Country Life

OXFORD AND FARMING.

Thanks largely to Oxford and its new and ingenious methods of economic survey, we can now tell, with a precision never before possible, just what is happening to the fanned land of England, The latest figures give evidence of'a transition in agriculture so startling that it affects the very scenery of the country and to some degree its fauna. Never in history have so few acres been sown with wheat and other grain craps. Among farming units the old standard mixed farm of a moderate size tends to vanish completely ; and this new survey method gives and will give peculiarly interesting evidence on the relation of the size of a farm to its profits and production. A whole volume on farming lies, for example, in the following table :—

Size group. Sales per acre.

£ s. d. Sales per person employed.

£ s. d.

Under 50 acres 11 19 0 .. 168 19 0 50-100 acres .. 9 19 2 .. 166 2 0 100-150 „ 7 19 1 .. 189 0 0 150-250 7 5 8 .. 222 12 0 Over 250 acres .. 8 4 4 .. 316 19 0

The small holder produces most and therefore does the nation most good, but remuneration is low compared with the sum of labour. Probably if all the labour, especially children's and women's, were reckoned and all the produce, especially poultry and vegetables, the pay per unit of labour would be yet smaller and the gross produce per acre yet larger.

* a

On that subject examples have been multiplying of the utter failure of those who may be called unprofessional farmers. Farmers themselves have of course suffered bitterly. It is a lamentable fact of the year that their class heads the list of bankruptcies ; but those institutions that have tried to take the farmer's place have -done worse. Glasgow Corpora- tion has just surrendered its costly experiment and will pro- bably convert the'land into small holdings. The great' Urban co-operators have surrendered their farms, though they bad; of course, ideal opportunities for selling produce 'without paying middlemen. Scores of landowners who have perforce tried to run their own farms have suffered more fantastic losses than can be found in any statistical records. The falling back of some lands to prairie, of many to grass, and of others to forest has begun to affect the population of wild animals. Partridges, for example, diminish. Stoats; rats and weasels, hawks, crossbills, and woodpeckers increase.

▪ * * * A TALLY OF VERMIN.

As to the population of vermin in Britain, a particuNfy interesting list reaches me from Dorset. On no more than 300 acres of land in the neighbourhood of Lyme Regis the following animals were killed between June 1st, 1928, and February 1st, 1929 :- Stoats ..

54 Weasels .. 12 Magpies 15 Jays .. 10 Hawks .. 10 Owls (Spanish)

Carrion crows .. 6 Rata 100 (about) Various .. 10 224

The list from the gamekeeper's angle is suggestive. Happily the only species of owl attacked is that destructive little alien first brought in by Lord Lilford ; and still incredibly numerous in the neighbourhood of Lilford. The number of stoats is immense for so small an acreage ; and my evidence is that they have multiplied remarkably in recent years. It would be of value to the biologists, who are studying the periodicity of vermin, if other keepers' tallies- could be compared.

• * a Faos-r AND MIGRATION.

Belated cold weather has affected our wild birds, and indeed mammals, in a score of ways. Some particularly suggestive notes are sent me-by the secretary of- the excellent "Norfolk and Norwich Naturalist Society," whose admirable shilling pamphlet on migration, published from 31 Surrey Street; Norwich, has been among the " best sellers " in its class. " What has happened," he asks, " to the hordes of wild fowl

that are the normal inhabitants of Europe ?" They ought, you might say, to have come over to the shores of Norfolk in tens of thousands, but they haven't. Did they instinctively knOW that these islands are also frost-hound, and consequently )4 their journey_, south cut out these islands altogether and take some more direct route to whatever their destination may be? As an evidence of our ignorance about migration routes it is a curious fact that of some 500 young Sandwigh terns ringed on Blakeney Point this last summer three Were secured two months later far away up the east coast—one ten miles north of Aberdeen. Every ornithologist would have said that the birds on leaving Norfolk probably started straightaway on their southward journey, but the fact that three birds were recovered so far north of their hatching ground makes one suspect that, perhaps, they return to Spain and Africa by the north and west coasts of Scotland. Who can say "

a * * * GARDEN Visrrons.

Many feeders of birds have been surprised by quite novel and not always welcome visitors to their tables .or food stores. In one Shropshire garden, close to the village and some distance from any wood, a brown squirrel has several times come to pick up fragments, dropped by the birds who are regularly fed with bread and fat hung from the bushes.' This is the more remarkable as squirrels are supposed to be particularly rare in the neighbourhood. A Middlesex gardener was startled one very cold morning by cries of distress and the sound of a large bird knocking against the dining room. window. Hurrying to investigate, she found a hawk (probably a kestrel) struggling on the ground with a favourite black. bird who was a regular visitor to the bird table. " The hawk completely covered the blackbird, and was so intent that I came within a few feet before he rose—in a leisurel way—and hovered for a few minutes over the spot. The blackbird half flew, half staggered to some bushes, and we did not see him again for several hours, when he emerged quite whole except for a limp and a few missing feathers."

THE FOOD OF HAWKS.

This tale of the kestrel is one instance of several that I have come upon lately of the alleged crimes of this loveli? hawk. I have always regarded it as almost' innocuous. Indeed, this idea was and is general. Has the bird changed its nature ? In my own neighbourhood one of them, in stoop- ing at a captive bird, actually killed himself by fracturing his head on the wire. All sorts of hawks appear. to be Multi- plying, and on balance we may certainly rejoieg. The buzzard, which W. H. Hudson thought to be disappearing, is so numerous along the West Coast that there is some thought of taking it off the protected list A rather surprising discussion on its faveurite food is to be found in the local Press in South Wales. There is, I think, 'no question at all that the buzzard prefers the rabbit before all other food, as

the Peregrine prefers the duck, or the fox the rat, or the barn- door owl the mouse. Yet the rabbit is not so much as alluded to in some papers. Can it be that rabbit-farmers are at the root of the movement to take the species off the protected list 1 * * ENGLISH " KNOCKERS."

Those who are familiar with Canada know of the established contrast of the British- Columbian, who are alleged to be " boosters," and the Nova Scotians, who confess themselves to be " knockers." We in England must certainly be classed with the Nova Scotians, and both have given the world a wrong impression of our country, at any rate in regard to its climate. Now-I spent most of February in a Mediterranean island, where the weather was certainly delightful ; but not one day of the period could compare with the charm of the March days that greeted me in England. The night frosts were severe, but the days had a -flavour like none- other. The truth is that 'winter and spring mists and fogs visit London chiefly on days when the sun. is most brilliant in the country, and thus have given the whole world a perverted view of the English climate.

W. BEACH Thomas.