COUNTRY LIFE
A SINGULARLY lively debate took place a week ago at the annual meeting of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England; and it was constructive. In an atmosphere of general agreement one sharp distinc- tion arose. Should reform as well as preservation be attempted? Is effort to be expended on salving as well as saving? Personally I am on the side of the salvers and hold that the desert may be made to flourish as the rose. For example: a good many years ago a coal-pit owner experimented with what was called the " conversion of tips ": shale heaps or tips were planted with both trees and flowering shrubs, and blots on the landscape became beautiful mounds. Some of the most brilliant of shrubs, such as Buddleia variabilis, rejoice in sand ; others, such as broom, in gravel ; and a very much larger selection in refuse that contains shah- or ash. It would be a scaddal to leave unreclaimed those areas in Northamptonshire desolated of late by surface diggings of iron ; or the dumps of London refuse scattered promiscuously about the home counties ; or the many acres open to reclamation at the sea's edge. More than this: many of the bungaloid growths that have ruined our villages and suburbs have been so badly built that, like fungi, they will presently " deliquesce." Are they to be left a hideous ruin like the acres of tumbled houses at Galway or Constantinople? The planners of England must seek cure as well as prevention.
The Three Rs In a charming lecture delivered the other day to a village audience by a Danish naturalist, it was said that rabbits and rooks were not permitted in Denmark. And therefore there were none! Should we, in Tennyson's phrase, be " All Dane in our welcome " of such an ideal? The rook, unlike the crow, certainly does a deal of good, though it becomes crowlike if over-numerous. The rookery is a real addition to the country scene. How much we should lose if we could no longer watch the rooks blown about the wintry sky! Even if the economist is alone worth attention those three million wireworms that inhabit some otherwise fertile acres, as well as other hostile grubs, would have things all their own way without rooks or some substitute. And I dare to ask: do we desire the total extinction of the rabbit? Perhaps most of us enjoy its presence in the spirit of Tom Tulliver, who was very fond of birds, that is of throwing stones at them; but no rabbits At any rate let us first endeavour to have no rats.
Poison or Food ?
Perhaps no wild plants are associated with so many popular 'errors as the nightshades. Once again this week it was stated even in print that the nightshades are avoided by wild creatures, though poultry had been known to eat some of the berries without suffering, perhaps with benefit. Now we may perhaps take the pheasant as a link between the tame and the wild bird; and the pheasant has a peculiar fondness for the berries of the woody nightshade. Again and again, without need of opening the crop, I have seen proof of their fondness for these berries by the crimson relics on their beaks. The plant might be grown as a pheasant lure. The undoubted increase of the species, which abounds in the hedges and in waste spaces, and makes continual appearances in our garden beds, is due chiefly to the wide dispersal of the seeds by birds of various kinds. The only instance I have known of birds being poisoned by berries was the death of young chaffinches from cuckoo-pint berries which (according to one observer) are eaten without harm by elder birds. A curious piece of evidence that the tame bird has not the same instinct in such matters as the wild has been supplied at the great Dorset swannery. A few of the swans are occasionally penned up, and some have been poisoned by eating the great water dropwort idly thrown to them by visitors. It grows in abundance round about the swannery, but is never touched by the wild birds.
In the Garden The greatest need of most fruit-bearing trees and bushes is potash ; and those who make their own by the garden bonfire should either dig it in at once before it is wetted or keep it quite dry. On raspberries, and perhaps other small fruit, it is most effective if applied in February. There is a more urgent call this year than last (as witnessed by a recent exhibit at Kew Gardens) for hips—purchased at a shilling for 14 lbs.; and gardeners may be reminded that the fruit of the cultivated rose is as good as the wild hip ; and it is very much heavier. A freak of the season is the early flowering of Viburnum Tinus as well as of V. fragrant. W. BEACH THOMAS.
Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas, rd.
Previous page
