COUNTRY LIFE
Flowers versus War II faut cultiver notre jardin. On the day when all the talk was of war and its calamity seemed inevitable, I spent an hour with a countryman who had devoted the last forty years of a very long life to the making of beautiful flowers and- to their cultivation. Some of them have been named after him and more will be. He has worked on scientific lines, of course, and owes a debt (though not in respect of perhaps his greatest success) to the law of Mendel, that old Austrian monk, who made his discovery during times of tumult in the still tumultuous regions of Europe. Perhaps both these men of science, certainly the one of whose Western garden I write, were led to their achievements by a sheer love of the beauty of flowers. The leaf of a copper beech, not only precious petals, was held up to the light for me to regard its sunset hues. How at such a time could one help thinking of the war-battered Candide's immortal maxim : it faut cultiver notre jardin? If only that sentiment would prevail in the world !
Starlings' Excesses
We have all watched starlings at the task or amusement of dibbling the lawn or meadow with their beaks, which teem to be expressly formed for this purpose, though no one has yet decided whether the holes are experimental or are directed to a known object. As a rule the birds do the lawn a service, and not only by their destruction of noxious grubs —of wire worm or of click beetle or cf the soft whitish bloated grubs of the cockchafer. The beaks algo aerate the lawn in the manner of a spiked roller, and indeed on some fairways it is not always easy to make sure whether many birds or the roller have been at work. The starlings are benefactors, in general, but exceptions must be granted. I was shown the other day a school cricket-ground that was not dibbled but ploughed by the birds. The soil is not very congenial to grass, being rather peaty, and so light that an indifferently cohesive turf is formed. The starlings had so scuffled the close-cut surface that it was covered with morsels of turf leaving blackish patches of sheer earth in their stead. The birds made as bad a mess of the field as larks, which are in general a benefaction, will now and again make of a patch of wheat. Another sort of objection to the starling comes from Scotland. The roosting hordes seem to be worse than usual this year, and to have gathered earlier than usual into vast murmurations, to use Mistress Juliana Berners approved word : isolated woods or shrubberies have been so beset as to be in danger of destruction. Such roosting flocks have been successfully smoked out ; but the most effective measure is a repetition of loud noises at night. The gun serves, but squibs and crackers are said to be better. A very complete ousting of the birds by this method was reported some years ago by the Country Gentleman's Association. Whatever method is used, it must be repeated over a succession of nights ; and even these methods have failed in parts of Canada, where the bird is even more numerous than here.
Galloway Bracken
A native of the south-west of Scotland, returning home after a great many years' absence, was appalled by the change of scene due wholly to the advance of bracken. It had eaten up the heather which had made one hillside glorious and advanced a long way into a valuable sheep-run. The sheep had been routed not only by the smothering of the fodder but by the flies that peculiarly flourish in the fern. The same sort of change of scene due to the same cause was pointed out to me by a very angry shepherd in Merioneth. As it happens, the very best endeavour that ever I saw to deal with bracken was on a large sheep farm—equipped with many modern devices—in the same district. Three cuttings in the year for two years had completely wiped out the bracken, and the succeeding grass was excellent. Since then better machines have been invented and the process has been cheapened. On one of the Western Scottish islands the advance of the bracken has been so solid and rapid that fears have been expressed for the existence of the red deer, which have abounded there. ' The food supplies, eaten up by the bracken, already grow insufficient and the deer have been quite exiled from some favourite feeding-grounds.
The Stoat's Secret A Scottish gillie, who possesses both an extensive and peculiar knowledge of his native natural history, has suggested a completely new theory to explain an old myStery. It is a well-known fact that animals, including rabbits and birds, are in some measure charmed by stoats. They seem quite to lose their sense of self-preservation ; and in spite of their natural fear of such vermin allow themselves to be caught without attempting flight. The stoat dances in front o7 them and they watch till the power of movement appears to leave them. Now this gillie on one occasion saw eight stoats in a group disappear into a cairn of stones, and sitting on a stone to await their exit, he shot them one by one, as close range. When it was all over he found himself scarcely able to move. He was both sick and giddy ; and attributed his strange sensations solely to the strong smell of the stoats. His belief is that this is the miasma that deprives the stoat's victims of their usual power of movement. It is a queer theory. Has anyone, I wonder, ever noticed whether stoats manoeuvre to the windward of the animals they attempt to charm ?
A Maternal Weasel
Here is the true story of a weasel that was told me by the same observant naturalist as reported the stoat theory. He was driving his car along a west country road when he saw a weasel crossing the road with something in its mouth. The frightened animal dropped its burden and the observer pulled up his car abruptly to see what it was. To his surprise he found it to be a young weasel, nearly fully grown but for some reason very weak on its legs. The mother watched hi§ examination from the other side of the road, and after a little began to dance up to him uttering loud and, as he said; surprisingly alarming cries. At last it dashed up to him, picked tip her youngster by the scruff of the neck and carried it off into the hedge. Whenever I have seen young weasels they have seemed particularly good movers, - though they have kept very close to their parent. The weasels, of course, habitually carry mice and other victims in their mouths for long distances ; and might well subject an incapable child to the same mode of transport. The cry of the weasel is peculiarly sharp and arresting and is used at times of crisis. I have seen a dog, in close pursuit of a weasel, stop suddenly as the cry was given out, and the moment's delay saved the weasel's life.
In the Garden In a western garden of which much was given up to the scientific study of plants, one of the gayest patches occupied the most unlikely of spaces. It encircled the trunk of a large and spacious conifer. The ground was bright both with the leaves and flowers of cyclamens. The ground was a little too dry for them within about a foot of the trunk, but for the rest they flourished and have for some while flourished as if the conditions were exactly to their choice. The cyclamen of course is generally known as a lover of woods. I saw recently some beautiful patches of the autumn-flowering sorts in full blossom in an open wood in East Anglia. It is an ingenious adaptation of this affinity to use them exclusively for covering the else rather barren surface underneath a single tree on a lawn. It is a policy of despair, though not unusual, to. cover such spaces with creeping ivy, or other almost funereal foliage when so lovely a plant as the cyclamen, blossoming at a season when flowers are scarce, will find itself at home. When the space is very wide or rather rough superior advantages may be claimed for so lusty and withal lovely a plant as the Rose of Sharon, which likes being clipped and kept tidy; but it has no claim to a monopoly. The circle under the fir was at least as bright as a neighbouring bed in the open lawn, which consisted wholly of Echeveria interspersed with autumn crocuses (which incidentally were flowering out of unplanted bulbs, laid on the surface). What to plant under trees is a subject very much studied by owners of woodlands, but often neglected by gardeners. It deserves more study and more notice by the
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