COUNTRY LIFE
NA'TuR8 is like an .expert display-manager in the big store. Each yes: she singles gut one, or more itemi of her stock and puts it over in a big way. This year it began very early with dandelions. The warm, moist March weather (what a freak that was, conjuring glow-worms to .shine as early,"as March 16th, under my holly hedge facing westward) was marked in Kent and also in Somerset by multitudes of giant dandelion along the roadsides. When toward the end • of the month the belated winds blew April in, the countryside was flashing with midget airborne troops, the seed carried so silkily to field and garden, later to be cursed when their delayed-action tactics came into play.
The Dance I do not know of any specialist who has made it his job to record the Movements, the dance, of plant and beast. I was looking' down yesterday. (in the last week of May) from the drying-floor of. my barn directly Upon a field of oats. The ears' were already spread -41c1 poised, each seed at the end of its tiny thread. So the dance had begtitiOn all its .tumult and counterpoint. First to be noticed was ahe quick,. hetv. ous, boiji.r.tg:n.:ovement of the heads of the oats, as they shivered together in their millions across the surface of the green expanse. It was, just as though, bubbles were' mailing up and bursting. Then, below this, and witlia- Much slower rhythm, there was to be seen the wave-like-undulation of.the.atihole field of oats, as the two-foot-tall stalks bowed and roSe.again under_.;the tide of the breeze. The-waves were deliberately :Skied, like seivi"aith running up to a beach, coming over the field in diaionars; with the :lighter, fussy agitation of the seeds on their bosoms. Thin dden baatingii•-• as the wind .veered, and a stand-still patter befota.;.-iiming the-criMS.bedgewards. It was a marvellous confusion of move:Mei:4 and
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stood-fascinated, neglecting the task. in hand (the sharpening, up.Of the hedgetfirii'ers.tvith a file, before attacking the yews that have also been so rampant this 'spring).
Another Harvest There has been another harvesting in our tiny hamlet this week. Its elder statesman died yesterday, in his eightieth year. He never left the place, and has spent those eighty years fruitfully and soberly, always at work in the boys' school of which he was both proprietor and controller. He was a quietist, unobtrusive in his religious faith ; a man of good works. He died quietly, too, with his eleven children in his room (one of them is today a distinguished poet living at Cambridge). Such a life, and such a death, too, have a sense of harmony belonging to the isolated England of the past several centuries, rather than to the internationalised welter of today. This old Englishman went out quite composed, having made his plans for death as he made his plans for living ; calmly, matter- of-factly, and in good faith. He trusted life ; so why should he not trust death, too? That is how he went, leaving the world, perhaps as he entered it, half reluctantly. Ripeness is all.
In My Garden This loss, so near, and so immediately touching upon every home in the hamlet, has meant a searching of gardens as well as hearts today, for the little chapel has to be decorated for the thanksgiving service tomorrow. He expressly wished the service to be a thanksgiving one, thus making his last characteristic gesture. How superbly the gardens can respond to such a wish this year. We got up early this morning, for rain threatened, and we wanted to cut the blooms before it fell. Two great trugs and a large basket were gathered ; bush roses, ramblers (including a silky, cream-coloured one whose name-label I have lost), some superb specimens of columbine, cross-pollinated over three years and now mosemotky in colour combinations ; lupins and delphiniums, pinks and cloves.. From this assembly we have selected one trug of choice blooms, and sent ir our contribution to augment the others. I think that a congregation of flowers will never more fully testify to a man's character than those which I shall see at the service tomorrow.
This. year the great cow-parsley, which often comes foaming up,- thick as curd-cheese, in rich tides across the meadows, is thin, spindly and rather drab, while the honeysuckle is both premature and profuse, and the dog-roses are as large as Austrian briars. The great riot of 'colour and perfume is now on ; but still there stands out as likely to. be the "special line" of this historical spring season the bright yellow Mintage of the dandelions.
RICHARD CHURCH.
Postage on this issue: Inland, id; Overseas, Id.
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