COUNTRY -LIFE
FEW people seem to gather meadowsweet, probably because, although its scent on the evening air can be wonderful, like the honeysuckle it can be too much. The sun was going down across the Lleyn peninsula, and we were walking the quiet country road that was banked by honeysuckle on one side and a great sward of meadow- sweet on the other. The effect was almost overpowering, and I was glad to come uphill among bracken and gorse, where blackberry bushes screened the stones used here to make walls, as they are in most places farther north. I had always imagined that nearness to the sea brought an early ripeness to oats, but here, although some fields were yellow, many were green, and in adjoining meadows haymaking was hardly at an end. An old man came up a footpath. He was carrying a rake over one sh9ulder, and swinging from his hand was a string, of mackerel. " A little fishing and a little farming," I remarked, and he explained that half his living was on land and half on water. Between lobster-pots and potatoes he balanced his domestic economy. There are many places where men follow these two callings, and are as able with oars as they are with a plough.
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