WAR ON BRACKEN 



We disconsolately took advice from presumably competent 

 persons. 



''Oh/ 7 said Everybody, with confidence, "you can 

 get rid of Bracken if you cut it twice in the same 

 year/' 



" Can you ? "and here the Master of Villino Loki, in a 

 state of inveteracy and resentment foreign to his usually 

 placid character, feels he must again speak in the first 

 person" Can you ? " (this is sarcastic) " I tell you, sir, 

 that for the last three years I have cut that infernal 

 Bracken, not twice in the twelvemonth, but four times 

 and more and look at it ! " 



You may imagine me pointing, with an indignation difficult 

 to repress, to some corner of the cleared ground that does 

 not happen to have been visited quite lately by the spud or 

 the furze-cutter. 



"This/ 7 I say with emphasis, "I myself purged of all 

 visible Bracken only last month ! " 



Now, as a matter of fact, the space in question, if not 

 actually covered with the pertinacious fronds, is dotted 

 with scores, nay hundreds, of forceful shoots / some still 

 cosily curled up in their " crosier " stage, others impu- 

 dently stretching themselves under the sun and persisting, 

 in spite of all edicts, in screening its rays from the hard- 

 struggling grass. What chance has humble grass against 

 a thing that will sprout three inches in one night? And, 

 if you look closer, you perceive a host of baby offshoots 

 cheerfully pushing from some deep-burrowing ancient 

 subterranean body, its innumerable little bald heads 

 between the sorely tried, recently established grass settle- 

 ments. 



m 177 



