The Source of Health
English Woodland. By John Rodgers. (Batsford. 1os.6d.) In the Heart of the Country. By H. E. Bates. Illustrated by Nature Abounding. Edited by E. L. Grant Watson. (Faber. tos.6d.)
THE felling of trees in this country during the last war was so wide- spread that a Forestry Commission was set up after the Armistice to repair the damage. Acting on a policy largely dictated by commercial considerations, the Commission took too little account of the funda- mental necessity for a balance between forestry and agriculture and so concentrated on plantings that would yield a quick cash return. As a result, thousands of acres of regimented- conifers, alien to the tradition of our woodlands, began to disfigure the countryside. (In the year 1937-38 the Commission planted 21,000 acres of conifers as against 2,50o acres of broad-leaved trees.) Supported by Parlia- mentary Votes which were entirely inadequate, the Commission cannot be wholly blamed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in twenty years the damage of the last war has not been repaired ; and now, to worsen matters, a second war has intervened.
One of the significant changes resulting from the present war, however, is the growing realisation, in town and country, that the foundation of a nation's health and only true wealth is the land. Life is one and indivisible ; and if, by a bankrupt policy of agricul- ture, we undermine the life of the rural areas, we at the same time undermine the life of the towns. Similarly, within the countrysid: itself, this same law of the indivisibility of all life holds good: it h useless, for instance, ploughing up grass and wasteland and planting every available acre, if at the same time we destroy our woodlands and do nothing to restore the natural balance between crop and tree.
Mr. Rodgers's book is therefore welcome if only because it may open our minds to one of the most important aspects of the national heritage. He is well-informed in history, he seems to know all our woodlands and forests at first-hand, he gives plenty of facts and literary quotations, and he has some interesting things to say about woodland folk-lore. Indeed, there is only one important lack. Out of 132 pages Mr. Rodgers has been content to devote only five to the matter of afforestation. Thus a book which could have been a trumpet-call, inspiring its readers to do something by example and by insistence towards remedying the pitiable state into which our woodlands have fallen, remains little more than a fine Book of Trees. " For spiritual and mental health we need woodlands," are Mr. Rodgers's last words: we also need them for severely practical reasons ; and unless peace brings with it a rural policy that includes intelligent afforestation, future generations will have little to thank us for.
No-such disturbing thoughts will bother the reader of Mr. Bates's collection of country essays. " Perhaps the most striking thing about war," he says, " is its ultimate lack of effect on nature." And although soldiers, air-raids and refugees find a place in his persuasive descriptions, the emphasis is mainly on the rural scene He writes of the Kentish countryside during the first two years of the war: here are the " Great Snow," cherry orchards and bluebells in spring, and a particularly vivid picture of those golden-weather days of the Battle of Britain when fish, lovers of silende, "rose and fed to a new and appalling sound." If the matter throughout these essays is fairly familiar, the manner is charming enough to arouse pleasure at the repetition ; but it is Mr. Tunnicliffe's pictures that transform the book from one to borrow into one to buy.
In fact, Mr. Tunnicliffe has recently emerged as one of the very few country illustrators (Mr. T. Hennell is another) who really know the things they draw. Five of his decorations adorn Mr. Grant Watson's somewhat unusual anthology. Earth, air, fire and wate are the divisions the editor has chosen ; and his- list of contributor includes several names not often found in nature anthologies. Pa ticularly welcome are the extracts from the exact and sensitive wor of Dr. Fraser Darling, whose name, incidentally, is wrongly spel
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