4 JANUARY 1957, Page 42

Country Life

BY IAN NIALL IT is hard indeed to think of anything that aptly marks the New Year in the country, for seasons have no fixed relationship to the calendar. At 'New Year the ranks of the geese are depleted so much that often only a solitary goose remains. Blackbirds fight for territory, but they do this at Christmas and before it. This season they were testing their voices in some- thing very like a spring song as early as November. New Year it is, however, and if anything is typical of the time, it is the lack of life about the farms. The ground is too wet, and at times too hard, for cultivation. The herd is standing in, and the stock- man cuts into the fodder in the barn, while the shepherd works with wattle, hurdle and straw bales to prepare-shelter for the first batch of lambs. Early lambs hereabouts follow fast upon New Year, and by the time we have become used to them dotting the pasture it is, quite suddenly, spring. If we come through January without snow we say, 'The seasons are changing. It wasn't like this a century ago.' But the calendar marks only the-passing of days, taking no account of other things, and February is, after all, just another name for winter, mild or severe.