Year's End After a year of astonishing meteorological records—one day
we may know the number of hours of sunshine given by a summer that was a dream of temperate loveliness—the land looks in splendid condition. The young blades of wheat are a clean, bright emerald ; field-beans are thick and sturdy ; the pastures, which looked in September as if they would never recover, are now rich and dark after rain. There are some signs, at last, of better drainage everywhere. The oaks, which began to turn colour in August, held green leaves until early December and are still not utterly bare as I write. And as these last leaves colour the boughs and the bracken turns to fox-colour beneath them after rain, there are the infallible touches of spring: first snowdrops, a few violets, tracks of silver in the sallows, a drip of green honey among the hazels. Thrushes sing in the early evenings and blackbirds go love-sick on the lawn.
H. E. BATES. H. E. BATES.
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