4 MARCH 1949, Page 20

COUNTRY LIFE

THERE is seldom much poetry in 'the doggerel of the weather prophets (though old Tusser gives evidence of an occasional spark), but a couplet just introduced to me for the first time is perhaps an exception:

" Candlemas come and gone, The snow falls on hot stone."

So, although we may see snow even in April, we may flatter ourselves that the real winter is over, and may be summed up. I think for the first time, at any rate within memory, I did not see a single flake of snow, though I believe a few, a very few, were to be seen. The first lying snow was a thin white cap on Scafell in February, but even at that altitude, the greatest in England proper, the hot stones were doing their work efficiently.