Country Life
VILLAGE CRAFTS.
Do you want teazels or cocoa-nut fibre ? a pattern fora bell- pull or fire-irons or lamp or iron gate ? Do you want to know where rushes (Scirpus Lacustris) are harvested ? or where underwood for wattled hurdles can be obtained, or where it can be sold ? Do you want to make or sell a patchwork quilt ? Do you want a critical judgment on any craftwork you or your friends have attempted ? Do you want any information about chip boxes and their tin-plate handles, lead toys, kiln drying of timber, galvanizing plants, artificial foliage, wood staining, small water-power schemes, thatch fire-proofing, the training of rural mechanics ? If a thirst for any of these and of many other curious pieces of information besets you, all you have to do is to apply to the Rural Indus- tries Bureau, formed with the aid of the Development Com- mission. Its new office (at 27 Bedford Square, W.C. 1) is bombarded with such questions, and the work it has done really counts in the reconstruction of the countryside. Though some country crafts are dying, some are reviving (within my own local knowledge artistic ironwork and Norfolk thatching). The Bureau is ocinducted in a sensible, businesslike, and excellently unsentimental fashion. Its specialists on design (of all kinds) have given invaluable advice to scores of applicants.
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