THE FAERY YEAR 



money in rent ? The insurance of these weather, 

 time-wasted barns was serious enough if only 

 some kindly, accidental spark had removed them, 

 the problem would have been solved ! But the 

 change was inevitable new landlords, new tenants. 

 To-day, no doubt, the land is being treated well 

 enough. I wish, though, they were not cutting 

 down that row of tall poplars in the water meadow. 



" The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade 

 And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade." 



Next, at any time, might go those ancient elms 

 at Rookery Farm ; or the beeches on the steep 

 hanger ; beeches thickening now into a vast sheet 

 of emerald green, fire and copper next October, 

 silver sheen on a frosty winter morning ; beeches 

 under which the leaf-drift is four feet deep in places. 



It is a sorrow to think of physical change which 

 may disturb serene memories. The disappearance 

 of the beeches of the hanger would be as a landslide. 

 The farm itself has just had its tidying- up for the 

 spring season. There is almost a mathematical pre- 

 cision about the marks of plough, harrow, roller. 

 The long broad strips of green and grey alternating 

 over the rolled grassland delight the eye never 

 believe that precise, straight lines and regularity in 

 field or garden must be unlovely. You could watch 

 for hours the dressing of the large ploughed fields 

 against the barley or the mangel crop. It looks, in 

 the end, as though it had been raked by hand, if 

 seen at a little distance. For whole delicious March 

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