A NOTE FROM FRANCE.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XV, Issue 4, 20 October 1917, Page 236

A NOTE FROM FRANCE.

In an interesting letter, dated 25th July last, from the Anglo-French front, Sergeant T. C. Webb, jun., who was Orchard Instructor at Wellington before enlisting, writes as follows

It is all intense cultivation in this country, and wherever one goes can be seen field after field of wheat, potatoes, peas, sugar-beet, and vegetables. The fields are cropped up to within a mile and a half of the firing-line, and it is not an uncommon sight to see old trenches running through the fields with barbedwire entanglements here and there. Most of the shell-holes have been covered in and made fit for cropping, but “ Fritz ” sends over an occasional shell and opens up the land for a few yards in the centre of the crops. The peas are mowed and threshed by hand. Beans are grown extensively and treated the same way. A noticeable feature here is that all the field-work is being done by hand ; no machines have been working here since my arrival. The crops look well and are very even and well headed. The land appears to be free from weeds in the cultivated areas, but among our trenches there are Californian thistle and poppies in abundance, and they appear to be the chief nuisance here, although the poppies look pretty and set off the side of the trenches with their deep-red colour. In some of the old trenches one would fancy that he was strolling down some avenue in a public garden, but an occasional shell reminds one there is a war on. There is very little land wasted here ; even the sides of the railway-lines are utilized for growing potatoes. There has been a fearful and wilful . destruction of really good orchards and vineyards by the enemy. There are areas, where both sides have made a stand, that will be a tall order to clear when the time comes miles and miles of trenches boarded and wired up and barbed-wire entanglements.