COUNTRY LIFE
A BIRD-LOVER who possesses a rough bit of ground at the edge of his garden asks me to give a list of shrubs that should attract birds. The
question is suggestive, for such a planting might be extended to the attraction of both mammals and butterflies ; and among the trees and shrubs might very well be set some lowlier plants that are enjoyed by seed-eating birds. Michaelmas daisies, for example, which draw the most gorgeous of autumnal butterflies, and evening primroses, whose seeds are a lure for linnets and finches, both grow well in the very roughest condi- tions. As to the evening primrose, a correspondent in the south of England tells me that it brings redpolls to the garden. The most irresistible of all butterfly lures is perhaps clerodendron foetidum, and it is a shrub that adds beauty to any southern or western shrubbery. As to berry- bearing shrubs, the list should certainly include pyracanthus, or firethorn, the quick, the mountain ash, the dog rose or field rose or sweet briar, cotoneaster—beloved also of bees—whether horizontalis or simonsii, holly (though this takes excessive room, since both male and female sorts are needed), nuts, whether wild or cultivated, red-berried varieties of berberis, and an ivy tod and privet, the last two chiefly for nesting-sites. Red currants might be added for the sake also of autumn colours.
Destructive Ploughs It is lamented by some that the ploughing up of old grass-fields has destroyed favourite mushroom-grounds. This may be so, but the ploughing often cashes out a deal of buried wealth. I have never seen so many mushrooms to the square yard as in some newly cultivated grass-land. Some years ago I dug up part of a roughish grass-field for the making of a garden, and lived for months on the mushrooms therefrom. They came up in quantity from all parts of the newly dug land, though few had been seen before. It is an odd sequel that mushrooms still appear round the edges of a shed built on this field. They seem to enjoy the ash path round it. It is quite a good plan to put mushroom spawn into lawns or mown grounds. The short grass is favourable to their growth. There is one school (in East Anglia) where mushrooms are gathered almost daily in their season from both the cricket ground and tennis courts.
Rustic Speech
The agricultural labourer, though his vocabulary is held to be very small indeed, has often a gift of very expressive speech. One of them, a man of great character, working in my neighbourhood, abused a restless cow that he was milking as a "cross between a grasshopper and a weasel." The weasel is frequently used as a symbol of restlessness, but as a hybrid of this nature the comparison is new to me. The same labourer was giving reminiscences of an old uncle who just failed to reach the age of a hundred. "The last time I saw him," he said, "was in the last war when he was 99, and he called me a fool for enlisting; but I said to
him: hattera went, if I hadna went.'" And that beautiful con- ditional sentence quite silenced the protesting uncle.
Botanic Values Among the host of humble plants that may be a source of wealth in war-time is the garlic root. It is being sold today at the rate of 6s. 6d. a lb.—according to Mr. Raymond Bush, that great expert on fruit. Since garlic where it flourishes—as I know it in the Isle of Wight and at Symond's Yat—drives everything else away, fortunate people ought to be able to sell it by the hundredweight Then dandelion, which has always been valuable for drugs, has now a new value as material for synthetic rubber. A writer in The Countryman, in detailing a number of the petty foods eaten, or exported, by the Japanese, laments the British neglect of seaweeds, including layer; but a good deal of this is gathered and sold in some seaside places, Woolacombe in North Devon among them, and the very highest value, dietetic and medicinal, is attributed to it. Never- theless quite a number of seaweeds are good for -food (as well as manure), and more knowledge is needed.
In the Garden Experiments have been carried on of late in the growing of potatoes on the flat; and some of the results suggest that earthing up may 13: an unnecessary process. All custom is against the view; but it happens that on one allotment almost at my door by far the most prolific roots were from a few self-sown potatoes on which no labour had been spent. Those who are spraying their fruit trees, as all orchard owners should, will be wise to prune first ; but where space is wide the less drastic the pruning the better, except on cordons and wall fruit and young Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas, Id.
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