The farmer ants do not live in a small hill that you could cover with your hand. Their hill, or disk, is sometimes flat, and sometimes high. It is often as large as a large room. It is in the shape of a circle. [Illustration: An Ant’s Grain Field.] In this circle all weeds and all kinds of grasses are cut down, except the one kind which the ants like. The earth of the disk is kept clean and smooth. Only the seeds of the ant-rice are left to grow. When the ant-rice is ripe, the ants pick up the seeds as they fall, and take them into the hill to their storerooms. It is most likely that as the ants let this ant-rice, and nothing else, grow on their hills, it sows itself by its fallen seed. Still the ants are real farmers, as they keep their land clean, tend and gather the crop, store it up, and eat it. When the ant-rice is ripe, and the seeds have fallen, the ants cut down the old stems, and take them away. The disk is then clean for the next crop. The ants will go a long way from their hill to find seeds to bring home. They like to go where horses have fed, for there they find scattered oats. In some lands they carry off much grain from the fields. An ant in Florida climbs the stalk of the millet and cuts off the seeds. When ants take seeds to their hill, they husk and clean them. They throw bad seeds away. The ants watch the seeds, and after rains carry them out to dry in the sun. This is because if left wet, they would sprout and grow. Some ants also cut the seed, so that it will not sprout. The ants eat the seeds that they gather. They also feed their young with them. One ant in Florida rolls up into little balls the dust, or pollen,[7] of pine cones, and stores that up to eat. An ant in New Jersey cuts in pieces the little new pine trees, just as they get above the ground, and carries them to its nest. Did you ever see the ant which likes sunflower seeds to eat? It is a large ant, and when it has climbed to the disk of the sunflower, it pulls out one of the ripe seeds and carries it away. When people keep a nest of ants in order to watch their ways, they feed them with sugar, oats, apple-seeds, and wheat. How does the ant eat the hard grain? Its tongue is like a file, or something like that of the little shell-fish of which I told you.[8] The ant can rasp, file, and press the grain, so it can get at and lick up the oil and juice. FOOTNOTES: [6] See First Book, page 82. [7] See Third Book. [8] See First Book, page 86. LESSON VII. ANTS AND THEIR TRADES. Since you know that bees, ants, and wasps[9] all belong to the same great family of living creatures, you will not wonder that many of their ways are alike. You know there are wasps and bees that live alone. You have read how, in the spring, Mrs. Social Wasp builds her home and raises a brood of babies. These, as soon as full-grown, begin to build more rooms and nurse the next babies. Mrs. Ant does as Mrs. Wasp does.