COUNTRY LIFE
A Hedging Champion
The following invitation has reached me, and it is so eloquent of English rural history that its terms are worth putting forth. "I am directed to inform you that arrangements have been made for a series of demonstrations in hedging and ditching with practical instruction at Parsonage Farm, King's Walden, from Monday, February 7th, to Saturday, February 12th. The instructor is Mr. A. Tite, of Hinkley, Leicestershire, who has won many hedging championships in the Midlands and has acted as instructor for many years ,under various County Councils and Hunt Committees with excellent results." It is hoped by the Hertfordshire County Council, who issue the invitation, that a good few men will assemble throughout the week for instruction and will come suitably armed with Long- handled Slasher, Billhook, Axe, Hedger's Mallet and Spade. It is to be noted, not without a certain regret, that the County Council shirk the local names for some of these instruments. Local countrymen are fond of the hedge "Molly," and as they make it themselves they have a right to name it. The county farms or institutes as well as the councils are doing more and more on behalf of farmer and gardener. For example : one of them has this week sent out to a number of women's institutes bundles of the very best raspberry canes, very well rooted, at the price of a halfpenny a root ; and good bushes of blackcurrants at 3d. a bush. These are eagerly absorbed. They not only increase the production of good fruit ; they teach the poorest that it is as easy and as cheap to grow the best sorts as the worst.
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