COUNTR Y LIFE DOES it indicate a greater interest in the
land, in the farmland of England that Sir John Russell, the retiring director of Rothamsted, has been selected for special honour—the Albert Gold Medal—by the Royal Society of Arts? The research station over which he has presided for a generatioa was founded a century ago solely for the study of the soil ; and experi- ments begun then have been continuous ever since. It contains a Garden of Eden, given up to the free colonisation of thorns and briars for a hundred years ; and incidentally this patch, as well as the surrounding woods, have proved singularly attractive to 'birds. The place is an accidental sanctuary, as is the director's garden, where even that now rare bird/the wry-neck, has been known to nest in a nesting-box. The institution has never developed so fast as in recent years ; and it is a thousand pities that the war has prevented a great centenary celebration. What a model, for example, is the apiary with its belt of sallows, for the production of early pollen, and, in a very different- direction, the new library, where all the better agricultural literature of the world is to be sorted and combed out! A new little branch of science, the migration of moths and butterflies, has one of its principal centres within the pale. All this represents a long journey from the idea of the founders ; but Rothamsted research workers have proved again and again that pure science is wont to achieve in the long run more. practically valuable knowledge than any ad hoc inquiry.
Corn and Roses
Among the common country beliefs (now grandly classed under the term phenology) is the connexion of the blossoming of the dog rose with the ripening of wheat. Harvest, it is popularly said, follows the first rose at an interval of six weeks. Well, the first wild rose opened in my neighbourhood on May 16th. Will the first grain crop be cut on or about July 1st? Hardly, I should think ; but such marvels of earliness have been recorded that such a date may be just possible. The diarists and statisticians seem to have quite decided that the spring we have enjoyed has had no parallel for fifty years. The nearest rival to 1943 is 1893. Doubtless someone will try to argue that there is a fifty years' cycle ; but all attempts to establish such cycles, though they are irrepressible, have proved a failure. Perhaps the oddest thing about this wonderful spring has been the contrast between parts of Scotland and England. Letters from Ross-shire tell tales of silent birds and cut vegetation and prevailing snow in Mid-May.
May Frosts
On the subject of May weather, a large number of correspondents have written to ask for more precise information about the Three Icemen, to whom I have several times alluded. One correspondent reports that she has appealed in vain, even to a bishop, who knew nothing of the %three saints! The locus classicus on the subject may be found in Kerner's wonderful Natural History of Plants, admirably translated and edited by F. W. Oliver. " Pancratius, Servatius and Bonifacius, whose names stand in the calendar against the 12th, 13rh and 14th of May, hare popularly been called EismAnner ' . in Southern Germany and Austria They have received their nickname on account of the fall of temperature which takes place every year about the middle of May, the cause of which is not yet fully explained. Such falls of temperature, connected with the cooling of the atmosphere on a large scale, occur on certain days with some regularity ; but these have not received so much attention because they are not so dangerous to field products, fruit and wine, as the relapses about the middle of the month of May." Is such a fall as common in England as it seems to be in Austria ; but even there Kemer's " every year " must be an exaggeration?
In the Garden
While we note with admiration the number and variety of butterflie appearing before their due dates, we must confess to a yet more populou appearance of the fly." The fly or flea beetle so designated is a sma creature with a special taste in seedlings, and it flourishes abnormally i dry seasons. This May it is so numerous that it swarms even on fully grown spring cabbages, as well as all sorts of seedlings. A useful me of protection is derris, which can now be easily procured by gardene at any rate in powder form. The easiest method is to put in a mush or aertex bag and shake it over the lines of seedlings. Doubtless the bes protection of all is to sow late, especially turnips and swedes, when t fly has passed its flaming days. There are signs that the grown cabbag will also be in for a bad time, for white butterflies are legion. The b way in small gardens is to brush off the eggs, which are generally lei on the back of the leaf. Since most pests, as well as allies, have flourish spraying fruit trees with a mild mixture of lime sulphur is still recom
Pactaee on this issue Inland and Overseas. rd.
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