• -- COUNTRY - LIFE
- --
4 SOLDIER who had been away from England for five years called on ex-neighbours on his return and told me that at the home of each what struck him first was the height of the trees and in some cases of hedge,, and hushes. Everything else corresponded with his memories and expectations, but these had strangely altered familiar scenes. A short while before his departurt—for Abyssinia—I had planted a little group of Canadian poplars. We estimated their present height at an average of thirty odd feet. A single balsam poplar—the most generously scented of trees—was not far behind them. Bushes of cotoneaster on a bank were nine feet high. Living among them we hardly notice the extent of such changes, and they, suggest that results are quicker than we anticipate. To give one example, you may eat peaches from a bush grown from a stone sown only eight years earlier. While some tree, such as walnuts may take fifteen years before producing fruit, you may harvest apples—on the latest plan—within two or three years.
Previous page
