COUNTRY LIFE
IF anyone desires a picture of scenic beauty that is more than skin deep let him go out into any part he choose of the English country today. Almost every parish is like a new place, and familiar scenes are bright with a strange light. Wherever you look the coloured ears of grain or the comely shocks pattern out the landscape as never before in memory, at any rate in mid July. Some of the eastern counties, which were once the granary of London, do not share in this revelation, for their harvest is rather less good than elsewhere and their fields have always been arable ; but elsewhere the harvest is bountiful and early almost beyond precedent, and a multitude of older grass fields are the most richly adorned. This England is more English than ever it was. It • differs from all other countries by reason of the multitude of single trees that frame these harvest scenes and embower the homesteads and church towers as well as by the hedgerows. It is too large a subject to approach in a note, but looking at these happy, homely landscape scenes I must believe that the specialists (whose plea for latifundia so stirs Mr. Massingham's scorn) are preaching a wrong doctrine. It is not the end of the matter to argue that a harvester-thresher from a central organisa- tion can work more quickly if there are no hedges. Joy in harvest— old style—is a spiritual force with economic fruits.
An Extra Hive
A frame or two from one of my beehives, where a tendency to swarm was noticed, was removed a few weeks ago to an empty hive. A young queen emerged almost at once and the new colony has grown at a remarkable speed. The parent swarm seems to be making honey rather more rapidly than before and refrained from swarming. This old device does not always succeed, but it is perhaps worth attempting more often than is usually done, now that any swarm is worth its weight in gold. The lime honey-flow has been rich, bu: even shorter -lived than its reputation. We may already begin to prepare for gathering the dis- honeyed flowers for a tisane. They are well worth such attention, as most French folk realise, even if the drink cannot now be flavoured with lemon or orange.
Young Farmers
After a very modest beginning the Yolvag Farmers clubs begin so to grow in favour that they promise to be an efficient agent in the making of the New Order—with apologies for the origin of the phrase—in the English village. The Federation of these clubs is already a force in the lancL It has induced the rural schools to form clubs and is the pioneer of a new form of literature, if the word is not too big. Their own pamphlets and the wholly admirable series " The Story of the Country- side," produced by the Oxford University Press, suggest ingeniously and persuasively how any boy or girl—or indeed grown person—may become a research worker in local history. Almost every writer who knows his village sees that great changes are imminent, but that the most beneficent tendency of the new village is a return to the village that began to dis- appear some seventy years ago. It must be more, not less local, a consumer of local and therefore fresh and uncostly food, R supporter of local crafts, smiths and little factories. Local, in this reference, means not that each village must be sufficient unto itself (as when it was hedged round in early Saxon days) but must co-operate with its neigh- bours. This policy is admirably carried out in recent new schools equipped for the more senior pupils of elementary schools. They possess gardens, apiaries, poultry and live stock, gymnasia, theatres and labora- tories. The Young Farmers will help to encourage in regard to pro- duction and local consumption what others are doing in education. Eat locally, should be a general battle cry.
In the Garden This is the date for the practice of green-manuring, now more popular than before owing to the scarcity of what Jorrocks' huntsman called muck. It is recorded (by Mr. Shewell-Cooper) that some gardeners are wont to sow all the seeds that are left over on the land to be manured with the purpose of digging the seedlings in a little later. Any green stuff, from chickweed upwards, serves the purpose so long as it is not too tough for rapid decay when dug in. Those who keep hens and are not complete experts may find profit in an admirable little book Feeding for Eggs, published at zs. 6d. by Faber and Faber. One of the more use- ful tips concerns methods of persuading the hens to drink more ; and oddly enough I had just been hearing evidence of the immense addition to milk yield induced by a similar persuasion practised on cows.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas, id.
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