COUNTRY LIFE
THE beauty of the English countryside has been surpassing. In my neighbourhood the blackthorn was a near rival even to the wild cherries ; and every fruit tree in every garden has had or is going to have abOut as much blossom as the tree can bear. Bluebells, primroses and anemones are out together in mass. Among hedge-row bushes the wayfaring Tree is already in full flower and the quicks threaten to anticipate May. Alto the grass—Horace's favourite evidence of spring—it grows at a rare rate, as the yield of the cows proves. A certain young chestnut in my paddock is showing the open fan and the top shoot has already grown more than a foot. One must rejoice in it all whatever the frost king may do to check such pride during the next most crucial three or four weeks.
The Labourer's Hey-Day
A good countryman, objecting to a recent judgement, argues that the agricultural labourer was better off fifty years ago than today. This view seems to me to have no basis in fact. One fine type of labourer whom I knew said one day " Life's all work and sleep," and I knew the really cruel struggle he had to feed and clothe himself and his family. Until his elder children began to earn a few shillings to add to his 14s. a week life was just trench warfare without square meals. Today there is no such struggle. The children, if need be, are carried to school and fed there, well and cheaply. The money provides better food and better clothes for the family. The hours of work are fewer ; on the whole the work lighter. A good many labourers are saving money every week. Much more ought to be done for the cottages (some of which are grossly over-rented) and for gardens ; but the cottager himself has today a higher standard of life than he has ever had. Whether he is therefore happier is quite another question.
Picking Flowers A rejoinder to another sort of critic may be of general interest. There is a Society for the Protection of Wild Flowers and Plants, which thinks it terrible that any countryman should refer, without severe condemnation, to the decoration of churches at Easter with bunches of primroses and violets. All flower-picking is condemned. I must confess that it pleases me to see country children bringing home little bunches of violet and primrose and bluebell. The occupation and the presence of the flowers within the homes is humanising. Sir Arthur Hill (for whose sudden death all botanists grieved) started an experiment at Kew to discover whether the ruthless plucking of bluebells did any harm. The experiment was not concluded, but the view prevails that the plucking of the" flower strengthens the bulb and multiplication depends largely on side bulbs, not seed. The violets children pluck set no seed. This is produced-from scarcely 'visible flowers later in the year. Not long ago two evacuee children were walking through a field near my house, when the younger girl began to pluck a dandelion. The elder screeched at her: " They'll be after you, if you do that." Doubtless the Society would approve: Of course, the plucking of rare flowers is a crime, and the uprooting of plants such as prevails—especially against ferns—in the north country ; but to prohibit all flower-picking is a "ridiculous excess " that does definite harm, and to argue that " all the flowers we love best are getting less plentiful" is not in accordance with the facts.
Brave Vermin
A landgirl the other day stopped her tractor to watch a strange fight. A dog (of the Heinz variety, with terrier prevailing) disturbed a stoat and attacked it. The stoat made off towards the hedge pursued by the dog, but as soon as he came within a foot or two the stoat turned, hissed loudly and showed his fangs. The dog stopped and began to circle round, but at each near approach the stoat challenged him with the same aggressive mien and the same forbidding hiss or sibilant snarl, and at last he reached the hedge in safety. It is on my records that a turkeycock fought such a rearguard action—on behalf of its hen and her chicks—against , a fox across the breadth of a wide meadow. I have seen also a weasel check a dog and escape by means of a sharp hostile cry.
In My Garden
The green lines across both the garden plots and the tilthi are most charmingly unbroken. Was ever such good seeding weather iollOwed by such good growing weather? Autumn-sown broad beans are most prematurely in flower. It will repay all gardeners to do their utiniist theNVai of protection for young growth as well as for fruit. blossom. Even "a wire or net protection is better than none. Nettles have fiourished as greatly as other growths, and the experts on compost are sure that the" add an essential virtue to the heap. They are worth having' for this Postage on .this issue; _Inland, lid.; Chet:seas,
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