NO MEMBER 



Ploughman and Hedger The Shire of Shires From Ear to 

 e Migrant TLobins The Crown of Autumn A Garden 

 Pond Leaf and Hibernation 



I. 



HE county is freely dotted with &quot; Hoos &quot; and 

 Ends/ and past many of them un roads that are 

 half public, half private. You are not quite sure 



which ; but where they are gated the gates stand open, 

 and all who will may taste at least the external beauty in 

 which these gracious country houses are set. As we 

 went through one of these gates, much too rusty and 

 rickety to be shut, even in the unlikely event of its owner 

 proving cantankerous, we found one side of the road 

 lined with recumbent mangolds and swedes. A stack 

 yard had become a motor park. There was a going to 

 and fro of labourers and farmers, and less useful visitors, 

 including hounds and horses and pink coats. They had 

 come solely to decorate the occasion ; and the most 

 virulent humanitarian would hardly deny the decorative 

 value of the waving sterns and rhythmic dance of the 

 &quot;cat feet/* The annual ploughing and hedging and 

 ditching competition encouraged by the County Agricul 

 tural Institute was in full swing. It is one of the too rare 

 occasions on which the farmers share fully in the common 

 life of the village. On this occasion they certainly pulled 

 their full weight, lectured charmingly to the village 

 school children and did more in one day to impart a 

 rural bias than all the lessons designed to that end. They 



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