COUNTRY LIFE
A Forcing House The effect of the wireless news on the face of the country has never been conspicuous, as it is this year. Scores, indeed hundreds of farmers and others have postponed cutting their hay under the influence of a series of depressing forecasts. The promise of an early haysel (if the word is still accepted) was quite shattered ; and though young grass has more nutriment than older grass—as the new farming scientists have proved—it may well be that the forecasts were of good service. The swathes in fields when the forecasts were neglected, became rotting mats of fibre within a week. Later growth has been abnormally rapid, and bulk must count for much in the farmer's calculations. The influence of two days of hot sun on a soaked earth were productive almost beyond precedent. The field mushroom, the champignon, the puff ball and innumerable funguses came up in quantity, and, it seemed, in a moment. The bees swarmed (in my garden at any rate) and midsummer, which had seemed a mere rumour, became an almost tropical fact. After two years of stunted growth it was a real pleasure to see tree and bush and grass -all making up for lost time. The wild hop—and doubtless the tame—grew at quite fantastic speed ; but even the hop was almost outspeeded by the sow-thistle, which holds the record among common weeds.
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