EXPERIMENTS 185 



general practice. No man of any standing in his 

 business likes to be formally instructed, but he will 

 make use of information which he can pick up inci- 

 dentally. It may become possible to organize local 

 experiments so as to yield permanent results pos- 

 sessing authority, but their main function will long 

 remain to provide texts upon which the informed 

 instructor can develop principles and demonstrate good 

 practice. We did not leave the Stratford district 

 without one more look at the Avon, most typical of 

 Midland rivers, which usually winds bank-high through 

 its meadows and washes its grassy brink, but which at 

 that time had shrunk down till it was almost as hidden 

 as the deep-sunk Severn or Teme. Burnt up as the 

 pastures were, we saw some very fine cattle still fatten- 

 ing on the rough, dried-up herbage, thriving as stock 

 will do in a hot summer if only they have access to 

 water. 



From Stratford we struck across the edge of the 

 Lias clay and limestones and the New Red Sandstone 

 to Droitwich, through a poor country as badly farmed 

 as though it were a thousand miles from a market. 

 On the low limestone hills field after field was entirely 

 derelict, given over to briars and rabbits, with the 

 stones protruding through the thin scruf of vegetation 

 as on a Bagshot common or the driest and thinnest 

 scarps of the chalk. It may be true that it is waste 

 of money to try to farm on bad land and make a soil 

 where nature has not supplied the foundation, but for 

 such entire neglect there can be no excuse in England. 

 The rabbit is the curse ; on poor land he affords some 

 sort of return, enough to provide an excuse for letting 

 things drift and for putting in neither thought nor 

 money to turn the land to better account. Some 

 people have no great opinion of the future of forestry 



