Country Life

A CO-OPERATIVE DREAM.

Some who have the subject much at heart will receive with real regret the news that agricultural co-operation has been finally rejected by the great wholesale co-operative organiza- tions. Some of us many years ago hoped great things of what was then a new venture. It seems an ideal aim that these great, rich, successful urban distributing machines—an essentially English invention—should supply their own co- operative shops with the produce of their own co-operative farms, and bring the townsman and the countryman into a close and friendly business relationship. Here was cheap food for the worker in the town and here was a wiping out of the middleman's profit on behalf of the farmer. Consumer and producer were both to benefit. So the farms were started, one of the biggest and best in that rich and delightful farming district near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. It was started with high hopes, it looked well for a moment, but the " killing frost " came soon, and it was soon known among farmers to be an uneconomic venture. Last week came the formal announcement that all the farms, viewed in bulk, had been failures, and the experiment has come to a formal end.

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All large attempts at co-operation have failed in England, if touched by official patronage. The A.O.S. and A.W.S. of a few years back were signal failures, and came near to fiasco ; and at that the endeavour may be left. It serves no purpose to flog the faults of a dead body. The future is what matters. The work of promoting co-operation now lies wholly with the National Farmers' Union ; and that is a live body, ,with nearly 100,000 members. It is therefore worth blessing or castigating as the case may be. More than this : a great many people, both inside and outside its ranks, are at the moment very anxious-that its present aims and actions should

be publicly canvassed. *

THE N.F.U.

The success of the N.F.U. in its proper work of collective bargaining has not been great. One crucial example is the milk trade. Now the outstanding fact in recent British farming is the growth of milk production, which has ousted grain-growing from the chief place. The dairy farmers have done well, and would continue to do well if the English con- sumer drank milk in anything like the proportion per head of the American or Scandinavian. We do drink less milk than any civilized nation. To urge on consumers the value and extreme cheapness of milk a Milk Publicity Council was started, and was beginning to see' hope of the sort of success that followedmost salientlythe fruit publicity campaign. But at the crisis the N.F.U. withdrew its support, abruptly . in act and cynically in language. The dairying industry has not recovered from the blow inflicted by its own union. At the present moment even the indifferent bargain made with the distributors is not everywhere kept. The price was poor, and a lower is taken.

THE MISSING CREAMERY.

What the British dairying industry needs is the multiplica- tion of the'co-operative creamery, of the sort that Sir Horace Plunkett—one of the really practical benefactors of the human race—introduced in Ireland. Instead of promoting such a reform, which might be of real -use to- the-larmer, especially the small farmer, thechief energy of the union is devoted—at least in outer semblance—to political propaganda. Por- tentous letters, very similar in both matter and phrase, appear at frequent intervals-urging on the Government, not without threats, certain protective measures, against which it is pledged. Whether suet' tariffs are good or bad is not in question. What is of importance in the present depression in Ilarming is that the farmers' union should busy itself, not with politics, but with the practical affairs of the industry, espe- cially and above all, co-operation. If the end of the farming ventures of the urban co-operators shall turn the N.F.U. with energy to this work, it will have done good, and not harm. I understand that at-the moment some of the abler minds of the N.F.U. are working on schemes of marketing agricultural produce ; and this perhaps is a sign Of anew energy directed to the right end.

AN IRISH EXAMPLE.

A moment's consideration of Sir Horace Plunkett and Ireland is worth while. He has endowed a foundation (with 135,000) of which the purpose is to advance his triple ideal, " Better farming, better living, better business," and the three depend on co-operatiOn. Incidentally, the Foundation's library (at 10 Doughty Street) is the best there is. He saved Irish agriculture, and in spite of the violence of Political changes in that island, one of the first acts of the Free State Government was to subsidize creameries and to endorse co- operative endeavour. The- really amazing results in Ireland were and are due in some measure to personality. What a triumphant success it was to put in control of the co-operative newspaper a poet, a painter, a mystic who could convert even poultry to literature and yet never lose sight of the essential point ! And in other directions Mr. Anderson was as effective as " A.E." in his. Compare their methods with those of the A.O.S., the A.W.S., and the National Farmers' Union in England !

• * * PLANNING THE GARDEN.

Garden thoughts are stimulated by the indefinitely pro- longed transplanting season. Their wealth of continuing flower has prevented us from moving the plants we had planned to move (though incidentally sonic few plants, especially certain irises, are best moved when in flower !). For those who are increasing the tale of flowering shrubs, a neighbour's garden suggests that more use might he made of the " weeping standard." Of course the weeping standard rose is a common- place. How very lovely a well-grown Hiawatha may look in this form, to which its neat delicate flower and leaf are peculiarly well adapted 1 But two of the most attractive examples that I know are very rarely seen. One is a ceanothus standard, the other a honeysuckle. Both have a semi-weeping habit, and both continue in flower well into the dark days of November. The form somehow seems to stimulate their production of bloom. The ceanothus is supposed to be a little delicate and susceptible to frost, but these have flourished in the open on a rather cold soil to the north of London without losing a shoot. With a special claim for the charms of the ceanothus, of whatever variety, those politicians will agree who have driven to the door of Chequers through the newer quad, that was added to that most English country house by Lord Lee.

BIRDS AND FORESTS.

It is being asserted that blackcock and grey hen are decreasing because the Forestry Commission is supposed to support the heresy that these birds are destructive to young trees and should be destroyed at any opportunity at any season. One may hope that if this opinion is abroad, it will be quashed. The Forestry Commission have, on the whole, increased the breeding of game by the destruction of rabbits, over whose warrens some of the new forests grow ; and it is not generally understood how much help the reduction of rabbits may give to nesting birds, especially (some claim) to partridges. And on the Forestry Commission some very good naturalists are found. In any case, even if the birds were many times more destructive than they are, they should be safe in the close season. An official pronouncement on the point would clear the issue.

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WINTER FRUIT AND FLOWER.

-ikt what point is the development of so-called " perpetual " flowers going to stop ? Some plants now flower pretty well in every month of the year, notably some of the hybrid perpetual roses. Quite a large number of peOpIe have plucked in their gardens this November fresh raspberries, strawberries, and edible peas. Some of the other bulbs begin to rival the snowdrop-in faving or even anticipating winter, The black- berry does not drop its leave§ till the new ones cone. The fact is that the English -climate is so engaging that plants cannot resist its SeduotiOns. 'Let those who dislike our Weather-

'remember that

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'W. BEACH