Country Life
LAMMAS LAND.
A considerable area in "our parish" is known as Lammas land. It belongs to the parishioners from August to February ;
and to the fanner for the other six months. One farmer, of strict habits and Scottish parentage, used always to go down at noon precisely on August 10th and formally unchain the principal entrance gates. If the date was Sunday he went down with a lantern just before midnight on Saturday, for he was a great Sabbatarian. His careful habits are quoted to-day with admiration, became a nice question in law and custom has recently arisen. Gipsies encamped there after extracting leave from the farmer. Could he give it ? Could he sublet ? Hoc in discrimine agendum est. Public opinion has been greatly stirred. The Lammas land is very rarely used through the autumn and winter six months, but it is a privilege to be jealously guarded. Supposing caravanners, gipsy or other, desire leave to encamp, who can give it ? Can the parish council ? In practice the only people who have been able to disturb encampments on neighbouring commons are the sanitary inspectors, who can insist on a sufficient water supply. The date of Lammas, which should be August 1st, appears to vary in different localities ; and since it means loaf-mass, one would have thought August 1st a too early date for baking the first flour of the year.
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