THE FEN FARMER AND HIS FOE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3149, 25 December 1922, Page 8

THE FEN FARMER AND HIS FOE.

(By Max A. Wright.)

Then- arc men in Lincolnshire who aro burn and live and die in the trenches. Their relentiws Ice is the wild North Sea. The struggle between man and the forces of nature is an age-Jong combat. The Romans declared the war. Nineteen centuries ago the.v raised the tirsl defence—a, long clay bank, to protect the fertile acres which they had reclaimed. Their mound siili remains, but the intervening years have reduced its height, and ever and anon an easterly gale will pile a spring tide on the barrier till a burst comes and the unwelcome tlood pours lor miles inland. Farm stock is drowned and crops are destroyed. I met a marshland farmer last week who told me that at the last encroachment, only two or three years ago, his losses ran' to thousands of pounds. Compensation? No. An act of God. Every century has contributed something to the task of fighting the sea. every spring tide does something to undo the, work. The sand-dunes, with their covering of sea mat-grass, play their part, and on these thousands of unemployed have, within the past few months, been erecting a concrete breastwork. The frontier is, however, a long one. extending from Wash to Humher, and every villager alone the marsh holt, which nestles under the sea wall, is alert to ever-present danger. Sijea incursions'i" the past have done amazing things. The great inrush of lor I--the "High Tide' of -lean Ingelow's Famous ballad washed away a whole village and thousands of sheep. it. .carried "a shipe" far inland, and drove it against a house, so that the crew were saved bv climbing out on the roof! ".Men sav it was a stolen tvde, The Lord had sent it, Me knows all." These farmers of the Lincolnshire marshes rear herds of splendid cattle in the lace of great difficulties. To the risks of flood;-' a'"e ::dded the certainty of prodigious rates and taxes. I was in a rural district husi week where pavement*) were unknown and gas lighting the poorest, but where tile ratesran In twenty-six shillings in the pound. War costs money, whether you ate lighting against howitzers and poison gas or easterly gales and North Sea breakers. Tic Kricsian cow. Vdirondaek Weitske Dairy .Maid, is ! lie I'm si one ol I he breed in California hi give over lOUlllh butter lat in i w <.' diffei-eut years. A cow owned bv a Worthing farmer has beaten all ICnglish records h\ yielding 2lilo gallons of milk in :.'> i days. Its present output is a Mead S gallons a dlay. The Indian Government,, is is reported, has ordered MX) IViosian bulls from South Africa. This order, following as it docs the rccenlt record -ale ol South African l.''riesians in England, speaks well lor ihe breeders ol the black and whites in I he Cape Colony. Ily ploughing live acres of ground in a nine-hour day with a motor tractor. Miss Frances .Brown, of Cookhain, Berkshire, lias set up what is claimed as an English record. She also hold the distinction of reaping 2'-' acres ol corn in one da\.