September 28, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
13 
body of the murdered gin was mutilated. This child 
saw it all. Two years ago^but it will take many more 
years to remove that look from her eyes. 
Rebuilding Byres and Barns 
One is struck by the efforts made, either to rebuild 
or to erect temporary shelter for farm stock, or barns 
for storing the crops. Except in Blesme (where a good 
deal of permanent rebuilding has been effected), the 
housing of human beings is evidently considered as of 
less importance than housing the result of human labour. 
Some temporary wooden huts — such as our Building 
Bye-Laws would not allow for human habitation — have 
been run up, but in places they still live in cellars, 
sometimes merely roofed over with thatched hurdles. 
Even in Sommeilles, however. Nature has worked hard 
to try and heal some of the wounds, the raw edges of 
broken walls, have become weather-stained, and vege- 
tation is trying to cover up the ruins ; and the new 
wooden huts, with their walls festooned with haricots, 
hung there to ripen, help to remove the impression of 
recent upheaval. 
It was on that account that we obtained oermission 
to visit the Somme district. 
For this tour we left the train at Amiens, and under 
the guidance of Captain Watson, and each carrying a 
steel cap and smoke helmet, motored to Albert. This 
little town has been knocked about a good deal, but 
mostly by shrapnel, and consequently quite a number of 
houses have escaped damage, while others are only partly 
demolished. The church, which was a fine building 
carryii^g a steeple surmounted with a huge gilded figure 
of the Virgin Mary, is, however, wrecked. The steeple 
evidently served as a good mark for German gunners, 
and they battered it until the figure is now hanging over 
at such an angle that it looks as if it must fall at any 
moment. Already there has grown up a legend, to the 
effect that the day this figure falls the war will end. ■ 
From Albert we passed through Becordel to Fricourt. 
Hardly a building is left intact in these places, and all 
round the latter are the trenches and gun emplacements 
used by our men before the great push started on July 
1st. Some of the latter still carry on their roof a crop 
of wheat, which was sown when the adjoining field was 
, planted last autumn, and must have completely screened 
them from prying aeroplanes. Leaving the cars we 
climbed the highest point between Fricourt and Mametz, 
whence we looked down over the remains of Mametz 
village, and a few stumps which mark what was once 
Mametz wood. On the crest of the hill is a huge mine 
crater, forty feet deep, and covering two or three acres, 
where an extensive system of German dugouts were so 
deeply embedded that mining was the only way of 
moving them. From here we could locate a number of 
guns firing at the enemy trenches some four miles away 
in front, and an occasional German shell came near 
enough for us to hear it whistle. A German aeroplane 
flew overhead, chased by one of ours, heading for the 
German lines as fast as it could travel. Presently 
shrapnel began bursting round it, but so far as could be 
seen it managed to get away. 
Loss of Surface Soil 
The remark has often been made that an enemy army 
may burn every house and building, burn all crops and 
implements, drive away all the live stock, and massacre 
many of the inhabitants, but they cannot permanently 
damage the soil. The part of the battle area of the 
Somme that we saw is a contradiction of that state- 
ment. The surface soil has largely disappeared. Originally 
it consisted of a thin chalky-clay over pure chalk, 
intermixed with beds of loam over gravel. Now the 
general displacement by trenching, shelt^pits and mine 
craters has so churned up soil and subsoil that levelling 
will leave a surface mainly of chalk. How long nature will 
take to cover this with enough to sustain vegetation, 
even if aided by the usual operations of husbandry, it 
is difficult to say, but it does not appear commercially 
feasible to redeem this area. H the primary work of 
levelling be carried out by troops, or by prisoners, the 
cost reckoned as military outlay, and not as a charge on 
the land, it might possibly be planted with beech or 
other forest seedlings, and developed as a Government 
undertaking ; but the fates forbid that any individuals 
should be compelled to try and wring a living from such 
ground. How far this soil formation extends could not 
be ascertained, as we were not allowed to go further. 
On the return journey to Amiens several villages were 
passed, all full of British troops. Some comment was 
made on the unusual tidiness of the farmsteads, and 
we were told that all the farmyards and out-buildings 
are more tidy than they have ever been before, thanks 
to the love of order among our men. A call was made 
at a Clearing Hospital where everything seemed working 
smoothly and in beautiful order. The CO. said, how- 
ever, in reply to a question, that they were very short of 
books and papers, also that chewing gum and other 
luxuries would be most welcome, as being so far from 
the base they did not get enough of these, though they 
were well supplied with all actual necessities. " Tommy," 
he added, " likes good literature, not rubbish." Gifts of 
this kind should be addressed to " The CO., 36, Casualty 
Clearing Hospital, B.E.F., France." 
fn discussions on agriculturaL matters " the magic 
of ownership " is often spoken of ; but one does not fully 
realise the true force of that magic until it is brought 
home by the abnormal conditions obtaining in France 
to-day. These peasant farmers mostly own the land 
they till, and they cling with pathetic attachment to it 
under most trying circumstances. With their buildings 
falling about their ears, in roofless houses, with some or 
all their implements destroyed, soldiers swarming all 
over the place, with their whole world turned up-side 
down, they yet endeavour to continue their ordinary 
work, to feed their stock (if any are left) or to harvest 
their crops, though lacking strong arms for such heavy 
work. Within the range of shell fire they are labouring 
in the fields, with a blind confidence in the future. What 
other form of land tenure would produce such continuity 
of effort, such devotion to work, such disregard of risk ? 
Two women were seen working self-binders, others were 
doing all kinds of jobs usually looked upon as only men's 
work. In one case a good natured Briton in khaki was 
helping build a stack 
The Morcelle System 
In the Marne district, as in many other part? of France, 
the Morcelle system is the custom. This means that the 
land is compvilsorily divided among the children at death, 
and this has, in course of time, produced some incon- 
veniences. For instance, excessive subdivision may so 
reduce the area owned by an individual that he cannot 
make a living from it. Or again, it may involve owner- 
ship of half a dozen narrow strips at some distance apart, 
yet aggregating only 20 or 30 acres. It is, in fact, a 
survival in a peculiar form of the conditions frequently 
found in England before the advantages of enclosure 
became generally appreciated, and as practised in France 
is the cause of a good deal of wasted effort and uneconomic 
methods. The Legislature might easily remove these 
anomalies, but it is easy to understand any hesitation on 
the part of the French Department of Agriculture to 
interfere with a system which has produced such sturdy 
stock as the French peasantry. They have fed the Nation 
and had a surplus to export. They are, as a rule, con- 
tented, and independent in the sense that they have 
learned to depend upon themselves. Moreover, they 
have produced what is more important than all else, 
a magnificent race of fighting men. Men of splendid 
physique, hardy, inured to hard work, and used to simple 
fare.^ That is the chief factor which has enabled France 
to sustain herself, and to meet the shock of German in- 
vasion, to hurl back the Hun legions at Verdun for month 
after month, and to regain her balance after such a test 
as few countries have ever been called upon to meet. 
The latent strength of a rural population must always 
be the last line of defence for any nation, and France has 
set an example which we shall be wise to emulate. 
Nothing impressed all the members of our deputation so 
strongly as the splendid manhood of the French army 
— officers and men alike. There was only one thing else 
that gave us as much pleasure, and that was the universal 
confidence graven on every soldier's face : 
" But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. 
When once destroved can never be supplied." 
