2 NOVEMBER 1929, Page 16

Looking back on the effects of a hot summer, we

may say that it produced exceptional crops of wheat, hops, and sugar-beet ; of nuts, walnuts, and beectunast. If we use the word crop of animals, partridges and daddy-long-legs must be added Some sorts of berries are superabundant. I have a sweetbriar hedge that looks like an orange wall- paper ; there is scarcely a break in the mass of colour. The Pyracanthus is so weighted with berry that it breaks its own very tough shoots. Some countrymen infer that we shall have a hard winter. For the moment it is enough that we have had October frosts severe enough to kill our beans and marrows, our dahlias and even chrysanthemums. The woods, green as summer till October 26th, will be bare in a trice.

W. BEACH Tacaus,