COUNTRY LIFE
A Wild-flower List
Open weather may this December be taken to mean weather in which flowers open. We are used to lists made out by gardeners. Here is one made by an eminent biologist in the neighbourhood of the Whipsnade Zoo which, it must be remembered, is tee'd up high on a ridge where the chalk comes within an inch or two of the surface. "Both on November 26th and on December 3rd in the course of a short country walk near Whipsnade, I counted over 30 species, and the combined list for the two days mounted up to over 36. It included fumitory, wall toadflax, common dock, sandspurry, red and white clover, rocket, ranunculus acris, holly, hog-parsley, and 3 grasses in addition to the hardy regulars like knapweed, daisy, dandelion, sowthistle, camomile, groundsel, red thistle, small buttercup, milfoil, speedwell, shepherd's purse, gorse, white deadnettle, a small spurge, and various chickweeds and hawkweeds, &c." A Buckingham correspondent describes the full blossoming of holly trees. The flower on some of my own trees has only just disappeared.
Close Seasons
it would be well if the Member of Parliament who is intro- ducing a Bill for extending the close season for duck and geese would take a rather wider sweep. The present law has some bad defects. Mammals as well as birds are concerned, but the birds come first. As to duck, a good many of those shot in August are rightly known as "flappers." Neither the young nor the old are fit to shoot. At the other end of the scale a good many pairs (as I happened to see last year) are shot owing to their tameness in the pairing season ; and ducks are among the earliest to pair and nest. The same argument applies to partridges. " Squeakers "are shot on September 1st, when often harvest operations are incomplete, and pairs may suffer severely in the last week of January. Partridges pair extremely early for a bird that breeds so late. In the first week of this October I saw a number of young pheasants shot that were hardly bigger than partridges and very weak on the wing. Of course it is only an outlying spinney or what not, in which poaching is an easy job where such early shooting is practised ; but why fix the beginning of the open season at a date that is generally disregarded? In regard to mammals it is a usual practice to hunt otters at the height of the breeding season, and the ideal of" a May fox" is still cherished in some hunts. It would be all to the good if partridges and pheasants had a fortnight more of security given them in September and October ; and common humanity suggests that otters and foxes were allowed to bear young in peace.
Two Preserves
On the subject of the protection both of birds and mammals it is in season to mention that the R.S.P.B. has issued a very dainty little Christmas card, " featuring " that once but no longer rare bird, the Dartford Warbler ; and Ulaws (which is the name of the University of London's Animal Welfare Society) two neat and withal humorous woodcuts. This society, which has done a d6l of useful work and has shown itself admirably free from excessive sentimentality, may combine with other societies of a like nature and perhaps help to form an inter- national organisation. Protection needs international co- operation, not least the protection of duck, which, it is thought, have been seriously reduced in number by excessive slaughter outside our particular island. The emission of waste oil, which is still nearly as bad as ever, as some recent Cornish experiences witness, especially needs the co-operation of the nations.
Denmark Revisited
Most of us have been taught to believe that farming is better understood and more practically carried on in Denmark than in any country in the world. And in many respects the reputa- tion is sound. The co-operative organisation is as nearly as maybe perfect ; and Government and farmers have worked in absolute accord. The land is the staple industry ; and no peasantry is better educated or of a finer type. The truth of all this still permits the query : does farming in Denmark pay? A special enquiry has been made by the Economic League, which
has an essentially scientific attitude, and the results have been published in a sixpenny pamphlet of a new sort. I read it with the special desire to know whether my own impressions on a recent visit were corroborated. "Denmark Revisited" is a form of economics without tears. The harshness of statistical news is hidden under a gay and lighthearted description. Full justice is done, for example, to the rapidly increasirg perception of the charm of Copenhagen as a tourist resort. The essen- tial moral, nevertheless, is plain enough, and the conclusion serious enough. Farming in Denmark may pay five per cent. but the debt on the capital expended is becoming larger ; and the debt, so it seems safe to infer, would swallow that five per cent., leaving a negative result. How does this compare with England ? Fortunes of considerable girth have been made here and there by growers of special crops, hops, tomatoes and daffodils among them. Many peasants in such favourable districts as South Lincolnshire have risen to be farmers and landowners on a considerable scale. The reverse of the medal is more often proclaimed. Compare the wolds of Lincolnshire (which will be remembered by the Minister of Agriculture) with the alluvial plains ; and you will wonder whether coastal gains are not wiped out by upland losses. You will find such a contrast not only between the good soils and the bad, but within almost any parish. Did not one very able Member of Parliament offer a standing bet that no one could find a parish where one farmer was not making a profit? His challenge was never accepted.
Medicinal Plantain
Two notes on topics recently discussed on this page come from different parts of the Empire, one from a man of science in British Columbia, the other from a veteran observer of birds in New Zealand. The Canadian is interested in the question of using various weeds as vegetables of a health- giving quality. To give one example, the dandelion is regarded throughout France as one of the healthiest of all salad plants ; and, if properly bleached, it is also very agreeable. On this weed there is a great deal of evidence ; and of course the essence of the plant is much used in medicine. Is there any similar evidence about the maritime plantain ? That is the gist of the question. So far as I can discover it has not been used for food in England, and it will probably be news even to scientific botanists that it contains iodine. The plant grows very freely, to give a purely personal observation, on walls, even at the side of roads, near Woolacomb e Bay in North Devon, a district famous for its yield of that health- giving seaweed, laver. It would be interesting to get further evidence on the chemical constituents of this plant, which more closely resembles the greater than the lesser (and com- moner) plantain of inland lawns and meadows. The ItalianE use the rosettes of daisy leaves as a vegetable. If we should find that plantains are a useful food (as certainly they are a useful fodder), how cheap a food and medicine we should have at our disposal !
In the Garden One of the loveliest sights in the rock garden at Kew was a dwarf ceanothus that justified the description : "earth's own compression of the deep sea's blue." Those who made their habitual pilgrimage to that singularly perfect rock garden had their reward. The plant is reproduced in colour in Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Quaritch), which is edited by the Director of Kew. The ceanothus family has, of course, two main branches : the evergreens, which for the most part flower in spring or early summer, and the deciduous which flower late. Among these that general favourite Gloirc de Versailles flowered into November and has not yet lost its leaves. The Kew dwarf is closely akin to one of the more popular ever- greens : ceanothus dentatus. Nearly all of them, perhaps, are best when grown against a wall where they grow feet, even yards, higher than in the form of an open bush. The latest number of the magazine has, as usual, .a number of coloured plates that make the mouth water. The most brilliant is of a species of tulip found in Russia about thirty years ago ; but like some other species it must be multiplied by seed; the convenient off-set is not produced. W. BEACH THOMAS.
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