COUNTRY LIFE
Courageous Plovers
The birds that build no nests worthy of the name seem to be less sensitive to disturbance than others. You can, for example, hardly persuade a peewit to desert her clutch. In one much-cultivated orchard the driver of the cultivator removed the clutch of one pair of plovers four several times and the bird took no offence whatever. It is the opinion of the local ornithologist that the four eggs are usually laid true to the points of the compass, the thin ends meeting in the middle. Incidentally, the cultivation of fruit-orchards is made much easier by the production of a small tractor (English made) which is little larger than a good-sized dog. It can slip between bushes that previously had to be kept clear of weeds by difficult handiwork. When one of these Ransome tractors first made its appearance at one farm a workman asked where the rest of it was. He could not believe that so small and neat a thing could do the work of a full-grown tractor. The caterpillar system and some of its newer modifications have been of inestimable value in the cultivation of intensive fields of production.
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