COUNTRY LIFE .

A Garden Lament The death of Lady Strathmore, the Queen's mother, came when the gardens she loved and had helped to make were reaching their heyday. She was a great gardener, not only because she could tell gardeners what to do. Her gardens marched with the charm of her character. It was only a year or two ago when a visitor to her newer home in Hertfordshire found her in spite of growing weakneis in a remote corner of the garden watering with her own hand the plants she delighted in. Age could not wither nor custom stale her delight in a garden. Earlier visitors to St. Paul's, Walden, remember after 3o years the splendour of a Paul's scarlet climber on the house ; and its more than common perfection was evidence of the influence of a lady who herself possessed what the country people call " a green hand," or " a green thumb." Her skill and affection have been inherited ; and in a county very richly adorned with beautiful gardens the tradition of her garden is not likely to be broken.

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A Country Capital I have spent a week in Denmark, that model for all the world of agricultural co-operation as the agent of an independent peasantry. Since the peasants were emancipated a hundred and fifty years ago (in great measure by the zeal of the great- grandfather of the present Danish Minister in London), a whole nation of smallholders, farming round about twenty acres, has been formed. Though there is depression at the moment and the number of unemployed is large, the general success of the evolution has been great, socially and economically. Rural bias is so strong that even in the capital, in Copenhagen itself, you feel that you are in the country. There are some existing factories ; but a later law prohibits the building of any additional factory. Verdancy is the note of this lovely and dignified capital ; and thanks in part to the troubles in the south of Europe it is becoming a more and more popular resort for the British holiday-maker. And the capital is found to be as merry as it is green. The farmers see to it that food is cheap and plenty, and the most popular and ingenious of its places of amusement is set in a Royal Park amid herds Of Red deer.

Family Farmers Danish success in peopling the country with small farmers, who do most of the work of the farm with their own hands (and electrical assistance) is due to many causes ; but not the least potent is the limitation of the trouble and expenie of transport. One may say, using a rough generalisation, that the rural population consists of groups of a hundred and fifty farmers who control a factory not more that two or three miles from their holding. They take the milk to the factory while it is still warm from the cow and so slick is the work that the skimmed milk which they chiefly use for their pigs, is returned to them, sterilised, a few hours later. These factories are a model of precise skill, in construction and method. Much the same may be said of the homestead buildings : the house, the cowsheds, the pig-styes, the barns and not least the concrete tanks into which the manure heap drains. This one detail is half the secret of the unusual weight of Danish fodder crops even in a dry year. Many of the hay crops this year are admirable ; and the smell of new-mown hay could be appreciated even from a railway

carriage.

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Yeoman or Tenant?

The whole land system is inimitable, in several senses of the word. Though full of useful suggestions, it could scarcely be imitated in Britain. The small farmers may slowly pur- chase their houses, and pais them on to their children ; but the land remains the property of the nation, who hold a veto on the farmer. At their great anniversary show the stock shown was not selected by the individual farmers themselves. The fittest stock, as the fittest farmers, are selected centrally. The financing of the farms is ingenious. The holder may Pay 4 per cent. on the invested capital (which on standard arms amounts to about Li,soo) or he may pay on a scale decided by the price of certain standard commodities. in this case the interest may vary between 21 per cent. and 6 per cent. He is enabled to make a decent living, except in time of great depression, thanks to the co-operative machinery and the insistence of the Government on a standard product, especially in bacon pigs. Even the butter tubs (neatly made of beech, the prevailing tree in the country) are standardised. These tubs were ingeniously used as tables at a milk bar in the dairy shovir; and you sat on a beech milking-stool to consume your milk or buttermilk. This regimentation of the industry, admirable though it is in almost all respects, could hardly be copied in England because our agricultural produce is not needed for export. Even in Denmark the organisation of the milk needed for Danish consumption has no particular merit. Indeed distribution is probably better done in England. What especially struck British observers was that nothing in, the nature of a " scrub " animal was to be found ; and though our stock at its best is probably the best in the world, the Danish red milch-cow has peculiar virtues. It is surprising, especially in view of the past fashion in Friesians, that this breed finds small space in British shows. Some of the milk- recorded herds give an average of over 800 gallons.

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Tit and Crow

It is credibly reported that the kings of Denmark and Sweden, while driving along the coast from Copenhagen, discussed whether the coast of Denmark or Sweden was the more beauti- ful, The King of Denmark gave his vote for Denmark; and the King of Sweden replied that he quite agreed with .the verdict. The courtiers were a little shocked, till he added, after a due pause : " It is more beautiful because one can see from it the coast of Sweden." However this question may be decided, the Danish coast is charmingly decorated with open woods ; and in one of them the tamest bird and most easy to observe was the bearded tit. I saw the bird once in England— at Hickling Broad—and watched it from a hide at very close quarters for a long space ; but its journeys across the North Sea, that greatest of migratory paths, are not so common as we could wish. It is one of the most engaging of birds. Another and. a more surprising sight enjoyed by a young observer from the bedroom window of his hotel, was the nest of a pair of grey or hoodie crows, who had chosen a church spire for their home. One may say of the hoodie, which is a very predaceous bird, what Tom Hood said of the jackdaw, for which kis sometimes mistaken : "The daw's not reckoned a religious bird Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple."

It is surprising that the hoodie is so rarely seen in the Southern Counties. It is common further north and is very common in France, for example (as a War-time memory tells me) round about St. Omer.

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In the Garden

We are all advised to visit the Royal Rose Garden in Regent's Park without delay. Its heyday is now ; and since the best growers contribute their best roses to the Office of Works no place is better for deciding one's choice in roses. Such questions as : " Is Christine the best . yellow ? " are always wanting an answer. Roses have more uses than some rosarians allow. The habit increases of planting a few flowering shrubs in the midst of herbaceous borders ; and the unprimed rose is one of the best. At the moment in one wide border a Zephyrine . Drouhin which has been flowering sparsely for weeks now 'carries a good hundred and fifty blossoms, though it is not more than four feet high. The spectacle is gorgeous. No one would be so foolish as to deny the value of pruning It is necessary for roses massed in a bed. It increases the size of blossom, postpones and perhaps lengthens the flowering period and prevents ugly long-leggedness. Nevertheless some unpruned _rose bushes should be seen in every garden. The rose is peculiarly tlependent on its leaves for good health, and some of the lustier sorts—Ophelia, for example, and some of the Dicksons—make glorious bushes. Zephyrine, the thornless rose, is, however, almost unique in habit. It reminds us all that a rose is a bush, a shrub, demanding free growth.

W. BEACH THOMAS.