COUNTRY LIFE
WHAT is the earliest date at which harvest has opened in England? The earliest within the circle of my information is June 30th. A fine farmer who exercised his craft where now the Welwyn Garden City flourishes said in effect to one of his children in the spring of 1893: "I have never seen •a harvest begin in June, but I may this year." In the sequel he fulfilled his own aspiration and began to cut his minter oats on June 30th. It is more than likely that this record (if it is one in the wrong sense of that misused word) will be broken this year. A common country estimate is that grain is ripe six weeks after it shoots, after the ear juts out clear from the spathe. Many crops reached this stage on or about May 20th. Even spring-sown barley has been in full view for some weeks and many of tha, wheats are hardly behind the oats. Of course, the weather of the coming weeks is crucial ; but ears once fully formed ripen steadily whatever the weather All the grains have the appearance of being bumper crops. May summer thunderstorms leave them upright and the birds born in them undrenched!
Routed Rooks
On the borders of Kent and Sussex stands a very large elm-tree, colonied for the last few years by rooks. In this tree and a few smaller hedgerow elms near-by some sixteen nests were built this year, and by the second week in April they contained clutches of eggs, some few perhaps fledglings. Suddenly the whole colony vanished: every nest was deserted and not a rook has been since seen. There was no shooting or bombing in the immediate neighbourhood. An old countryman, when interrogated, took the matter calmly as an ordinary event. His theory was that "an old crow had come among them," and indeed a carrion crow had been noticed thereabouts. The explanation is probably true. Several cases are on record where a pair of carrions have routed a rookery after attacking the young in a nest or two, but the surrender of the rooks is strange. The two species are closely allied, and the rook, if slightly inferior in the beak as a hostile weapon, is as large as the crow. Birds are often the worst enemies of birds. One year almost every nest in a garden near me was ravaged by a red shrike, which visited the garden with great regulakity about 6 o'clock every evening.
A Foot Rule A land girl, walking with a scythe over her shoulder, was hailed by an old countryman with the question: "Are you going upp'ards? " When she asked for the inner significance of that esoteric question, she got this explanation. "In my time, when we were old enough to cover six daisies with our foot, we were sent up to Middlesex a-mowing." It seems that you go " up," to that county as well as to its principal town. The measure of a man's size is new to me—ex pede Herculem.
Country -Words
Controversy on the difference of meaning between sickle and fagging or bagging hook has once again arisen, but one point—as it seems to me— has been omitted. I have never heard a countryman use the word sickle at all. He prefers other words whatever the build of the weapon. Most of them are variants on "fagging." Literary persons have a like preference for sickle as the generic word, and by the same token they are wont to prefer " stook " (which is first Scottish and then literary) before "shock," which is the exclusive favourite of English labourers. Why should the two schools quarrel? After all, you really couldn't talk of the "fagging hook moon," and Ruth "praising God among the stooks" makes a pleasing allocation.
In the Garden
The most agreeable cooked vegetable I have tasted of late consisted of the outer leaves of lettuces of which the centres were eaten as salad. Another agreeable dish is made of the tops of the broad beans. These should be removed when the last of the flowers begin to shrivel. Thus a good dish is provided and the fly is kept at bay. The excellence of new potatoes got from self-sown tubers (sufficient on one farm to supply several families) suggests that the experiment may often be worth while as a deliberate act. Many people have been enjoying green peas for some weeks, but for this production cloches were used in the early stages.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
The fact that goods made of raw materials in short supply owing to war conditions are advertised in this journal should not be taken as an indication that they are necessarily available for export.
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