COUNTRY LIFE
A Preserver's Suggestion All countrymen ought to thank the Council fur the Preser- vation of Rural England for the sum of successful work, of which some record was given at the recent annual meeting.. They have not only helped to preserve ; they have bred the desire to preserve. The vogue of rural England today is indicated by the output of books as well as the exodus from the towns of motorists, cyclists and hikers. Everyone of them should support the C.P.R.E. ; and yet its membership does not exceed the ridiculously small sum (as Mr. Montague Tigg said) of 1,400. Would it not be possible to make arrangements for a really wide popular membership of England's admirers, who would be given some small token as symbol of their intention to be among the preservers ? The Council's energies have been admirably directed and when it is blamed, it is blamed very much as the League of Nations is blamed : on the ground that it has not done everything. Its -mark is seen in a good deal of recent legis- lation, both local and national, and in a general change of heart towards enemies of our green and pleasant land.
The Nightingale's Range
It is a great nightingale year, and its observers, who include most of the population, think that they have discovered a change of habit in the bird. It begins to travel further west and to leave some of its easterly haunts. People used to say that it did not cross the Severn on the west; and it was rare even in the south-western counties. During the last few years it has been heard on the coast of North Devon, has sung gloriously, as I know well, along the banks of the Wye and has been recorded in many places west of Severn. At the same time a good many East Anglians say that it has almost vanished from parishes where once it nested regularly. It is perhaps owing to some such change of domicile that the little owl, much more prevalent in the east than the west has been accused of destroying it. The little Owl is unwelcome, but whether it stalks the singing nightingale I very much doubt.
The Popular West
On the whole the migrant warblers are more numenms in the west than the east. Certainly the wood wren (which I associate especially with Herefordshire woodland), the willow warbler (which abounds in Ireland) and the cornerake (which is found in quantity in Ulster) have as strong an instinct for the west as for the north. How many south and east resorts has not the corncrake deserted of late years ? A great many warblers in their summer journey are stopped by the Channel.
should doubt whether there is any place in England quite so noisy with delightful song from nightingales and most of the lesser warblers as the open woods behind Paris Plage ; but most common of those that face the Channel will also face the Irish sea. Multitude may be the reason. Nesting homes in the southern counties are sufficient for all the nightingales that cross the sea. The pairs may easily secure private terri- tory, though they arc particular, without challenge. If the race should increase we should probably hear them further and further north anti west in this island ; and why not in Ireland too ? That they are too weak on the wing for a long flight is a slur by no means proved.
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Alien Eggs A story told in this place of inhabitants of the Orkneys putting hens' eggs in shags' nests has been misread in some quarters. The device is not the common habit of Orkney poultry-keepers—or so I should imagine—but has been practised successfully by one who was short of brooding hens, for their life is not always long in exposed quarters of those delectable islands. Birds in *sacral are imperceptive of the presence of alien eggs in their nest ; witness the success of the idle cuckoo. I have my-sell persuaded a barn owl to hatch a hen's egg. Birds doubtless vary in this regard, as an interesting experiment of last year will witness. Two landowners who are neighbours differ in their manner of sport. One prefers to drive his partridges, and is therefore fond Of the French partridge ; the other, who has much rough ground, still prefers to shoot over dogs (an almost forgotten sport). They therefore agreed to exchange eggs. Most of the French partridges' eggs on one estate were exchanged for the brown partridges' eggs from the other. The arrangement did not work quite so smoothly and happily as was hoped and expected. The mothers refused the substitutes but were finally persuaded by hand-painting the eggs. Even when the young were hatched the trouble was not over. The French partridge mothers ran their English young off their legs and the infant mortality was high. In all other respects the exchange proved successful enough.
A Great Farmer It used to be said that new ideas in husbandry always came from Norfolk ; and doubtless the belief is a tribute both to Coke of Norfolk, a great Englishman, and in a lesser degree to "Turnip Townshend." More recently as good a case may be made out for the district that includes a bit of Wiltshire and a bit of Berkshire. Hereabouts during the War and before it Mr. George Bayliss, who has just died at the age of 90, prac- tised a system of his own of continuous grain-growing inter- rupted only by fallow. The system, under a rather different form, has of course always prevailed in the Prairie Provinces of Canada. Mr. Robertson, greatest of farming professors, once told me, when I visited him at Macdonald College, that the system would be killed by weeds, which were then steadily advancing across the country. He was justified ; and the one fact that gave Mr. Bayliss's critics a handle was the weedy aspect of his 'allows. So the historic plot at .Rothainsted, where unmanured wheat has been grown for two generations continuously, is often so beset by black bent and other weeds that harvesting is as difficult a job as A well can be. Never- theless, in spite of drawbacks, Mr. Layliss made real dis- coveries in the art of making lamb:, too obstinate for other farming, bring in dividends both to the farmer and the nation. His work as a farmer should be memorable.
Wiltshire and Berkshire His Berkshire farms arc separated by no 'great- distance from the Wiltshire Downs, where Mr.. Hozier has exercised his inventive genius. He has found a method for extmeting value from stubborn and else valueless grasses just as Mr. Bayliss from stubborn tilth. It is a liberal education to visit those Downs on the Wiltshire-Berkshire border. The open-air bails for the mulch cows are the most famous innovation ; and incidentally they have given the labourers who are allotted to each unit almost the position of a small tenant -farmer. They arc ardent co-operators rather than Obedient servants. Rolls-Royces and other first-class motor-ears shoot 'about the Downs, like shuttles, weaving the texture of the farm. They are most ingeniously adapted to many sorts of occupation, help to speed up the general work and produce a labourer of a new, energetic and self-reliant type. The same neighbourhood has produced the best farming literature. The last time I saw Mr. Hozier on his farms I met his near neigh- bour, the author of Farmers' Glory, which made history in farming literature. It is a tribute perhaps to Mr. George Bayliss that Mr. 'foxier now does a good deal of arable farming as well.
The Born Worker If the old doggerel has any point that a swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay, hay will be cheap this season. From one hive in my own garden two swarms have emerged : and in recovering' one of them we were given a surprising exampie of the instinctive Passion for work that animates the honey bee. When the swarm was reached after a long, stern chase, and the bulk of it jerked into askep, it was neces- sary, as usual,- to wait till the whole swarm still left outside should have opportunity to enter the skep and join the queen. and as we watched the Spilt bees crawling' into the skep (with rather tantalising deliberation) we saw some who were on the wing enter with the speed and purpose of Workers. and could see that their thighs were bright and heavy with Pollen. In spite of the ecetasy of the swarm, in Spite 'of tin long trek, in spite of the rude treatment, some of the company coidd not forget their main purpose. in life; and felt a cool- PulNion to fetch food even though no cell existed and no egg
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