Country Life

COUNTRYMEN AND FAT, STOCK.

More countrymen visit London during the week of the Smithfield Fat Stock Show than at any date in the Year (unless a Wembley is in being), excusing ,their visit to the shops by going to them ria the Show at Islington. The depression in farming has not decreased at all the tale of visiting farmers or the dimensions and variety of the Show. Indeed in general the Fat Stock Show seems to flourish in inverse ratio to the industry. How does this come about ? It may be that it directly illustrates a particular vital change in farming. Not so long ago the farmer kept stock largely with the object of treading out the straw from his crops and so supplying manure for the next crop. He was not allowed to sell straw off the farm lest its fertility should be weakened. Stock was ancillary to corn. To-day he keeps stock because he despairs of growing corn. "Animal husbandry" sup- plants "plant husbandry " ; and once again the doggerel becomes applicable : "Up horn, down corn." Incidentally, the rhyme has one present-day weakness, for in the Smithfield Show the animal that almost always takes precedence is a Cross with the Aberdeen-Angus ; and it is hornless, a polled breed ! It has all the qualities. No other conies to a mature size sooner or in more shapely form.

No Show quite like Islington is to be found outside Britain. The immense stacks of orange mangolds, of purple swedes, of green turnips, consisting of Gargantuan proportions, are probably as useless as the overfatted pigs weighing nearly half-a-ton. Both are a sort of advertisement of what

• Britons, as fanciers, can do if they try. " Todgers can do it if it likes." There is practical purpose behind it all, never- theless; and the Shows grow more practical. The cattle are less absurdly fat than they once were, though the pig-farmer still is unable to resist his ambition to achieve sheer weight ; and he gets a certain amount of encouragement in this from the judges. Both disregard the obvious fact that what the householder wants is the absence of fat. A great deal of seed is bought at Islington, including the latest productions of Sir Roland Biflen's genius, or the newest sugar-beet seed from King's Lynn. Again, the produce is a good example of the advance in modern marketing, as well as in modern science.

CHEDDAR AND CHESHIRE.

In one respect the attention of all household caterers should be directed to some of the recent Fat Stock Shows. Among the produce a conspicuous place was taken by aisles of finely columnar cheeses, which have a phonetic association with the places where they are made, with Cheddar and with Cheshire. The farmers and cheese-makers of these most English areas have taken the lead in intelligent marketing. They have federated themselves, have organized the industry, and graded the products as well as any Scandinavian co-opera- tive group. Caterers would be both wise in their own interests, and patriotic at the same time, if they selected cheeses with the sign manual of three interlocked C's, or the mystic word Chedderation. Like the milk-sellers near Glasgow and the wool-growers of Kent they are promoting with real success the cause of co-operation, so grossly neglected in the past by individual British farmers as by the National Farmers' Union. Farming prosperity in the future lies in the direction of the new Cheddar and Cheshire system.

THE TITHE ACAIN.

A certain misunderstanding about the tithe and several test cases that are likely to come up next month prompts me to one further reference, in spite of the iteration. The price of land has collapsed and is collapsing. I was shown during the week some of the accounts of one of the biggest estates in Eastern England. About 7,000 acres are likely to be without a tenant. All those acres represent a liability, not an asset. It is reckoned that this may entail a loss of some 120,000 a year. They are quite without value. It is inevitable that very soon the assessment Of web lands (under Schedule B of the Income Tax) will be reduced in

accordance with facts ; and the result must be the remission of tithe on a very considerable scale, for tithe must be remitted if the tithe is as much as two-thirds of the annual value of the land. This regulation (as very clearly expressed . in Leaflet 27 issued by the-Ministry of Agriculture) has hitherto been of negligible importance for two reasons:, first, that little land had fallen to so low a value ; second, that of those landowners who were affected, few appreciated the, position. In both respects there is a change. The object of references . to the subject in these notes has been, to publish a fact of some importance, not at all to suggest that the tithe (made legal by Moses in the East and by Ethelwulf in Wessex in ninth-century Britain) was in any sense an exaction. In pre-Reformation England it paid a good part of "the dole."

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A PHEASANT'S SUICIDE.

In a book recently published (A Shooting Man's (Vendor, -by Leslie Strake) are given two incidents that I can very closely parallel from my own experience ; and the -similarity is curious. The first is the crashing of a pheasant through the window of a room where the shooting party were having luncheon. During one day's shooting in Surrey some years ago tivo pheasants crashed IMO the upper windows of the house, and it was said that neither had shown any -sign of injury before the calamity. I see that in reference to Mr. Strake's incident "Cheviot-" accounts for it by the reflection of the country in the glass. The explanation seems hardly tenable in face of the fact that the pheasants 'all -made so • strange a mistake on the day of the' shoot, and in Surrey the - windows were very high up: A pheasant often seems to us a comparatively tame bird ; but few birds are So .blinded by nervous fears. Walking without a gun I once -put up .a pheasant which flew straight into the trunk of a tree, some fifteen yards off, and fell dead ; and not once, but Many times, I have seen pheasants when suddenly flushed fly into telegraph wires that they must have avoided daily: Part- ridges, perhaps, are blinder still.

THE BLACKBIRD AND THE STOAT.

The second incident referred to above is of a stoat flinging

itself into queer gyrations in front of a perched blackbird, with the supposed intention of " charming " it or at leas4. stimulating its curiosity to its own undoing. I have no theory what may be the origin of this strange hunting device of the stoat, and for myself I have never seen it ; but twice I have seen a stoat carrying the body of .a blackbird. How . does it come about that the blackbird, which as a rule is wary .enough, should be a_ victim. ? Is it because of its habit of scratching noisily in leaves, when anyone may draw near it ; or is it that the dance of the stoat ha,s some peculiar fascination for the species.?

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TAMING BIRDS.

I 'believe we are coming near to a time when it will be a common experience for certain wild birds to be regarded as almost domestic.. - We all know-how tame the robin is, how he perches on our spade if we stop digging, and flies directly doge up to us when we show any sign of gardening activity. The Wild duck will nest in our stables. The gulls orilhe Embankment and the sparrows (and grey squirrels) in the parks will take feed from bur hands: This is 'not- nevi'. St. Francis tamed birds 'better- than we do ; and in the history Of different' distriets are wonderful examples of the loss of fear of marCaniong birds and- indeed' beasts. But of late a few naturalists both in Britain and America' have been singularly succes.sfutin'taming birds by imitation of their notes: The Most strikineetainjile is Captain 'Knight's wild owl, 'which Settles On his head When he calls it;' but there are others '; and it is 'beyond question that those' who • have the power of mimicry earl both call,

young birds and attract Old birds. day, doubtleSS; instruments will be made solely for the piirpOSe: " These hitherto devised' are chiefly for the sake of luring:beasts and,

game-birds to their 'destruction. - W.. BiAthi tuo-UAs.