COUNTRY LIFE
ONE morning this week I stopped for a chat with the farmer whose land runs up to mine from the long valley where the stream winds its was westward before turning to join the Medway. The hour was early and he was in a confidential mood—an infrequent one with farmer;. He gave me a sort of summing up of the year's profits and losses, not in terms of money (that satanic abstraction), but in realities such as stock, corn, apples and hops. It seems that after all, the harvest has spread itself out more generously than he had anticipated. Hops, that had looked hopeless at mid-August, took a few showers of rain before the pickers arrived, and swelled overnight like Jack's beanstalk. The only snag was that the hoppers were in a mood of aggravated independ- ence, and used the wet weather as an excuse for spinning the work out. He said that they had so much money that they didn't want to earn more. Two of them asked him to cash cheques. He thought this went against the laws of nature. Twice the whole lot struck for higher rates ; a further piece of evidence which rather contradicted his statement that they didn't want the money.
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