COUNTRY LIFE
MANY more people than ever before have realised the poet's truth that September is the "season of mellow fruitfulness," is perhaps the most satisfying month of the year. The fields have been populous beyond precedent with food-gatherers of many types. Tons of blackberries have been gathered by teams of grandfathers, mothers and children from the towns, who picnic on field and common and return with full baskets, for the crop is immenae and well-ripened. Mushrooms, too, have been plentiful, and any attempts by farmers to keep off pickers have as a rule been vain. If any local caterer wishes for a dish he must be up rather earlier than the lark. It is a tribute to our hopeless conservatism that only the one mushroom, Agaricus carnpesins, is recognised ; Cham- pignons and puffballs and often horse mushrooms are untouched ; and no one thinks of gathering the common shaggy-cap, which (I am re- minded) has been in the past much used for ketchup, in its " deliquescent " state, and is excellent as a vegetable before it becomes of that unattractive consistency. A number of books give some account of the mushrooms that are edible and poisonous. Perhaps the cheapest and most generally useful, though it is not exhaustive or of much use to students, was published with coloured illustrations by the Ministry of Agriculture, and doubtless can still be obtained. It gives very plain and unmistakable advice on identification. One unfortunate result of the general greed for food has been the pilfering from allotments both by manoeuvring soldiers and civilians. No onion lies safe in its bed.
Wanted : Gardeners A large number of country dwellers who have gardens of some girth are entirely without gardeners ; and being too old or infirm or ignorant, or perhaps a little idle, they see the sum of food diminish. They have in the past supplied a good deal to their neighbours, especially in the way of seedling plants. The total collapse of the flower gardens is I melancholy sight, but this is of little concern compared with the decline of the potager. A solution has been found here and there by increasing, not diminishing, the area of cultivation. It was found that if an allot- ment were added it was not difficult to secure an efficient land-girl. If it is merely the question of a private garden, such recruits seem to be discouraged, not wisely in many cases. It is, however, recognised that the allotment is almost as important as the farm.
Country Names A student of old country words and superstitions, writing from a vicarage in Kent, tells me that the gossamers (which alarmed some A.R.P. authorities) were once called "Our lady's threads," and were generally classed as meteors in the original sense of the words, that Is phenomena betwixt heaven and earth. That spiders were the makers at this gossamer was not suspected. A writer in the early seventeenth- century who quotes this name also explained the origin of the wind, as being "breathings of the earth." On this subject a child of m■ acquaintance was convinced that trees were the makers of winds, but kevb a little puzzled to find the wind rather less strong near its supposed source! A. foolish child ; but that genius Francis Bacon wrote down quite as ingenuous theories in his search after the definition of heat.
In the Garden It seems that the public, which is usually very shy of any vegetable not common in the greengrocer's shop is now clamouring for the "unusual food," like Nebuchadnezzar. For example, one of our chief seed merchants and students of the subject grew at one time such a purple single-headed broccoli as I referred to some weeks ago, but could create no demand whatever. There has been a vicious circle, he says. Th.= grower will not grow because the greengrocer does not demand. The greengrocer does not want the unusual vegetable because the public does not know it and refuses to risk it. The public cannot know a because it is not in the shops. As a good many acres of the purple broccoli are being now grown, we may hope that its cult will be developed. An interesting lecture before the R.H.S. some years ago has been sent to me. It ends with a complaint of the misuse of the names broccoli and cauliflower, and urges that cauliflower should denote the single-headed sorts and broccoli the sprouting types. Among the rarer vegetables which have greatly increased in favour during the war is the kohl rabi, which is always well worth a place in the garden, but, like Dr. Johnson s Scotsman, it must be " caught young." The big bulge is always string. W. BEACH THOMAS.
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