THE HAPPY LAND

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 15

THE HAPPY LAND

TWO COUNTRY BOOKS

Moonrakingr. By A. G. Street. lllustrated by Lionel Edwards, R. I. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 284 pp. (7/6 net.) „ _ .. The Countryman's Year. By David Grayson. Hcdder and Stoughton. 272 pp. (5/- net.) From W. S. Smart.

Why "moonraking"? Certainly, the smugglers bequeathed to all Wiltshire men the pretty term; and Mr Street is a Wiltshire man. But he was inclined to abandon his title, since he does his mental raking not only in Wiltshire but often far afield, until he reflected that, as the world must judge him, he-is in a mental muddle, if not;moonstruck:

How can it be otherwise? One day a farmer; the next .an author; the next —God forgive me—a lecturer at a University; then back to farming; next deserting the fresh air of Wilts for the peculiar atmosphere of Broadcasting House; then a journalist; next perhaps feeling like a fish out of water at a London cocktail party; then discovering at my club that some of the country's most famous men have . . . . delightfully coarse minds . . ; but ever and anon returning to my Wiltshire farm and recognising that it is the one stable thing in my uncertain, kaleidoscopic, and peripatetic life. Can it be doubted that once in a while I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels, that I am moonstruck, and that "Moonraking" is the most suitable title for this book?

Mr Street may be easy, and his readers, too; his only affliction is a trifling self-consciousness, which sometimes intervenes between him and them. He is at his best when he is simplest, not writing like this—

Now that this Shakespeare Festival Tan open-air festival in Cornwall] is over I cannot see Cornish people let it die for want of support. Why, even the pixies would have something to say to such treachery, and what Cornish man or woman dare risk their displeasure?

or like this—

I am not a poultry farmer to any extent. The trouble is that I dislike hens. Mentally we are not in sympathy, for I find it impossible to commune with hens in the same satisfying fashion as with other farm livestock—

but, far better, like this—

Indeed, no matter what the weather I am convinced that it pays to cut grass early, for when one leaves it standing until it gets .old the resultant hay is never of very good feeding value. Also, when grass is cut young, it will stand a lot of rain without deteriorating in quality very much. Some of my last year's early cut hay, which stayed in swath under continuous rain until the aftermath grew up and completely hid it from sight, gave a better flow of milk than.some late cut stuff which was made without one spot of wet— ,

or merely pointing out, with just reference and quotation, that Kipling is unerringly right in his English country characters and details. This is a delightful medley of a book, in which a chapter on the spring (perhaps) may contain a political excursus, a comic account of a broadcast on lambing, and a tale of horse-dealing; or another on haytime stretches wide enough to include beer-drinking and the school certificate. But pleasantly as Mr Street leaps and dances abroad, like de la Mare's three farmers, "not one weary and not one spent," his best fancies' and humours and sobrieties are stay-at-home. The pencil drawings by Lionel Edwards are lively things. Years ago Mr Grayson went to Amherst, bought his acres, built his house, planted trees, began to cultivate his garden and keep bees, and made good friends. This was the origin of his "adventures in contentment"; and his new book reexpresses, in notes dated through the year and keyed to the seasons, his pleasure in this country life. They bear directly on' it, as they describe scenes, work, and personal encounters; they link it with his reading; and they record "the things I meditated upon 'as I went about doing the quiet work of my my orchard, and my bees." One of his thoughts, he says, has been: "Give me time enough here in this place and I will surely make a beautiful thing." Readers who have the taste for Mr Grayson's serenities and cheerfulnesses, "and oh!" his ecstasies will be sure that he has done it.