278 A FARMER'S YEAR 



he has frequently seen the cattle turn to it from any other sort of 

 food, so I suppose that there must be among it some grass which 

 gives it a flavour delightful to their taste. 



As the corn ripens and the ground gets hard the sparrows are 

 beginning to do much damage to the wheat, especially in fields 

 that lie near the village. A tenant of mine, whom I met this 

 morning, tells me that he is * fairly crazed ' with them, and that in 

 one plot they have nearly stripped the ringes which are nearest the 

 hedge. It is not so much what these vermin eat that does the 

 mischief, as what they destroy. I believe that for every grain they 

 swallow they throw down six. Also I hear great complaints of loss 

 from rooks, which, being unable to find grubs and worms in the 

 hard ground, devour whatever they can discover. 



July 20. Yesterday and to-day have been much colder, with 

 the usual north-east wind ; indeed, this evening the temperature 

 is down to 50. The glass also is rising and the ground already 

 grows steely with drought. Three men all that can be spared 

 from the hay- -are engaged in cutting out the swedes on Baker's, 

 No. 34, a slow and arduous job owing to the hardness of the land. 

 In order to get room for their hoes they work leaving a row un- 

 touched between each man, which is dealt with on the next journey 

 down the lines. When, as is the case on Baker's, the land is 

 poisoned with rubbish and there is a full plant of swedes, the 

 cutting of them out is rather a delicate operation, as about a 

 dozen plants are destroyed for every one that is left hanging 

 limply by a mere filament of root, from which the hoe has dragged 

 away the earth in clearing the surrounding weeds. It is astonish- 

 ing that these little plants can pick themselves up again after 

 such rough treatment ; but return to the field in a week or so, 

 especially if there has been a shower of rain, and you will find 

 them standing stiff and straight and not a little improved by 

 the thinning of the family. ' One man dead, another man's bread,' 

 runs the old Boer saying. It applies to plants as well as to human 

 beings. 



