25 FEBRUARY 1944, Page 20

Shorter Notices

Island Farm. By F. Fraser Darling. (Bell. Iss.)

FOR Dr. Fraser Darling the ownership of an island is not a means of escape from the irks and disappointments of communal living, but a custodianship for the future. His story of life on the Isle of Tanera, therefore, is the story of a struggle to retrieve a derelict farm ; and it says much for his tenacity of purpose that, with the help of his wife and such friends as occasionally visited them, he has succeeded in three and a half years of war in restoring the place to a reasonable level of comfort and, what is more, in pointing a possible way for the redemption of Highland crofting agriculture in general. Dr. Darling is that rare combination, a scientist who is also a poet ; and it is just this fact that gives to his narrative the appeal of a human interest as well as the drive of a scientific adventure. " Tigh an Quay had reached a nadir of poverty and lovelessness when we came, a state which did not cause us to shun it, but to offer it love. . . . It is hearing happy laughter again, our hands are cleaning its besmirched face, and unless I am greatly wrong our love is driving away its long sleep of doom." And love, in this case, meant hard labour, and only the scantiest return. As readers of Dr. Darling's other books will expect, Island Farm is more than a practical example in agriculture under the most primitive con- ditions: there is humour in the book, a rich humanity, a clear comprehension of the responsibility imposed on all of us by current events, and something of the author's usual informed interest in bird-life.