COUNTRY LIFE

Recovered Crops The British climate has many compensations ; and often frightens us without reason, especially if we are farmers. For example : in April not one farmer but several expressed the fear that they would be forced to plough up the wheat sown last autumn. It germinated well and showed a fine plant at the beginning of the winter. . At the end of the winter the plant had almost vanished. A green -field had become a brown, save for thin and scarcely visible lines. The field was like a sheet of faintly ruled foolscap. Wind and wet, not frost, had done the damage. A little later the lines thickened and today a crop of rather more than usual weight is expected on at least one of these threatened fields, which was sown with a special variety of a new pedigree wheat. Of course it is as yet purely problematic how good the seed may be ; but it is not unknown for such a set-back to increase yield. After all it is still a question in dispute whether clover yields better or worse if it is kept down in its early stages of growth.

* * * * The New Grasses

Grass undoubtedly is the crop of the year ; and it happens that an international group of scientific students of grass are meeting in England and will investigate growing crops at various places. Some of the newer types of grass and of clover are very interesting. A good many years ago Mr. Milne (of Gartons) noticed during his travels in the North of England a plant of Cocksfoot that seemed to be all blade and lacked bent. Since then Professor Stapledon found and selected many varieties of grass that give so high a feeding value that they , may improve any pasture where they are cultivated. The trouble is to collect sufficient seed. The better the grass for feeding purposes the less the seed. I saw one trial plot on which seed could be estimated by the spoonful. The selected wild white clovers are perhaps even more remarkable, at least in appearance. The leaves are immense and the clover covers the ground so quickly that it may be worth while transplanting roots by hand, as the Japanese plant their rice.

* * * * Pools of Silence It was noticed during the War that what the French called " pools of silence " were to be found. The sound of guns passed over these beneficent hollows, and they remained silent while the sound reverberated loudly ten or even twenty miles farther off. There are pools of ethereal as well as aerial silence. It is difficult, for example, to transmit the wireless waves to parts of Cornwall and Devon ; and for this reason the B.B.C., after consultation with the National Trust, decided to set up a special transmitting station that should carry its messages to such silent pools.- A spot on that most glorious stretch of coast between Salcombe and Start Point was selected. The choice of the site has given great offence, and particular protests reach me. • Whether they are well justified or not I do not know ; but I am sure of this that the coast of Britain should be sacrosanct. It is, in my view, the only National Park that is worth consideration. It is for this reason that the threat to the coast at the base of Morte Point in North Devon is particularly heinous ; and in this regard it is a sign of public feeling that humble subscriptions of half-a-crown are reaching the National Trust.

* * * * Tit v. Swallow In a neighbour's shed a distressful battle, consisting mostly of noise, has been fought this summer between a pair of tits and a pair of swallows. The swallows, presumably the same pair that nested there last year, greatly desired to use the old nest once again. They found it altered and adapted by a pair of tits. The subsequent clamour was so loud and continuous as to summon the owner ; and the ethical question was posited : should the interlopers be evicted. They had gone so far towards rearing a family that they were left in possession ; but it was long before the swallows were reconciled to their eviction. I know of one long dual between wrens and swallows for possession of an old swallows' nest ; and in that affair the wrens were twice forcibly evicted by the owne...1 before the swallows could take possession. Poor swallows ! The only nest I saw in South Africa had been seized and altered by a pair of swifts. As a rule perhaps martins suffer more than swallows, owing to the thievish polemics of the local sparrows.

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A Household Robin The story of another twice-used nest is worth telling. The beginning of the story is old matter. A robin after many weeks of failure, when a cubic foot or more of material was spilt on the floor, was aided in the completion of a nest built on a board fixed for the purpose across the corner of a shed. The proud mother finally hatched out a full clutch. just a fort- night after they had flown she returned to the nest, pulled out the whole of the lining, relined it completely and more thor- oughly than on the first occasion, and after a few days began to lay her second clutch. It is noticed that when the hen bird wishes to fly to the nest she takes the shortest route ; and so if she has been feeding in front of the cottage she flies through the sitting-room and into the kitchen, of which the window opens close beside the door of the shed. Both cock and hen have enjoyed the use of the sitting-room, but the cock no longer sings in front of the looking-glass.'

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Lawn Medicines A score or so of correspondents have asked for further elucidation of an allusive reference to the recipe of the green- keeping researchers for maintaining lawns in the best and least weedy condition. It is now used on almost every golf-links in the country. There is a slight difference in opinion as to the best method of application. At Rothamsted, where the grass specialists are good, it is thought best to apply it in less intensive doses. Their advice is as follows : One part sulphate of iron.

Three parts sulphate of ammonia. Twenty parts sand or potting soil or compost. Sprinkle 4 oz. of the sulphates (mixed in the sand or soil) on

each square yard. The best time is in dewy conditions in dry weather but not during a drought. A further treatment, using 2 oz. instead of 4 oz. to the square yard, at two fortnightly intervals is advised.

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Which Iris ?

The multitude of new varieties produced by our hybridisers in most popular garden plants defeats the memory of the very elect and leaves most of us altogether in the lurch. It is often a relief to find just one or two varieties that insist on standing out in our memory. For example : the new irises are legion ; and among so many lovely things, often differing in no salient particular, it is best to begin with true species, before we attempt to indulge in varieties. In any specialist's garden the varieties can only be remembered by aid of a notebook ; yet it generally happens that one or two sorts " stay put " by virtue of some quality that especially appeals to your particular affection. From such a visit, taken recently, " one only thing remains to me "—the artistic per- fection of "Sir Michael." The light upward petals, the dark drooping petals, the band of bright gold and the general habit combine into an irresistible standard of manly beauty. And if he reminds you of "Alcazar " he is none the worse on that account. For purity of a single rather rare tint Aphrodite is commendable, and for a blue mass that older favourite Norah Campbell holds a worthy place.

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Productive Insects

Some queer discoveries—about insects as well as about grasses —are recorded in detail in the latest journal of the Board of Greenkeeping Research (2s. 6d., Bingley, Yorkshire). The notorious leather-jacket, which is the grub of the cranefly, or daddy-long-legs, is enemy number one, though some of us wish the Board would do similar work on the wire-worm. In the pursuit of its life history the curious and important discovery has been made that though the female lives about ten days she usually lays her eggs, which, number some 270, at the earliest possible moment, generally the first morning. The grub himself must be attacked. Apparently he comes to the surface in a flash if the grass is treated with that crisply named chemical orthodichlorobenzene, which should be widely known and perhaps would be if it had a brief title—say odob or odub- which would rhyme appropriately with its grub.

W. BEACH THOMAS.