LANDLORDS AND WEEDS.
How many small interesting facts are only discovered by help of such thorough peregrinations as a sportsman makes early in September. The fields belonging to different farmers announce, much better than a specimen of their handwriting, the character of the men. Personally I have never seen so rich a harvest and such dirty fields cheek-by-jowl. The thickest cover in any field, not excluding clover, was provided by a crop that consisted wholly of thistles, biennial and perennial, docks, twitch, black bents, dandelion and a mass of the minor annual weeds. The thistles were at the busiest moment of seed distribution. The down floated seeds broadcast over the excellently cleaned fields of a neighbour. The clothes of anyone who walked through the field carried off scores. No bird or quadruped could enter that covert and not thereafter distribute seeds wherever it travelled. Is it really true, as some land-owners declare, that there is no protection against such " sowers of tarts " ? In one case that came under my notice the County Council wished to interfere ; but a member of their Agricultural Com- mittee who went to spy out the land was chased off by the indignant farmer ; and that proved the final step in reform. The country is full of rat and weed breeders, who do injury to their neighbours and to the nation with absolute impunity.
* * * *
Previous page
