COUNTRY LIFE
SOMETHING was said last week of land reclamation at Rothamsted. A yet more interesting and important endeavour is nearing completion in the Fens, where about eight thousand acres are prepared for retrieval. Much of the land, as at Burwood, is far below river level, but the relic of the oak forests that covered the district in neolithic days are continually being struck. The peat (as I have seen in a good many extracts, including the antlers of a Germs Hibernicus ante diluvium) is a wonderful preservative; indeed, it seems to add to solidity as well as weight. The bog oak, now being excavated or blown up, is an incomparable material. It is estimated —in the Estates Magazine—that each mile of the concrete roads being laid down (partly by the work of Lancashire land girls) brings into practical use about three hundred acres of new land.
There are fens in many other counties than Cambridge, and though the work of reclamation is being expanded, there remain wide spaces that may be reclaimed from the sea as well as from marsh and scrub; and a good many that need further protection from the sea, both in east and south England. The processes are many: burning, "warping," ditch draining, embanking and ploughing by a variety of American, Canadian and Australian specially adapted machines. The land is very fertile; but it was found in one early effort at reclamation (near Sutton Bridge) that perfection of soil was not reached till it became colonised by earth worms and one trouble with the first grain crops was excessive length of straw, It is conceivable that the artificial breeding of earthworms, as well as the addition of the right soil bacteria may some day be added to the various devices for encouraging fertility.
The Happy Craftsman Some critical historians, not altogether excluding Mr. Walter Rose, in his wholly delightful Good Neighbours, write as if craftsmanship were almost dead in English villages. It is truer to say in some regards that there has been a distinct revival. I went this week to collect two saws and a clippers from a blacksmith, whose ancestors worked at the same craft in the same village nearly two hundred years ago. I heard this story of his skill. An architect asked whether anyone could make hinges for the doors of an old house he was renovating. One specimen was sent to the local blacksmith. The hinges were waiting for the architect when he next came. He looked over them carefully and approved, but said: " I don't see the pattern I sent. Where is it? " It was lying there with the rest, but indistinguishable. I once saw this blacksmith in a fury of rage. A competitor in a craft competition had used a file to correct deficiencies with his hammer. Could there be a greater crime in the true artist's scale of values?
Alien Insects Every year more evidence is secured on the subject of insect immi- gration, chiefly across the North Sea, though one immigrant is claimed across the Atlantic! This summer the white butterfly immigrants are in legion, and some naturalists maintain that the species would wholly disappear over England if it were not for the immigrants. Another but beneficent insect is very numerous, the popular ladybird, and their com- pany, too, is increased by aliens. It is even argued that ladybirds come over in response to the prevalence of the favourite food both of the perfect insect and the grub, just as short-eared owls are almost always proportionate to the population of meadow voles. Certainly this summer both ladybirds and green-fly abound beyond the normal. They are un- fortunately much outnumbered by that wholly native insect, the wasp, now busy in devouring the bumper plum crop. They too are propor- tionate to this favourite food.
In the Garden Perhaps the most valuable of the vegetables whose sowing date is this month is spinach beet, which has the cut-and-come-again virtue in high power; but it must be remembered of all sorts of spinach that they take a deal out of the ground and their ex-site must be very generously manured and very well dug (which, incidentally, is the literal meaning of manure). Among flowers, hollyhocks dominate the garden. I saw one of these this week that looked like a tree. It had fifteen big branches on its nine foot trunk. Might it not be worth the while of florists to select for this branching habit, which is unusual?
W. BEACH THOMAS.
Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas, id.
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