Berry Crop
Berries are more plentiful in the country- side round about than I have known them for many years and I cannot recall ever having seen hips of such size and fullness. Perhaps the wet season, which accounts for the decrease in the number• of wasps, has helped the berries along. Blackberries, hips, haws and the fruit of the whitebeam are all of better size and, it seems to me, the red berries are more vivid in colour than those of a dry summer. The few elderberries I have looked at are heavy, with large fruit and the pigeons are feeding on them, varying their diet with the gleaning of the stubble. When the thorn leaves fall and contrast shows up the crop on the holly bush, there will be talk of a hard winter, although a good harvest can surely have less to do with the temperature of winter• to coma than the sun and rain of a summer past.
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