Country Life

COUNTY DEFENCE.

A very important step in the preservation of its own integrity has been, taken by the County of Hertfordshire ; and will presently be officially announced. The County Council has mow formally elected a Regional Planning Committee, whose duty it will be to defend .the county places from a number of abuses, especially from promiscuous and hurried building. The sooner every county does the same, and realizes how great and salutary are its powers in this direction, the better for rural England. Every county, 'even every rural district, can defend itself if it wants to and has the knowledge. The law of the land gives full opportunity. It can adopt a regional planning scheme, can "zone" its land, can refuse to allow building in the wrong places and the wrong sort of building in the right places. More than this : it can help to ear-mark special spots -for recreational and other purposes ; and by its influence and leadership can enrol the aid of landowners, of whom a good number are already offering to " schedule " their property as permanently agricultural. I should like to prophesy that before long every county will by such means rise in defence of its own beauties. In this direction immense service has already been rendered by the C.P.R.E., who celebrated this month their first anniversary. Instances of practical work may be quoted from seventeen counties, from little parishes as well as from famous centres, such as Glaston- bury, Windermere, Oxford, the New Forest, and the South Downs ; and support is coming from all over the world, not the least or the least welcome from the United States. It is to be hoped that its membership will multiply very rapidly, for it has focussed in its humble offices at 33 Bloomsbury Square all the knowledge that is available ; and it is most ready to impart it to all inquirers. -

* * * PLAYING FIELDS.

It is worth notice that the County Councils arc growing busy in the matter of playing fields. Many villages are at least as badly off as the towns in recreational space. Land in and about the village is bought and sold often at absurd prices, because it is classed as building land ; and as soon as that label is attached, up flies the value. " Accommodation land " is as frequent and as little deserved a phrase. Such land may be priced at £100 an acre, though acres almost touch- ing it are not worth £20. Now, it is essential that playing fields, especially for children, should be near the centre of the village. So we reach this unfortunate position that the only available playing fields are too expensive for a Parish Council or a school to buy and equip. It is not easy to see any other immediate way out than the old feudal way—the generosity of landowners. Eventually beyond doubt land will be scheduled by County or Rural District Councils, and so robbed of its sham value for building.

* * * * HOME-GROWN FOOD.

A' very charming little exhibition, that should do a world of good to any Londoners who suffer from " the urban mind,', has been arranged at 116 Fleet Street by the Farmer and Stockbreeder. It is designed to give a pleasant and precise view of the virtues of hoine-grown food and wine : bread, honey, cheese, eggs-, sugar, meat of all sorts, and canned and tinned fruits as well as fresh, cider and perry. Britain used to boast her vineyards, but though they are vanished We- may fitly call cider and perry by the attractive name of wine. Under the newer scientific methods the process is almost identical with the, wine-making process. In a Hereford factory you might think yourself in Rheims—and the product has as real a vintner's quality. The exhibition stresses one English product referred to in these notes last week, the graded cheeses now 'marketed by the Cheddar and Cheshire Cheese-Federations. The processes, as of canning, cooling, and curing, are also illustrated.

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Ari addition one would have liked to see could have been supplied by' the Guild of Health in the shape of some of the bisciiits concocted of home-growl► wheat and of the whole of it. They are the result of very long and careful experiment

in perfecting the tissue, the taste, and digestibility of the biscuit. But in this sort of food the exhibited loaves made wholly of Sussex-grown wheat are an excellent illustration of the worth of English flour, as compared even with the best from overseas, in the important attribute of flavour. After all, foreign wheat is preferred before British, chiefly because it has the quality of taking up more water, a thing of much more importance to the miller than to the consumer. There is another point in favour of home-grown wheat. Just as coffee is much fuller of savour if brewed from freshly ground beans, so bread is sweeter and probably more wholesome if made from freshly milled wheat ; and for this reason, if for no other, it would be to the consumer's good if all cereal imports came in the form of grain, not of flour or farina. Even those who plead for this plead wholly on the ground of the need of more and cheaper wheat offals and forget this other not unimportant argument. * * * A Doc's VOCABULARY.

Correspondents differ widely on the subject of a dog's under- standing of words. Here is a list of words alleged to be under- stood by a particular dog, a very particular dog, a -liver-and- white spaniel who felt and inspired great affection within the family circle. His vocabulary has been certified as consisting of ten words : " here ; sit ; heel ; mat ; basket ; pussy ; fetch ; seek ; shooting ; Bobs." It is not long ; and the dog had a wonderful knack of understanding the subject of con- versation ; and yet I doubt whether any word in the short list would really be understood apart from particular occasions or emphasis. " Pussy " is the one exception. The sibilants of that phonetic word acted very certainly on the dog's jealousy—that perhaps necessary defect of its great virtue of affection.

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CHRISTMAS SATURNALIA.

A good many emissaries from urban markets seem to have confused Christmas with the Saturnalia, those curious Latin ceremonies that so closely suggest Christmas. The cutting of evergreens is one common attribute ; and the first organized marauders began their attacks on holly hedges—and even bushes on private land—well in time for the Saturnalia, but so early that the leaves must be withered by Christmas-time. I could indicate lanes where no bush or tree has a top ; and understand that much more value attaches to a bough that has the appearance of a tree. It is a pity ; for the holly finds it especially hard to recover the loss of its central shoot. How curiously eclectic are the popular methods of celebrating Christmas ! The holly is pre-classical and the mistletoe Druidical. One must hope that the holly does not disappear from its native haunts like the mistletoe. Does anyone know an oak tree bearing mistletoe ? There is much evidence that the oak was once a frequent host and is no longer. The most likely explanation is that mistletoe was once very common—even commoner than it still is in Central France—and so was sown not infrequently on hardwood trees, naturally less susceptible to the parasite. But it is a very capricious plant. It prefers the poplars that are the softest of all woods, but takes kindly to the apple, which is one of the very hardest.

KEW AND THE ZOO.

It is a pleasant habit of the Curator at Kew to put up from week to week a list of the plants or what not most worth a seasonable inspection. If we may suppose the same system to be adopted at the Zoo, those who are in London before Christmas would be directed to their satisfaction to banana trees in fruit at Kew and to the koals or tree bears in the Zoo. Of the animals I saw some privately tamed in Australia and never was more charmed by the utter friendli- ness of an alleged wild animal. They were without a suspicion of fear of anyone ; and if, perhaps, a little, stupid, in the eyes of a race accustomed to dogs, they endeared themselves to everyone by-their mere friendliness and desire to be noticed. It was, however, a little embarrassing to be treated as a tree by so weighty a creature with so crooked a claw.

W. BEACH THOMAS.