COUNTRY LIFE
I MET last week an enthusiastic farmer—and farmers are not famed for enthusiasm—coming from the last of his threshing. He said: " The figures arc the best we have ever had. Both the wheat and the oats have threshed out wonderfully." It is, I think, the general experience, both in England and in the north-west of the Continent, that the results of the threshing have exceeded even the very hopeful estimates. More than this, the grain that I have seen is " stronger " than English grain usually is. The wheat's berries have that shiny, almost transparent look that is usually associated with "Manitoba hard." Some part of this unusual quality is due doubtless to the newer varieties of wheat, yeoman and others, for which Sir Rowland Biffcn and the Cambridge Mendelians were largely responsible. This yield of high-quality grain means good profit to the farmers, but those who had to hire threshers and employ extra labour found threshing expenses also beyond precedent, amounting in some cases to at least a sixth of the payment for the grain. Those who will not altogether rejoice in the season's influence are poultry-keepers. They arc told that there is little or no poultry grain or, for a very different reason, pig and poultry potatoes.
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