COUNTRY LIFE
English Primeurs The Royal Horticultural Society, which is the best friend of the private gardener, has begun to cast a wider net. It has roped in the National Farmers' Union. The two co- operated in some measure at the latest fortnightly show ; and at last we seem to have arrived at that " Transition in Agriculture " which was discussed in a book of that title just a generation ago. It has long been charged against our farmers, both seriously and in jest, that no people had less use for a garden. How often does the cottage garden excel the farmhouse garden ! Again a generation ago a very wide publicity was given to the so-called French garden ; and great numbers of experiments were made with cloches and frames in the hope that England might produce the primeurs or early spring vegetables which were imported from France (chiefly the Paris and Rouen neighbourhood) and from Holland (chiefly from the Hague and Delft). Since those hurried and partial ventures were made, English horticulturists have been slowly and steadily evolving their own system ; and at last the English glasshouse and frame have succeeded in doing what the doche and Dutch frame failed to do. At last, not without the help of eager members of the N.F.U. and at least one zealot in the Ministry of Agriculture, we are producing at least as good primeurs as any Frenchman or Hollander, and in good quantity.
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Vegetarian Advance
The achievement is due in some measure to a notable change in the diet of the public. That great American, Mr. Page, complained during the Great War that his one charge against England was the insufferable repetition of cabbage. The lack of variety in this class of food made him ill. There are still people who accept the damnable iteration of kale that has stood out all the winter, without so much as recog- nising the dietetic fact that vegetables are good to eat and wholesome to eat in direct proportion to the speed of their growth : the quicker, the tenderer. Yet such people grow fewer ; and the production of vegetables of a score and more of sorts becomes a paying branch of farming. Last week's show may be taken as the beginning of a new chapter in intensive farming. Such a farm as Major Wilson has brought into being at Surfleet in South Lincolnshire is a new thing. It has already become in some degree famous because of his manuring system. His " compost," consisting of more than half of green refuse from the farm, has been hailed as a novel discovery of great moment, and it is; but the fact that he and others work gardens where two score of men are needed to each acre, is much more important than the compost whether it is the invention of Major Wilson or the Rudolf Steiner research workers. Both he and one branch of the N.F.U. put up most persuasive exhibits at the Horticultural Hall.
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Gold in Daffodils We now produce in England not only the lettuces and other spring vegetables that we used to import, but the spring flowers. Some deny that the wild daffodil is an English native ; and though it is most often seen near houses there are enough examples of remote crops of it—in Herefordshire, for example, and in Westmorland—to justify its title to " native." But however this may be, our smallholders have abundantly proved that Lincolnshire and Cornwall with adjacent counties grow as good bulbs as Holland itself. They are a splendid sight at Holbeach, for example, one of the centres of Government smallholders ; and the R.H.S. proved last week that the research work, the hybridisation and selection, is worthy of native genius. The new sorts are legion, and some of them (especially I find those of the Leedsii type) grow at least as lushly as the wild daffodil itself.
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A Grateful Robin I have been following for a month or so the fortunes of a robin that has a passion for nest-building but no natural talent whatever. During the last four weeks it has been trying to lodge stuff on a platform which consisted first of a pipe that was too narrow, and later of a board kindly added by the daily onlooker. For a week and more after the board was fixed the impatient bird continued to shove over the edge a good proportion of the material it had temporarily arranged. The heap on the floor grew and grew till it would fill a good sized bucket. Some of the individual morsels were of an absurd size for such a builder. One, for example, was the dead leaf of a bracken containing five or six fronds and a long rib. At last the observer could endure no longer the sight of the wasted labour, and decided to take a hand. A handful or two of the heap on the floor was taken up and arranged in a rough cup on the board on the pipe. Since that act the grateful bird has been more careful. The cup began to assume the shape of a nest proper and there should be a clutch of eggs, come May.
The Tamest Bird We are accustomed to regard the robin as much the tamest of birds, and indeed it has a rare gift for domesticity, and, it seems, a natural interest in man, if not an affection for him. It seeks insects at the gardener's feet and bobs on his spade if he leaves it for a moment. It enters our houses, builds nests in our bookshelf, takes butter off the breakfast table and spreads its wings in Sybaritic pleasure before our hearth. There is, perhaps, no general parallel to the robin's tameness —or impudence ; but this year a dweller in Sussex has per- suaded a bird of another species to yet greater friendliness. His persuasive lure is a small box, about matchbox size, which he fills with nuts. When one of the great tits of his garden sees this Pandora box it flies down and settles on his wrist waiting for him to lift the lid of the box with his fingers. As soon as it is open she seizes a nut and flies off with it. Many birds like to eat in comparative obscurity. They carry berries to the shade of boughs coming close to the ground ; and where such a canopy exists you will often find a group of seedling hollies and thorns. A little owl, completely tamed, used to hawk beetles from the wrist of its owner, but having caught the beetle would always spread its wing wide and devour the morsel under this cover. The tamest blackbird of my acquaintance would come at a call to our very feet. Meal worms were the usual lure ; but they were as a rule carried off, sometimes four or five at a time and eaten elsewhere. A particular robin that would take food even from a stranger's hand was never known to eat the morsel within sight. Some- times, of course, the food is carried off to a mate or young ; but there seems to be a certain tendency to regard the meal as a private affair, not meant for vulgar eyes.
Building Material It may perhaps be suggested to gardeners that they prov.d:!. a certain amount of material for nesting purposes. Birds are often short of it. To give no more altruistic reason, it is amusing to watch them raid your store ; and if it contains such rare lining material as the hair of horse or cow, or, for that matter, of man or woman, it will be at once appreciated. When the swallows come they delight in soft small feathers, and will on occasion play with them in the air.
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Delayed Dust
April grows old, and still there is no dust. The ingenious phenologists, as they call themselves, advise farmers to sow their barley when the blackthorn comes to blossom. The blackthorn has been at its whitest, but the farmers' machines lie idle, harrow as well as drill. A famous grain field, lying under my daily observation, has been ploughed these many months and cross- ploughed ; but the farmer still waits an opportunity for hiding the pattern of the mould board under the tines or chain of the harrow ; gardeners on sticky soils still despair of the seed-bed that should have been made a good month ago. One neigh- bouring gardener who had achieved a seed-bed before others, boasted to me that his success was due to his liking for the spade instead of the fork. Ground so dug dried sooner. Is there, I wonder, any truth in the claim ? It is difficult even to mow lawns. The rollers are often completely clogged with wormcasts, though the grass grows with a vigour that delights
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