COUNTRY LIFE
Think for Victory
The chairman of the Allotments and Gardens Committee, Mr. H. Berry, whose criticism of me appears in The Spectator of last week, refers to "Mr. Bates and other non-growers of storable vegetables." But since when have I been a "non-grower of storable vegetables "? In my next paragraph Mr. Berry will find a list, given in response to many correspondents, of the forty varieties of vegetables grown by me in the year 1940. The size of this list has nothing at all to do with the fall of France, since it was planned at least three months before that event ; it has nothing to do with "early official injunctions," but is the result, I hope, of my own common-sense ; finally, it was accomplished without the digging up of a single inch of border, bed, or lawn. In it Mr. Berry will note that, so far from my being a " non-grower of storable vegetables," there are twelve varieties of storable vege- tables; and he will also note that it contains a further twelve varieties, such as brussels-sprouts, kale, and so on, which remain in the open ground during winter. Nor have I any surplus. I as- sume no cloak of wisdom after the event. At intervals during the last fifteen months I have been urging readers of this column not only to grow more vegetables but to grow them more inten- sively and more imaginatively—until they must, I fear, be grow- ing tired of it. Finally, Mr. Berry asks if it really is a deplor- able thing that surplus green vegetables, grown for human food, should be given to cattle? Isn't it deplorable? Isn't it deplorable that food should be sent to London ands in these very difficult days of transport, sent back again? Isn't it deplorable that some hard-working farmer or market-gardener should have to pay double freightage-costs on his produce and then not sell it? I think it surely is.
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