OLD MILLS
Don Quixote tilted at windmills, but there were enough of them about in his day. When a reader sent me a little brochure published by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings' Windmill and Watermill Section, of which I confess I had never before heard, I thought of all the watermills and the few windmills I have seen, some driving in frothing flood with good trout in their dams or outspill pools, and some sailing peacefully in the breeze. Windmills on the plains or watermills in hilly territory, where torrent is commoner than the sluggish flow of streams, are both fast becoming curiosities. From 1929 to 1939, the brochure tells me, windmills went out of use at the rate of about twelve a year, and I imagine that the decline in the number of watermills is now equally rapid. There is one old mill not far from my house, but I am sorry to say that its wheel has long since rotted and bogged into its now earth-choked sluiceway. One day windmills and watermills may _become as rare as old ice-houses, or as unique as burial barrows, so it is plain that one should support their preserva- tion if at all possible. Even Don Quixote would have done so, I am sure, turning his lance to latter-day, less beautiful things.
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