COUNTRY LIFE

Garden City Surveys

A phenomenon that deserves wide attention is the astonish- ingly rapid development of the garden city idea. One of the latest—at Welwyn—now contains 12,000 inhabitants and is at present increasing yearly not by hundreds but by thousands. A beautiful Country house and estate have just been added to its circle ; and we may perhaps take it as a good sign that the first step will be to make a complete survey or census of the place. A previous owner some twenty years ago obtained leave to divert the existing road ; and in making a new one farther from the house discovered in the gravel remarkable Saxon relics. At its edge even more remarkable Roman relics were unearthed—the best in a garden in the course of 'preparations for the making of a lawn-tennis court. How many places there are in rural England which were much more thickly populated than they are today at a remote date about which history is singularly silent These new surveys are biological and botanical as well as geological and archaeo- logical. I belie' e that at Welwyn a rare pyrus has just been discovered.

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The Way to Yesterday The close suggestive contrast of the new and the old, the country house and the garden city, was emphasiaed last week in a singularly perfect little speech made by Lord Salisbury :A a semi-private dinner. The occasion was a discussion on the value and prospects of a County Society. He recorded, I do not know on what authority, that a path led from the direction of the Garden City in the direction of Hatfield, and was called " The Way to Yesterday." If there is such a path or lane or bridle-way, could a more apt and symbolic phrase be found within the language ? The greatest scenic success of the Garden City surveyors lies in the avenues of new and spindle-legged trees that lead through the grounds of the city, and in one case through a factory itself. The chief glory of Hatfield Park is the random succession of immense oaks older perhaps than the house and almost coeval with the family that inhabits it. Yesterdays are not " dead yesterdays." If some of the oaks in Hatfield Park are stag- "headed and some stand up only because they are propped, a thousand seedlings have sprung up. Hatfield could do what Sir George CoUrthope's estate did when the old oak beams of Westminster Hall were replaced by oak cut on the very 'same estate. The succession both of ow=ner_ and tree as almost apostolic.

-County Consciousness • How greatly what may he called county consciousness differs ! Sam Slick—an almost forgotten humorist—used to contrast Nova Scotians, whom he called " knockers " (Or belittlers) with British Colombians, whom he called "boosters." The same sort of contrast is found in England. The southern counties led perhaps by Devon and Sussex are the boosters, if they will forgive the phrase. The Sussex county magazine, - which is a masterpiece-of such literature, carries on the work of Rudyard -Kipling. who found the county to- be fathoms -deep in history," and should not every good county-Man be a " booster " ? If the answer is yes," the question arises, how to boost ? It seems to me that there should 'exist in every county a county magazine, whether annual or monthly, in which would be recorded the progress and achieve- ments of the county as well as its cardinal and constant virtues : its archaeology, its natural history, its social and

• architectural changes. The record should be the work of - the county society. Such societies are inclined to limit themselves too narrowly to the work of mere preservation. Even,,,counties degraded by the neighbourhood of London or other great towns into dormitories are rich in archaeology, contain rural craftsmen of genius, and provide particular animals and plants with the optimum of conditions. .If ribbon development and daily-bread villas deface some counties- and villages, what may be called nuclear shrinkage defaces others. Counties closely juxtaposed are sharply contrasted, and the good -local 'countryman. should' desire some regular record of the fortunes of his neighbourhood:.

Evicted Dormice

Laments were heard recently from more than one naturalist that the engaging little creature the dormouse was vanishing. Districts doubtless vary in their zoological fortunes, but I have had quaint evidence this week that the dormouse is common in my own district. A neighbour has a garden popular with many creatures : a pair of kingfishers, for example, bring off two broods there year after year. He is careful each year to clear out his nesting-boxes, and this is the date for the autumn clearing. He found in several of the boxes considerable stores of nuts and other such foods, and three were in actual occupation of dormice. In lieu of the field mouse's " wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble" they had found shelter, before regular' hibernation, in the relics .of the nests of tits. Some child complained of its pet dormouse that it had no habits, but one habit is certainly to seek protection in artificial homes. In my experience the dormice have a peculiar affection for old bee-hives.

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A New Threat At the same moment that some have regretted the paucity of 'dormice others have raised an alarm about their increase. About twenty miles west of the parish where the nesting-boxes were invaded by the British dormice, an imported foreigner kiioivn as the squirrel-tailed' dormciuse has 'made a sudden appearance. It is reported that over seventy were trapped at Tring ; and, according 16 the Field, the little creature is ' very harmful. Like the black rat (which vanished but is now multiplying rapidly) it is fond of houses, and a good climber. The animal 'has been seen in a good many counties, and local inforMation about it is needed. The release of such an animal was as rash an experiment as the conscious releage of the grey squirrel and aecidental release of the musk-rat.

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Winter Homes

Why should we not provide hibernacula or homes for other creatures than birds? I believe that in some countries special wintering places are constructed for the allurement of ladybirds (did their name suggest that they should be treated like birds ?). In parts of America boxes are fixed above hotel windows for the attraction of bats, which are as effective destroyers of gnats and mosquitoes as the ladybird is of the greenfly that attack our roses or plum trees. I once found a bat in a nesting- box and have found surprising creatures—once a dead stoat-.--- in old nests. One could certainly attract mice if one wished, and probably bats. Thompson Seton, an English naturalist, chiefly associated with Canada and the United States, who makes a speciality of the study of rodents, showed me once 'a delectable artificial hollow tree, provided with little platforms as well as refuges ; and on these he sprinkled fine sand in order to detect the slots of his various visitors.

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Ironing Petals A number of correspondents gently deprecate the flippancy of tone in which was reported the discovery of the alchemy ' of old-razor-blades when inserted in the earth over the roots of a hydrangea. A number of examples are given with full corroborative" detail of the effect of yet stranger manure than the blade's. In one case a hydrangea was turned from pink to blue by the insertion of the business end of 'curling tongs, which were the only unwanted iron •instruient available at the moment. One suggestion might be really useful to thciae who like their hydrangeas blue. A -partieularly effectiVe chemical is said to be " smithy dust," the sweepings of a blacksmith's shop. It is, of course,a known fact that iron in the soil affects the colour of plants ; and since in hydrangeas (as indeed in Viper's bugloss,- forget-me-not, hound's-tongue, and especially lungwort) redness and blueness are readily interchangeable,' a very slight addition of iron to the soil maY•rhake. all the difference: Some growers 'of hydrangeas attribtite this -duality • of colour on the same • bush to the degree of exposure to the stin. •

W. BEACH THOMAS.