Answer:
A ripe field of wheat has been partis y cut and stacked, while in the foreground a group of peasants, pausing in their work, picnics in the relative shade of a pear tree. Behind them and to their left we see that work continues: a couple gathers wheat into bundles and ties them: three men cut the stalks with scythes as women make their way through a corridor in the field, carrying stacks of grain over their shoulders. The scene continues to unfold in the distance, where there is a valley animated with scenes of village life, another immense wheat field, and a bay with the traffic of several ships.
The peasants picnicking in the foreground-the off center focus of the painting-have used stacks of grain as benches and are consuming bread and bowls of milk in addition to pears from the tree. Opposite them, a man sleeps in a position of complete abandon, a pose that is repeated in Bruegel's painting Land of Cockaigne (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). In a humorous touch two peasants gaze out at us as they eat, suggesting momentarily that we may be the subject and they the viewer. Mankind and nature are so inextricably bound together that grain grows from the headdress of a woman gathering wheat in the background and she has taken on the form of a haystack.