The Sanctity of England
It is appropriate both to the date and to general fitness that the National Trust should have taken up its war-time head- quarters near West Wycombe, the beautiful village that it owns, while the Council for the Preservation of Rural England is not so far off at Disraeli's old home. Never was the scene lovelier. The beech trees, which are the crown of autumnal beauty, are at their best ; and this year colour in general seems deeper than usual. The elms are not, as often, a light yellow, but of old gold. Both the hornbeams, often very dull in hue, and the oaks follow the example of the elms. The quite excep- tional wealth of berry makes the hedgerows almost independent of leaf. They are richly and splendidly arrayed without their help. No garden shrub of any sort is superior this autumn, at any rate, to the spindle. Its leaf turns a bright colour, but now that the leaves are gone one wonders where they found lodgement, so close and continuous are the pink and orange berries. Incidentally, I once tried to grow the spindle as an ornamental shrub in the garden, but was forced to uproot it for the reason that it is the host plant of the bean fly, and was often blackened by the pest. The bush must be kept as far from the bean patch as, say, the anemone from the plum tree.
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