THE RURAL YEAR

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 23

THE RURAL YEAR

Musings of a Farmer Philosopher “The Countryman’s Year,” by David Grayson (London: Hodder and Stoughton). .Mr. Grayson-here tells, mouth by month, of the passage of a working year in the country district of New England. The notes on each mouth are prefaced by an appropriate and charming illustration descriptive of the special activities associated with that time of year. Doubtful when to break into (lie cycle. Mr. Grayson al last decides to open his narrative on April Ist.. though he contends that any one lime is as suitable as another. He says:— “I g’vc you here the best I have seen and heard in iny brief passage through this are of space, this instant of time. It is as far as I have gone at present: at present I have thought no turther. * live here and am quiet.” The author is a writer, a philosopher, a tender of bees, a grower of fruit, an all-round farmer and a traveller, so one may not be surprised that his notes ami musings make interesting reading. Not everyone, will agree with his conclusions, or decide that in the “natural” life of the countryside far from the violence and cruelty of cities, is to be found peace and happiness. Some may fear that in the frequent, conscious, and deliberate utterance of the words, “1 am happy at this moment,” there may lurk danger—perhaps doubt. However, this writer is undoubtedly satisfied that he has found his own perfect setting for this earthly life, and sorrows that he must leave it and be perhaps forgotten. He finds unending interest in his friendly neighbours of whom he writes: —

Judgments upon “society” are so often passed by writers wbo do not really know or feel normal people. They judge neighbours like mine as though each were a self-conscious, self-analysing, egostieal human being like themselves. They are dependent for sensation upon the abnormalities. the tragedies, the ignorances—all of which arc there as everywhere—but they do not sec the man in proportion: his normal life as a worker, the simple interests and joys, the consoling vanity he has iu the thing he is doing.

The reader passes with this farmerphilosopher through the seasons, and to a British person there is au added interest in the unfamiliar names of file native flowers, the wild life that forms a background to the tendered garden, the cat-birds, yellow-throats, violes and bob-o-links, the huckleberries, sassafras, and nobble-busli. Here is much careful observation and comment on bee-keeping. The author allows uo one but himself to touch by? bees and seems delighted when he is called away from his alloted lime for writing in order to deal with a swarm that is just preparing to settle. He seems to find it difficult to stay at his desk with thoughts wandering to the varied interests out-of-doors. He writes of people he has met, of books he has read and things he has thought, but the average reader may like best of all the “interruptions” when the bees swarm and the maple sap rises, and the author longs for something in the way of “smellacles” in order that age may not dim his enjoyment of scents —and smells. One watches the trees lose their leaves, the cold increase, and the snow cover the earth, and at the end of the book, feels again the stirrings of spring.