COUNTRY LIFE
Coronation Gifts Coronation year is sure to be notable for much public tree- planting, gifts of land and, presumably, the preservation of more open spaces. It is not always realised how much, paradoxically, such action is needed in the country itself or how ill-managed such action can be in the wrong hands. Villages are not always rich in trees, still less in public spaces, and the gift of an open field to a village surrounded by open fields is not quite such a nonsensical way of showing patriotism as it sounds. But the stupidity of parish councils being, sometimes, past all comprehension, I would urge all those who contemplate giving away land or trees to make strict rules for the future preservation of their gifts. In a recent case a village council persuaded a local landowner to make a Jubilee gift, to be held for the village in perpetuity, of a small spinney. Standing in the heart of the place, this spinney was remarkable for some magnificent and uncommon trees : acacias, planes, large !lollies, African oaks. The gift was given at once, freely and without condition. Before the village could wink the trees were down and sold, more than fifty in number, to a local saw-mill. The price paid was a pitiful ten pounds. I will not go into, now, the story of the subsequent bitterness or the subsequent colossal crops of kex and thistle that shot up, to sow themselves possibly in perpetuity, in place of plane and acacia. I hope I have said enough to keep any prospective benefactor, properly glowing with Coronation zeal, awake at night.
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England in Pint Bottles
A Colonial, newly arrived in this country, wrote and enquired of me recently where lie could see that England, complete with dog's tooth violets, primroses and aconites and so on, to which I once devoted a paragraph of these notes. " Is such a vision of England," he says, " to be had in those half-crown trips one takes from London to Rick- mansworth or to Box Hill ? " To which one might reply that the English countryside is not sold in pint bottles. This Colonial, however, clearly seeks a larger measure of England, and obviously half-crown trips are not for him. On the other hand, what does he expect to see ? An altogether idyllic England, complete with half-timber, pub. settles, yokels in proportion, entrancing landscapes with hoary ploughmen and teams breasting field-slopes in silhouette ? Or is he aware that the English country, as compared with the best of his own, is extraordinarily prosaic, that many of the best of its effects are man-made, and finally that some of it, alas, is extremely ugly ? I do not say there is no such thing as an idyllic England. Only that he would do well not to look for it. The best of the English countryside is got by chance. Its idylls arc accidental. * * * *
Cottage Idylls Many of them, indeed, are altogether mythical. The idea of the country cottage, in idyllic surroundings, with roses round the door, all for two shillings a week, for instance, is very hard to kill, though a death-blow was aimed at it, as long ago as 1925, by the author of England's Green and Pleasant Land. We hear a good deal of the slum problems of towns, but there is, it seems to me, also a slum problem of the country. In many industrial towns there are still many houses, of pre-War erection, which let—main sewer, gas, water and decent pavements outside—for eight and six a week. In the country, on the other hand, there are still hundreds of cottages which, letting for that money and even more, have no water, except that which comes through the roof, and no gas, except that which escapes from the cesspool. Privies that are wretched enough in themselves are often a long way from the house, at the bottom of the garden or even across the road. Water is from a common pump or tap. " It is outrageous," wrote the author of England's Green and Pleasant Land, " that the girls of the pleasantest labouring families in our hamlet can only reach their cottage privy by crossing the road." Outrageous, but quite common. As to rents, I have in mind a cottage, poor water, poor garden, primitive sanitation, highly dan- gerous open stairs, which lets for ten shillings ; another, garden privy, all repairs done by tenant, rats in the roof, eight and six ; another, similar, spring water, twelve and
six ; another, unsatisfactory drainage, damp, eighteen shillings. All these cottages look charming. To the casual visitor they are quaint. They are the picture-postcard England. To anyone with inside knowledge they are so quaint as to be an outrage. In short, they are on a slum level.
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And the Remedy
The problem of putting these cottages into a civilised state of repair is an acute one. Rents are not always large. Often they are very small. They have been small for years, and fortunately the countryside still possesses some landlords who are reluctant to put up rents. A five shilling a week cottage, saleable value about £200, may need another 1200 spending on it in order to make it decently habitable. In the past, expenditure by the landlord has often had to' be met, partially at any rate, by an increase in rent. But the Housing (Rural Workers) Act has now done much to solve this problem, and last year the B.B.C. were responsible for an admirable discussion on its workings, the participants being a Hampshire woman, an Essex woman and a Devon- shire farmer. Devon, more than any other county, has taken advantage of the Act, and it was clear that this Devon- shire farmer regarded the workings of the scheme, by which assistance towards repair bills is granted by local authorities, as of immense assistance to landlords in his position. It was equally clear that the women were delighted with the effects of the scheme. They both described houses in an appalling state of repair—damp, privies at the garden end, bad light, bad cooking arrangements, poor water, children reluctant to stay at home in the evenings, and so on—and both were equally enthusiastic about the subsequent trans- formation. Assistant", I think I am right in saying, is only given where the estimated cost of the work in respect of each dWelling is £50 or more, and the value of such property must not exceed 1400 after the completion of the work. But the scheme—already ten years old—has in it the necessary power to heal some nasty sores in country life.
The Winter Strawberry Among evergreens, Arbutus Unedo, the winter strawberry, is one of the least common and most charming. A native of Ireland, with a reputation for tenderness, it looks rather like a cross between a bay-tree and a camellia ; the leaves have the same polished bottle-green, the wood has the camellia's crooked muscularity. It grows to a height of about twenty feet, flowering insignificantly in summer, fruiting finely in autumn and winter. The fruits are the supreme delight. Exactly the colour of strawberries, warm scarlet when ripe, soft sourish gold or green when unripe, they weigh the tree down with pendulous clusters, in luscious arches coming almost to the ground. In shape and texture the fruits are less like straw- berries than lychees. They have the same roundness and the same knobbed, but quite soft, skin. But they are altogether more vivid, and in November and December, before sharp frosts have brought them down in a scarlet shower of pulp, they make an amazing sight : a summery canopy of strawberries shining in the first days of winter.
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The Golden Mushroom There is money, we are told, in mushrooms, a lot of money ; so much money that readers of this page have even written to me for advice on the cultivation of that gilt-edged delicacy. The supply _of mushrooms, we are told, never equals the demand. Grow your own mushrooms. Buy our spawn. Get rich. And *so on. All of which is fairly harmless. But what of the new schemes, which must have tickled and puzzled a good many mushroom-lovers having an idle pound or two waiting for investment ? These schemes, rosily worded, seemed to be the answer to the mushroom-lovers' prayer. The public, under one scheme, is invited to take up units of £10. These units each acquire for the investor a certain area of mushroom space in the mushroom company. The investor invests, sits back, all his obligations finished, and apparently collects the cash. This cash is a guaranteed dividend of 10 per cent. To which my reply is that if mush- room-growing is as good as all that, why ask the world to come in on it ? But is it so good ? H. E. BATES.
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