they wish to trim a straw bonnet with field plants, are careful to mingle the poppy with heads of wheat in their artificial flowers. Fickle Fashion herself is content to leave these plants, year after year, entwined together in her wreaths.
But in spite of this general prevalence of the poppy throughout the grain-fields of the Old World, and its acknowledged claim to a place beside the wheat, it is quite unknown here as a weed. With us this ancient association is broken up. Never having seen it ourselves, we have frequently asked farmers from different parts of the country if they had ever found it among their wheat, and thus far the answer has always been the same; they had never seen the flower out of gardens. Among our cottage gardens it is very common. It is, however, naturalized about Westchester, in Pennsylvania, and may possibly be found in some other isolated spots; but in all this range of wheat-growing country, among the great
