In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.

Wharton frames youthful indiscretion through an agricultural metaphor: “wild oats” are treated as a natural, even expected, phase—like a fallow or less “useful” season in crop rotation. Yet the second clause tightens the moral: society may tolerate one bout of recklessness, but it does not forgive repetition. The line captures Wharton’s recurring interest in how social codes regulate desire and reputation, especially among the privileged classes who can afford a brief lapse but are still policed by convention. The cool, proverbial tone suggests a worldview in which personal freedom is always negotiated against communal judgment and the long memory of scandal.