25 OCTOBER 1935, Page 17

An old industrialist of my acquaintance retired to a country

house, well tee'd up oit a hill. During a long illness he amused himself by getting his doctor to put a flag into an Ordnance 'Ll'inp at every point where he had a patient. After a while the flags made almost a contour map. They marked out the valleys and left the hills untouched. The rare patient on the hill drew the inference that the hills were much more healthy then the valleys, and so loved his theory that it was a shame to suggest that the population of the valleys was many times as great as that on the hills. Our ancestors went where there was water and shelter. This old industrialist, si ford in terris, would doubtless have found support for his belief in a natural feature of this season. The. trees in some of the valleys are decorated with yellow leaves " or none or few," while the trees on the upper ground, in spite of unusual gales, are still fresh and green. The reason, doubtless dating from the spring, is five months old. The late May frost ravaged the valleys and left the hills comparatively unharmed. Every year, usually about this season, the valley gardeners suffer an access of envy for the hill gardeners. The chill of the first autumnal frosts rolls down the hillsides and enfolds the valley in its chill embrace.