The Summer Orchards Work in the apple-orchards never ceases. At
present the tractors are winding their way in and out among the trees, pulling wide cutters over the grass. My neighbour, the farmer, assures me that this is preferable nowadays to turning sheep into the orchards, because sheep do not pay and often get poisoned by the various sprayings ; the lime-sulphur, the nicotine, the D.D.T. He thinks the short grass keeps the moisture in, while allowing the artificial manures to penetrate. He even suggests that in May it is beneficial against frost to have the grass short. The grass cuttings make up for the loss of droppings from the sheep.
.How much quieter a life is that of the cherry orchards. They need only the one winter spray of tar-distillate. After that and the sticky- banding are done, and a little bone-meal scattered, no more attention is needed until the fruit begins to ripen. Crops this year are promising well, though in low-lying orchards the frost did some damage. Already the migrant pickers are being seen about the lanes of Kent. The farmers are setting up their bird-scaring contrivances (much in the Heath Robinson tradition) consisting of strings under the trees, hung with concussive objects such as bits of corrugated iron, old trays and petrol-tins, pokers and bed-ends. These are all agitated from a key-position (or they will be in a week or two) with most modern effects, as though an incompetent pupil of Schonberg were giving way to despair. The music will be punctuated with reports from shot-guns, and strange, oriental cries from the half-gypsy throats of those camping in the cherry-orchards during the picking season.
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