COUNTRY LIFE

A Poisoning Campaign "They love not poison who do poison need " ; but a great number of people, including a Government Department, are steeling their hearts, and organising the regular, methodic wholesale use of poison. For the last year or two, on one piece of waste ground, I have seen men going round with immense cylinders and a pipe-pump for the purpose of keeping down the rats which have honeycombed much of the land and rubbish heaps. The gas that they use is very efficient, and so far as such things can be, humane. The work is quick and thorough. Over the same piece of ground the rabbits are now very much more numerous than the rats. In the evening you might think that the place was a rabbit farm. You may see many score at a single glance. In this neighbourhood scarcely a blade of fresh grass is left. In the view of the farmer a fifteen-acre field had not feed enough to support one horse. It seemed to me that the growth of thistles and ragwort were in part to blame ; but it was strictly true that the field, which had been very fair grass, was barren as a desert ; and the rabbits were the chief cause. Thirty rabbits to the acre—and there are more in this place—leave nothing whatever for horse or cow or sheep.

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Rabbits or Stock?

This place provides perhaps an extreme instance of the destructive capacity of the rabbit, if it is allowed to multiply inordinately ; but since they became of little value the rabbits have begun to eat up unnumbered acres of fodder that should be fattening stock. So the Minister of Agriculture offers to supply any enemy of the rabbit with a particular poison, which is very easy to use and very efficient for the purpose. A large number of landowners are now using it. One of them at any rate is urging farmers and others to strain towards the ideal of a rabbitless county. Friends of the rabbit need have little fear that the ideal will be attained. The rabbit is peculiarly cunning in hiding its young, which are many, and frequently produced. I have had some altogether surprising evidence in my own garden of the making of a nesting hole and the rearing of a family at a spot that was visited daily by many persons of whom none even suspected the presence of a nest or hole.

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Scented Irises When we go to see a beautiful garden or, for that matter an academy of pictures, we usually come away with an impression of just one flower, just one picture. A May visit to one garden full of bright and unusual plants left in my memory a good number of colours and shapes of flowers, but just one smell. Walking across a gravel drive, outside the garden proper, a scent, only less strong and sweet than comes from a may-bush, surprised all of us, even one owner of the garden. It had carried quite a long way from just two or three blooms of the Iris that is known as Moonlight. In the multiplicity of gorgeous irises now open to any gardener, those who (like Matthew Arnold in his day) set special store by scent, who choose their roses and perhaps even their peonies for this quality, may well select the irises that are sweet-smelling. Moonlight is not, to my eyes at least, nearly so beautiful as, say, the variety of Daltnatica pallida in which also whiteness prevails, but it is lovely enough and worth its place anywhere for the scent alone.

A Marathon Species

The greatest of authorities on the modem Iris was doubtless the late secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, Mr. Dykes ; and in resorting to any one of his books for informa- tion, one is always interested particularly in his account of the native habitat of the species which florists have dealt with. He himself treasured above other plants those he himself had found in Dalmatia, the Caucasus or where not. I have no personal knowledge of plant-hunting beyond the common observation of the flora of any country one happens to visit ; but once during a fugitive hour or two spent, for classical rather than botanical reasons, on the plains of Marathon I came upon a small iris so dark as to suggest blackness ; and have never since seen an iris at all like it. Doubtless its name and charao. ter must be known to the botanists ; but I have searched in vain for its record.

Rock or Alpine?

Irises belong exclusively to the northern hemisphere and are found throughout it. -How very numerous is the Foetid Iris and the yellow flag on our west coast. Their range is discussed in the latest quarterly Bulletin of the Alpine Garden Society, which remains the best of all illustrated magazines on any special botanical or garden subject. A dozen or more photographs illustrate Mr. Baker's invaluable account of his Alpine irises. On the subject of such gardens the great con- troversy between the words " Alpine " and "Rock" is now settled. Alpine has won finally. It is decided that the ideal garden for Alpine plants should include scree, bog and lawn. The fine grass patch is of course one of the greatest beauties of the Alps. There is -nothing lovelier on the mountains and in the garden than bright and humble plants thrusting up through the green surface, which need not be broken by any rock whatever.

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New Zealand Seeds

More than once I have lamented the difficulty—as in Western Australia and Newfoundland—first of obtaining information about the local flowers, second of procuring seed. The most notable exception within the Empire is perhaps New Zealand. Great efforts have been made--by Professor Wall and others —to collect native seeds ; and New Zealand is rich especially about the foothills of the glorious Cork Mountains. The close and intimate relationship of Britain and New Zealand seems to be extended to the plants : New Zealand plants and shrubs often flourish peculiarly well in their Antipodes. One can now obtain 6d. or Is. packets of New Zealand seeds, and though the supply of some species and varieties is a little slender, the variety is immense. An admirable catalogue is obtainable from Mrs. Poulton, 86 North Parade, Shirley, Christchurch, New Zealand. Such a catalogue of seeds of English wild plants might well be produced. It is still very difficult to procure many lovely plants that are native to Britain. The oxlip is one example.

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The Surrey Labourer A. good many years ago a book was shown to me just before publication dealing with the conversation of a Surrey Labourer and his rather sad experience. I remember saying that the book would certainly not sell but it would be a crime not to publish it. No countryman has written truer stuff. He died without receiving the recognition his mind deserved, perhaps because he missed some of the more conventional gifts of the art of writing, though his prose is as good as Hudson's at its best. Nevertheless he had a good number of admirers, and they have persuaded a larger public to recognise the virtues of his books : the Memorials of a Surrey Labourer and later books of perhaps higher literary character. He was a craftsman of words as well as of wheels. It is now proposed to give him a memorial, in Farnham, where he lived and taught. Contributions should be sent to the treasurer, George Sturt Memorial Fund, The Spinning Wheel,

Farnham, Surrey. * * * *

Country Tales Since Sturt's death the popularity of such country books as he wrote has increased perhaps fivefold. Country stories as such are desired. Republications of both W. H. Hudson and Richard Jefferies continually appear from a variety of publishing houses. Perhaps as good an indication as any is the issue of a number of country stories, Modern Stories of the Open Air, by Messrs. Dent. It is a charming collection, and one of the ablest stories in it is by Mr. H. E. Bates, whose name will be familiar to readers of The Spectator. He is as good at Bedfordshire as was Sturt at Surrey, and (may one say ?) Jefferies at Wiltshire. The same house has just reprinted one of the best, but not the best known of Hudson's books, A Shepherd's Life, and that early Victorian classic, Miss Mitford's Our Village, each at 2s. The last book has enjoyed a long popularity, no doubt deservedly, but is it as good as J. A. Gibbs's A Cotswold Village?

W. BEACH MOMAS.