COUNTRY LIFE

Defending our Buds March may be called the black cotton season. That half- invisible thread is stretched over the bulb beds by London Park keepers and half the gardeners in England ; and it succeeds in keeping even the invincible sparrow at bay. It cannot be stretched everywhere ; and fortunately recent research workers have found a subtler deterrent. There seem to be certain dislikes or distastes common to most animals : to mammals, birds and indeed insects. They do not like any of the commoner disinfectants, above all that least aggressive of them—in smell if not in colour—known as Jeyes fluid. if you wish to drive rabbits out of their holes for a period the simplest method is to soak bits of rag or paper in Jeyes fluid and paraffin, in almost any proportion, say one of Jeyes to four of paraffin. Recent tests suggest that this same disinfec- tant, whether neat or in combination with lime-sulphur is . abhorrent to birds. If we finely spray our gooseberries or our forsythia (whose buds are especially favoured by bullfinches) with such a compound the birds will go elsewhere for their succulent green buds. It is a nice question which birds are fondest of particular spring buds. Sparrows doubtless are much the most persistent destroyers of the petals of the crocus and they will clean up the buds of a convenient goose- berry bush. I have seen a plum tree stripped of almost all its leaf buds by chaffinches, though as the rule, I think, they do little harm. When the great tit gets to work on buds, in some very hungry spring before insects are at large, he is the most persistent of all. By general consent the bullfinch is the most inveterate bud-eater of all, and he has a catholic taste. At a later stage the most wholesale devourers of green peas are hawfinches and jays, but they are not in most places numerous enough to be a general nuisance. All these lovely harpies are deterred by the smell of Jeyes fluid and a fine sprayer becomes a necessity in every garden.

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The Value of Lateness

It is a late season ; and therefore the opportunity for both Spraying and transplanting has been extended. How tightly closed are the buds of apple and pear ; and even the gorses on many commons have as yet showed no response to the seductions of " the month that blooms the whim." The rooks busy about their nests in the high elm garden have not even the protection of the flowers that should be empurpling the woods. Daffodils and primroses are in free flower on the north shores of the Isle of Wight, but in most of our more northerly gardens the bulbs and primrose and primula buds have seldom stood so still for so many weeks. Those who each year, for the sake of their diary, seek diligently for a February nest of thrush or robin have trouble to discover a March nest. Even the great bird congregations of winter visitors have not yet quite broken up or fled to the north and east. Our world thirsts for spring ; but the delay is not unwelcome to the countryman of long memory. All the best springs, he says, have been late springs ; and the more frosts before April, the fewer after.

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New Manor Lords A movement in land ownerships of another sort than the sale or desertion of historic estates (such as Lowther Castle) seems to be accelerating. As many as four commons -very well known to me have lately passed from the biggest of permanent commissions into other hands. The Lordship of the Manor has been transferred for moderate sums to various sorts of owners. Two of the com- mons have become the property of golf clubs, one of a private person and one of the local council. The local council has been the most particular to extract what profit it can from its lordship, by charging quite considerable sums to those whose houses give on the common. These owners are allowed gratuitous " right of access " only where the gate or road or drive is of recognised antiquity. The knowledge of their

• rights and obligations both by the new owners and the old Commoners is so hazy that there is a call for more precise and particular information. It would be a worthy act by the county councils to inspect the old manor rolls and spread the information. No one wants commoners to lose privileges or lords of the manorto exercise unlawful restrictions or commit

anti-social acts. The golf clubs in spite of certain general outcries and particular threats are on the whole popular owners, partly because they bring a great deal of money into the place. partly because artisans' clubs, which are admirably demo- cratic institutions, are encouraged, and prosper.

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Weathers and Population A wet season, prolonged for many months, has had a surprising influence on sonic of our British animals. Rabbits had multiplied to an almost alarming pitch. There were some economic and social reasons for this. The price fell to a penny or even less a pound ; and sonic of the rabbit trappers went out of business. Farmers no longer felt that it was worth while to shoot so cheap a creature. So the rabbits, enjoying a country where vermin had been excessively harried, multiplied as only they, among mammals. can multiply. But there was another reason for their prolific! breeding. They arc creatures-- witness their invincibility in Australia—which delight in dry conditions. They are the converse of the rat. The common experience is that the rat, which is the most destructive of our animals, flourishes in direct ratio with the wetness of the season. The wetter the -weather, especially in spring and summer, the more rats. Doubtless rabbits arc still over plentiful in many places ; but we shall perhaps not see for years such fantastic increases as have been recorded in half the counties during the last two years.

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Multitudinous Pigeons

One animal that has been with us in myriads during the late winter and spring is just beginning to depart. 1 mean the pigeon which we call the wood pigeon, but these hordes of immigrants are in greatest number where woods are few and small. They have been most conspicuous along the edge of the Fen Country. especially Cambridgeshire. Their appetite for green food is quite fantastic. There arc fields of roots, of several sorts. including sugar beet, which looked almost like plough land after the flocks had descended on them ; the total leafage of these very leafy plants had quite disappeared. The birds of course resort to what woods they can find to roost, and it is a marvellous sight to see them come in. They fly with a dash and vigour scarcely known in other birds, and for the most add to their natural speed by diving into the trees, where they may settle with the clatter of a machine. Many thousands may gather to a small wood ; and even a gathering of scattered guns does not keep them away. In one such wood the other day seventy. seven fell to a single gun. in little over half an hour. He fired over MO cartridges in the time and selected the more difficult shots.

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The Invincible Iris Claims made on behalf of the race of irises that they flower in every month of the year have been fully justified in respect of the early and most difficult months of this year. in spite of its cantankerous nature. At the moment when the lovely, soft, but not at all delicate iris stylosa had begun to fail, the Cambridge variety of iris retieulata has come into the fullest possible blossom. Its semi-dwarf habit adds to its value and it goes to the opposite extreme of stylosa : the flowers almost conceal the leaves. The variety was invented or created, or whatever the right word is, by a great amateur gardener in the garden of a country rectory not so many years ago. It anticipates the commoner variety by several weeks, by about the same period as l'iburnant fragnons, now just opening its buds, anticipates its rather more popular cousin Viburnum Carlesii. So subtly does the art of gardening advance, so do we persuade our exotics to face with even greater bravery of flower than their parents the cold and darkness of an English winter. People write to The Times to announce the miracle that the celandine and greater stitchwort are already in flower in the Riviera of South-west England. It is perhaps more marvellous that these imported garden plants face the winter rigours of the Midlands and even the northern counties.

W. BEAcit