COUNTRY LIFE

Rabbits and Farmers

Farmers in many places are so beset by rabbits that they are anxious for the municipalities to take a hand. The animals are so numerous that they begin to change their habits. In one district well known to me they travel long distances—as much as a mile—in search of food. The anti-rabbit cam- paigners have a special powder, which rapidly vaporises when blown down the hole, which is held to be effective and so far as possible humane. It is being used on a considerable scale in many places, Herefordshire for example, where landowners have acted on a pamphlet and on information received from the Ministry of Agriculture. It is not the case that the Ministry has itself taken or intends to take any direct action in the matter. It has of course no statutory powers to provide this material, and " having regard to the provision of the Protection of Animals Acts the use of poisonous matter for the destruction of rabbits would not appear to be permissible." I quote a letter from the Ministry. This would seem to dispose of the possibility of the Ministry giving aid, other than informatory, in the matter. I regret that any currency was given to the contrary belief on this page ; but the losses are so great that some change in regulation is being strongly urged.

Rural Revivals

A most refreshing note of hopefulness for the future of local arts and crafts is to be heard in the latest quarterly edition of Rural Industries. The craftsmen both in iron and wood who have followed the lead of the Bureau of Rural Industries and of the Community Councils find that the demand for their work continues to increase. Some of them have discovered a new pleasure in life as well as a new business. In my own district iron gates, door-knockers, vanes, ornamental brackets, fireside implements are all in demand from a local blacksmith, who has the artist's zeal as strongly as Bcnvenuto Cellini himself. He will work without sleep for untold hours to complete, say, an iron wicket gate ; and has such a fondness for truth in art that he is roused to a passion of righteous anger against any worker who should have the hardihood to use a file to make good the deficiencies of the hammer. Many things point to the reality of the general demand for such work. One traveller who makes a business of selling peasant pottery describes a journey throughout France (and incident- ally in the East) in search of local ware. He could supply himself in larger measure from England if there were enough produced. It is of course an undoubted truth that cheap ware produced in a factory cannot be rivalled by the small potter. But the use and cheapness of such stuff has not killed delight in individual work ; rather it has made it more precious. The reaction is very apparent. Holiday makers begin to prefer a piece of real local ware to a glazed mug with the subscript legend " a present from —."

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Lightning Growth

The common local belief that thunderstorms and the presence of electricity in the air are a direct cause of abnormal growth has doubtless no authority ; but thundery weather, as we have seen this week, gives ideal conditions for speed of growth. I have been taking some measurements from day to day ; and the jump in growth coincided with the coming of thunder, doubtless because of the joint heat and moisture. A Montana clematis and a climbing rose grew over two inches in twenty-four hours. A wild hop and a white bryony were not measured but they both grew, I should say, very much more quickly than the two garden plants. A young laburnum tree, that had hung fire, suddenly began to shoot op and is now a good foot taller than it was. A precious tree (pints torinoides) has grown fifteen inches, much of it in the last week. Even a young birch, which is not a species from which quick growth is expected, has grown 14 inches. The most obvious of the plants that have exceeded the speed limit compose a hedge of lonicera nitida ; but this invincible shrub is always one of those that demands the knife at least twice in the year, if it is to be kept within bounds. If there were a competition for speed, I should be inclined to make either the hop or the wild clematis favourite, if exotic gourds were not to be reckoned.

Floodlit Fields

Worse thunderstorms have been known in England ; but I cannot remember quite such continuous flood-lighting. What is sometimes called " summer lightning," which is the reflection of the lightning proper was so expansive that it illuminated the landscape. Green grass and green hedgerow recovered their daylight greenery, and every bush or arninal was startlingly distinct. On consecutive nights the storm fell about midnight and was preceded by this wide illumination. I did not notice what I have often noticed when trees are artificially flood-lit, the strange whiteness of the high-flying moths. You may see them on occasion as high up as the highest elms ; and recently one of our scientific entomologists has designed a sort of balloon trap for studying the popularity of various altitudes with particular species.

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Too Popular Tints

Some gardeners have complained that they find increasing difficulty in growing that most glorious of herbaceous plants. the delphinium, and the reason may be the exaggerated fashion for large-flowered purple varieties. At one recent flower-show scarcely a delphinium was to be seen that was not more or less mauve in hue. Our hybridisers have done wonders in the control of colour and in the addition of size ; but not all that is large and new has the habit of the older flowers. Surely the loveliest delphiniums are the blues, especially the light blues ; and the beauty of the spike does not depend chiefly in the magnitude of the florets. Older plants of the belladonna race have virtues which should be weighed more highly than they are. Their beauty this year is perhaps exceptional. The weather which has lengthened the flowery shoots of the lupin to two good feet of blossom promises to have the same beneficent effect on its successors in the border.

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Birds and Rain

The June thunderstorm is regarded with especial disfavour by the game preserver, who believes that • it is the greatest of all enemies of the partridge. The fear is more often justified in the grass counties than elsewhere. The young have difficulty in escaping from the wet. which drenches them long after the rain has ceased. May we hope that the early cutting of grass has benefited the ground-nesting bird ? One experience leads to the question. A covey of fifteen youngsters escaped from the cutter early last week just before the thunder rain fell, and are now to be seen dry and flourishing on and about the open field. Impressions of the prospects are curiously different, even in neighbouring parishes. In one both pheasants and partridges have hatched quite unusually large broods. In another close by the keeper has found deserted nest after nest of pheasants, and some deserted partridge nests ! In a third, not very far away, the French partridges (which prevail there) are said to have done much better than the English. On a partridge farm in the same neighbourhood no partridge was allowed a clutch of more than twelve eggs. It has been decided that families of larger size usually contain weaklings, and alt preservers are recommended to take away eggs over this number, and put separate clutches of them under bantams.

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A Garden Surprise

Gardens, like other good things, give us from time to time an " unearned increment," a pleasure that we had not prepared. For example, a friend sent me last year some of the sweepings of a garden where Irises are a speciality. For lack of immediate room they were put on a rough bank and virtually forgotten. This week they have begun to flower profusely. They are not irises at all, as they were supposed to be and as their appearance suggested, but sisyrinchium, a variety of a charming tribe, not perhaps cultivated as much as their merits deserve. The flowers. which bloom all up the stem, are doubtless poor things compared with Iris pallida Daltnatica, the name on one of the labels, but they have good garden virtues—grow early, in spite of their small roots do not blow over, and multiply freely. They are great coverers-up of bare spaces, like their