THE TURN OF THE YEAR 31 



to catch the pollen from the lamb's-tail catkins 

 hanging in tassels above. There is a hazel 

 in the corner of my garden outside the study, 

 and I make a daily pilgrimage thereto in the 

 hope of seeing those little stars of promise. 

 They came early in January this year. So 

 did the aconites, periwinkles and snowdrops ; 

 so did the yellow crocuses very early indeed ; 

 they were fully open in the bleak sunshine 

 of one day in late January, a record for these 

 parts. And in the second week in February 

 our first daffodil was fully out in a sheltered 

 spot in the garden. 



Once upon a time, when I lived in a town, 



in my youth Could not some philanthropist 



so arrange matters that every town boy and 

 girl should spend at least one whole year in 

 the country, amongst sympathetic folk inspired 

 by some knowledge of nature, to see all the 

 changes of the seasons ? The " nature study " 

 creeping into our scheme of national education 

 for the youth of cities is a step in the right 

 direction, but a poor substitute for the real 

 thing. To get back to my " once upon a 

 time " : I used to imagine that there was 

 no colour in a winter landscape, except brown. 

 Trees, fields, hedges and roads, all seemed to 

 me to be brown in winter during the fleeting 



