Land & Water 
July II, 1 9 1 8 
an operation the conduct of which has been learnt by few of 
late years on account of the spread of mechanical appliances. 
I can speak for my own parish and say that if last year we 
had lost the only good broadcast sower in my immediate 
neighbourhood food for at least fifty families would have 
been lost with him. 
The' tending of live stock is another highly skilled business. 
If you have no shepherds you will have no mutton, and an 
average good shepherd is a much rarer thing than an average 
good writer or painter, class for class. Average skill in 
ploughing is less rare, but it is rare, all the same. You do 
not make it out of nothing. You cannot turn men on to 
plough as you would turn them on to shovelling stones or 
voting to order at a caucus meeting. 
Take another case. We have just saved the hay harvest 
under very good conditions, and the hay harvest this year 
has been of prime importance. But even in such a year as 
this skill was required. It is always required. Put a man 
who knows nothing of the business to deal with fifty tons of 
hay, and I will tell you what he will do. He will gather it 
too green so that it festers, or he will let it lie too long so 
that it gets as uneatable as sticks or bad straw. He will 
stack it so that it heats and perhaps catches fire, or, at the 
best, goes black. ' And as for building his rick, he will not 
know how to build' it at all. The rick must be thatched if 
it is not to perish, and thatching is again an art. If you 
doubt it, try some day to thatch a rick without having 
been taught the trade. 
Well, with our knowledge of what agricultural conditions 
are, we hear that the necessities of recruitment demand the 
sudden levy of 30,000 men from the land. We have no 
system of sending men back in rotation on to the land as 
the continental nations have. We have, unfortunately, in 
most places, no tradition of trained women's labour on the 
land. We compare the number 30,000 with the total number 
of known recruitment, and we are astonished that such a 
demand should be insisted on. Some one must raise the 
food ; some one must save the harvest. If it fails the 
campaign is hit by much more than the loss of two divisions. 
Now, of all that I have seen written and spoken upon 
this matter in the last few weeks, I have not seen a line 
written or spoken in favour of such a policy of recruitment 
by any man who knew the real conditions of agriculture. 
That is what is meant by bad recruitment. If we were dealing 
with something of common knowledge (and agriculture 
is, unfortunately, not in that position to-day) people would 
see the point at once. For instance, if there was a sudden 
taking of men from the shipbuilding yards everybody would 
see that it was a folly. People do not see the danger of 
taking the men out of agriculture just now because they 
do not know what agriculture is. The folly is none the 
less great and the danger run is severe. 
Shore Leave: By Herman Whitaker 
You must go and see the Men's Naval Club," 
said my friend, the ensign. "It is the finest 
show in all this circus." 
It was he that had christened the American 
destroyer flotilla " Sims' Circus,'' because of the 
dazzle paint which shamed by its rainbow daubing the ring- 
straked zebras of Barnum and Bailey's famous aggregation. 
He had already initiated me into the Yacht Club, where 
that minor portion of a ship's company known as the 
" Bridge " rests from the sea and warms its chilled legs at 
a sea coal fire. Also we had run up-river in a motor boat 
to a golf links where nerves overstrained from incessant 
watching for torpedoes that come as swift death in the night, 
may be relaxed. Whereafter I had been introduced to one 
of the " firesides " the country gentry place at the service 
of weather-worn oflRcers. 
Green grass and a fireside ; these are the things « sailor 
always craves. Speaking of grass, I had " hiked " six 
miles that morning with five skippers who prowled through 
the fields like cats delicately feeling the velvet turf with 
their feet. Also I had voyaged with them through mined 
seas, chasing the elusive submarine, so the Men's Naval 
Club alone remained to complete the picture of destroyer 
life in the danger zone. 
Dusk was falling thickly over the, harbour when. we walked 
down to the quay walls. Here, under the shelter of a high 
hill, the tides lapped softly around the hundred and odd 
vessels whose golden lights dotted the gloomy waters with 
shimmering reflections. But having only come in from the 
sea that morning, I knew that beyond the harbour bonds 
the Swells were running mountains high under the urge of 
a heavy wind. Out there, far to sea, half a hundred ot 
our destroyers were now heaving their noses up to the dark 
skies, again plunging head downward into a watery abyss. 
But we had finished our trick at that. With a reminiscent 
but comfortable shudder, we turned to watch the boats, 
whose red and green lights moved like swift moths between 
the ships and the quay. 
Under the go'.den glare of the stair lights, the dark mass 
of a boat would take form and resolve into a crowd of 
figures topped by two score of bright, upturned faces. 
Being English-born myself, I can give without suspicion of 
national conceit the impression made upon me by both these 
. American lads and those I had seen at sea. Clear cut, 
simple and direct in speech, quiet and courteous in manner^ 
they look all that I know them to be— the finest type of the 
world's young manhood. As boat after boat unloaded, 
there came a toy whistle, the lights of a train came up 
coding around a curve into the station at the end of the 
quay. 
"The 'Doves' Special," the Ensign explained. 
Havmg more money to spend, our boys cut most of the 
Irish lads up in the city out of their girls, and so many 
ructions resulted we had to put it out of bounds. But when 
the mountain wouldn't come to Mahomet, he just naturally 
went to the mountain. As the sailors can't go to the girl.s, 
the girls come to the sailors. Hundreds of theiii Coiiie doWii 
every night on this train." 
The " doves " were already pairing when we gained back 
to the street. The side walks rang to the tippity-tap of 
small feet moving in rhythn? with rolling sailor treads. 
Under the electric glare of a' shop window, the face of a 
pretty colleen flashed out, the cheeks fresh and high-coloured 
from persistent kissing by climatic fogs and rains, the Irish 
blue eyes and red mouth laughing up at a tall sailor lad. 
Her speech ran over her white teeth in a torrent too swift 
for his ears. His apology, delivered inJa delightfully soft 
southern drawl, drifted back to me. 
" Ah really doan' know what's the mattah with me. 
Ah'm that dull I doan' seem to heah ya'. Will you-all 
please to say that ovah ag'in? " 
The repetition was evidently quite satisfactory. His hand 
tightened on her arm. The arm pulled the hand close to 
her side in a little squeeze. Then they passed into the 
gloom beyond the window lights. It was all very pretty 
and innocent^ — as young love always is. Already this mighty 
pairing has resulted in a few international marriages of the 
natural healthy kind and cannot be held up as awful 
warning in the Sunday supplements. 
Following in this couple's wake, we come presently to 
the one native Irish attempt to supply the flotilla with 
amusement. If five thousand English or French sailors 
were to be suddenly " based " in some small American city, 
it goes without saying that a week would see it transformed 
by enterprising amusement caterers into a miniature Coney 
Island. But a roller skating floor, laid down in a ram- 
shackle barn on top of a hill, was all that the need had so 
far produced. Its quality may be judged by the fact that 
just after we stepped in, a burly destroyer fireman and his 
little colleen partner shot through the end wall and down 
the hill with ease and celerity that surpassed the famous 
" Fliver Four " in its best movie stunt. Fortunately, they 
were not hurt. The shriek of horror that followed the crash 
had scarcely subsided before the fireman lifted the girl back 
up through the breach. Quite unconcerned, they joined in 
again the skating. 
Music there was none; none ot tl^e moonlight numbers nor 
kaleidoscopic light changes beloved of skating fans -n 
in American rinks. Neither is a skating sailor the most 
graceful of Nature's creatures. As the lads struck out, 
right and left, their wide trousers moved with raven 
flappings in rhythm with the graceful swing of their part- 
ners' skirts. The arm movement of beginners was also 
wonderful to behold, for when uncertain of his balance a 
sailor reaches naturally for a rope. Such snatchings at 
each other and the empty air ! But what cared they for 
appearances? The night was young; the floor good; their 
partners pretty ; what more could Youth ask? Mingled 
with laughter and small screams, the roar and scrape of 
their skates followed us down hill to the Naval Club. 
A low, rambling building, the Club squats on the quay 
wall, so close to the water that one might pitch a stone on 
