COUNTRY LIFE
PASTEL shades are for the water-colour artist. The countryman vvh,t1 he paints favours red ochre. vivid blue, brilliant green. Farm imple- ments are given startling colour. It cannot be that a thing like a cultivator or a binder is hard to see, for they are big enough. Perhaps, if they were more of a blend with the pastures and ploughing, their owner would have to use field-glasses to know whether his men were working or not. When I was small 1 used to enjoy going to the carpenter's shop to see the painting he had dotte on new and repaired carts. The smell of that thick paint was a delight. The habits of farming folk die hard. It takes the production-line and the paint-spray to change a good bright orange to something more in keeping with these hard times. Of recent years one of the big manufacturers has coloured his tractors and implements battleship grey. As time goes on there will be less and less gaudy show on the farm, and, who knows with the toning down of colour it may become impossible to tell a rusty plough from a new one, a thing one can still do for at least a season after the article comes bright and new to the implement-yard.
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