CHANGING COURSE OF STREAMS--DEWPONDS--A WET HARVEST--WEATHER
PHENOMENA--WILL-O'-THE-WISP--VARIOUS.
"There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!"
--_In Memoriam_.
"With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
"I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever."
_The Brook_.
Living so many years in one place I had unusual opportunities, as my
rounds nearly always took me beside my brooks, of watching their
slowly changing courses. The roots of the pollard willows helped to
keep them to their regular path by holding up the banks, but sometimes
when an old tree fell into the water it had an opposite result. A
fallen tree, reaching partly across the stream, has the immediate
effect of damming the flow of the water on the side of its growth and
diverting the current towards the opposite bank in a narrowed but more
powerful advance, so that the bank is worn away and the beginning of a
bend is formed. As the breach increases, the water, momentarily
retarded there by the new concavity, rushes forward again in the
direction of the bank from which the tree fell. So that a second
concavity is produced on that side some little way below the tree,
resulting in the slow formation of an extended S-like figure, or hook
with a double bend. The collection of rubbish and sediment retained by
the fallen tree helps to form a new bank on that side, extending
further into the stream than the bank on which the tree originally
stood.
As this process continues it is easy to see that a straight stretch of
stream will in time assume a winding course, and the stream will be
continually altering its path, so that large areas of flat meadows
will be formed, every part of which has at times been the stream's
course. How many ages, then, must it have taken to produce the level
meadows we see extending for immense distances on either side of our
big rivers, and even those adjoining quite small streams? The level
surface thus created by the river or brook's course perpetually
deflected and reflected, is finally completed by the floods bringing
down a deposit of soil in solution, which is precipitated and settles
into any surface irregularities left by the wanderings of the stream.
A faint conception of an absolutely illimitable cycle of years, during
which the whole extent of visible flat meadow has been again and again
eroded and restored, is thus conveyed.
Confirmation of this alteration of their courses by streams is
afforded when we cut a main drain through one of these meadows, to
carry the water from the connected furrow drains of adjoining arable
land. The alluvial soil can be found as deep as the depth of the
present brook, free from the stones found in the arable land, and
containing, to the same depth as the brook, fresh water shells similar
to those in the brook to-day. There was a bend in course of formation
in one of my brooks, where the stump of a tree, whose fall was the
starting-point, could be seen standing in the newly-formed ground, a
yard or more from the stream when I left, though I can remember when
it was so near as almost to touch the water.
If we form an S from a piece of wire, and pinch it together from top
to bottom, the loops become so flattened, [S], that one of them may
almost unite with the central curve. The same thing often happens in
the loops of a brook, and, in time, the stream will complete the
junction, forming a short circuit.[2] Thus an island may be formed; or
when the old loop opposite the short circuit gets filled up with
deposit or falling banks--the water preferring the short circuit--a
piece of land may be cut off from one of the former sides of the brook
and transferred to the other, so that where the brook is a boundary
between two owners or parishes one owner or parish may be robbed and
the other owner or parish becomes a receiver of stolen goods. There
was an instance of this on the farm I owned and occupied adjoining the
Aldington Manor property, and the owner and the tenant of the piece
transferred to my side could not reach it without walking through the
brook. In this case, however, the tenant had wisely planted the ground
with withies, which he managed to get at for lopping when its turn
came round every seven years. Thus we have an example of the necessity
of the ancient practice of beating the bounds, which, at least before
the days of ordnance surveys, was not merely an opportunity for a
holiday.
Another proof of the creation of new land by the meanderings of a
stream is found in the ancient "carrs" of North Lincolnshire, near
Brigg, where the hollowed-out logs of black bog oak, which formed the
canoes of the ancient inhabitants, are sometimes discovered many feet
below the surface, and long distances from the present course of the
Ancholme. These having sunk to the bottom of the river in past ages,
and gradually become covered with alluvium, were left behind as the
river changed its course. In some cases however these canoes may have
sunk to the bottom of the water when it formed a lake, and the lake
having gradually silted up, the river receded to something like its
present width.
The floods in the Vale of Evesham from the Avon and even from my
brooks, often converted the adjoining flat meadows into lakes, and
they rose so suddenly after heavy rains or the melting of deep
snowfalls on the hills, that they were attended with danger to the
stock.
In the summer of 1879 one of these sudden floods occurred, and people
standing on Evesham bridge, saw fallen trees and hay-cocks floating
down the stream. A pollard willow was noticed with a crew of about
twenty land rats, which had found refuge there until the tree itself
was lifted by the rising water and carried down the stream; and a
floating hay-cock supported a man's jacket, his jar of cider, and his
"shuppick." The local word "shuppick," a corruption of "sheaf-pike,"
means a pike used for loading the sheaves of wheat in the harvest
field on to the waggon, and is the "fork" in general use at
hay-making. During another summer flood the whole of the pleasure
ground at Evesham, beside the Avon, was under water several feet deep;
the water poured in at the lower windows of the adjoining hotel, and
the proprietor's casks of beer and cider in the cellars, ready for the
regatta, were lifted from their stands and bumped against walls and
ceilings.
Every parish has its Council in these days, and in country places
almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and
inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils are excellent
safety-valves for parochial malcontents who thus harmlessly let off
superfluous steam which might otherwise ruffle the abiding calm of
peaceful inhabitants, but their powers are really very limited. In a
village in Worcestershire where an approach road crossed a brook by a
ford, during floods the current was sometimes so strong as to
constitute a danger to horses and carts. The village pundits
therefore, in council duly assembled, considered the matter, and after
an extended debate the following resolution was carried unanimously,
"That a notice board be erected on the spot bearing the inscription:
When this board _is covered with water_ it is dangerous to attempt to
cross the ford."
The numerous brooks in the Vale of Evesham supply ample water for the
stock, but in more elevated parts, especially on the chalk Downs of
Sussex, Hants, Wilts, and Dorset, provision is made for an artificial
water supply by what are called "dewponds." A shallow saucer-shaped
depression is dug out on the open Down, the bottom being made
water-tight by puddling with a well-rammed layer of impervious clay.
The first heavy rainfall fills the pond, and, the water being colder
than the air, the dew or mist condenses on its surface sufficiently,
in ordinary weather, to maintain the supply. In a dry time the sheep
can always reach the water, the pond having no banks, by the shelving
formation of the bottom. Sometimes a few trees are allowed to grow
round it; they also act as condensers, and their drip helps to fill
the pond. It is only in an abnormal drought that these dewponds really
fail, and a thunderstorm, followed by ordinary weather, will soon
refill them. Gilbert White, in _The Natural History of Selborne_,
refers to these ponds in a very interesting letter on the subject,
including details of condensation by trees, in which he gives an
instance of a particular pond, high up on the Down, 300 feet above his
house, and situated in such a position that it was impossible for it
to receive any water from springs or drainage, which "though never
above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in
diameter, and containing, perhaps, not more than two or three hundred
hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it affords
drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty
head of large cattle besides."
The natural well-water in the Vale of Evesham is exceedingly hard, and
in the town and some villages was formerly much contaminated. After
great opposition from obstructive ratepayers, a splendid supply was
obtained from the Cotswolds above Broadway, about six miles away, of
much softer and really pure spring water. It comes in pipes by
gravitation, so there is no expense of pumping; but it was difficult
to get recalcitrant ratepayers to lay the water on from the mains to
their houses, as that part of the cost had to be borne by them
individually; and, before compulsion could be resorted to, the Council
had to prove contamination of the wells and close them. To get the
evidence samples were submitted to a London analyst, and they were
invariably condemned. One of the Councillors suggested sending, with a
number of well samples, a sample of the new supply "for a fad." The
samples were numbered, but had no other distinguishing mark, and in
due course the usual condemnations were received, including that of
the new town supply!
During the wet harvest of 1879, when what was called by townspeople
the agricultural depression, was becoming acute, it was impossible to
get a whole day on which wheat could be carried. The position was
serious, because the grain was sprouting in the sheaves in the field,
and time after time a fairly dry Saturday would have allowed carrying
the following day, though Monday was always as wet as ever. At last at
Aldington we faced the situation and decided to proceed with the work
whenever possible, Sunday or no Sunday. A fine drying Saturday
occurred, and my bailiff told the men what we proposed, adding that we
did not wish anyone to help who had scruples as to the day. They all
appeared on Sunday morning, a brilliant day, except one "conscientious
objector," who, as I heard later, spent most of the day at the
public-house. We got up two ricks from about ten acres, which
eventually proved to be some of the driest wheat we had that year, and
which I was able to sell for seed at a good price, to go into
districts where no dry seed wheat could be found.
My old vicar was somewhat scandalized at this Sunday work, and some of
my neighbours fancied themselves shocked, but a day or two later I
happened to meet another clergyman friend, who farmed a little
himself. "I was _so_ pleased," he said, "to hear that you were
carrying wheat last Sunday; when I was preaching I was strongly
disposed to conclude by telling my people--'Now you have been to
church, go home to your dinners, and then off with your jackets and
carry wheat for the rest of the day.'" Next Sunday all my neighbours
were busy with their wheat, but I had managed to complete my harvest
during the previous week, on the 8th of October, quite a month or six
weeks later than usual, and an extraordinary contrast to the very dry
year 1868, when all the corn on the farm, I was told, was carried
before the last day of July.
I attended a neighbour's sale that autumn; the wet seasons and the low
prices had been too much for him, and he was leaving for the United
States; his rick-yard was empty, all the corn sold, and nothing but
straw left. I heard him remark, "Folks are saying that I'm very
backward with my payments, but I'm very forward with my thrashing,
anyway!" Before the following spring nearly all the rick-yards were
empty, and wheat-ricks, it was said, were as scarce as churches--one
in each parish. The situation was summed up later in a phrase which
passed into a proverb: "In 1879 farmers lived on faith, in 1880 they
are living on hope, and in 1881 they will have to live on charity."
The attitude of the towns was one of apathy and indifference, like
that of the General in _Bracebridge Hall_, which, published in 1822,
proves how history repeats itself in agricultural as in other matters:
"He is amazingly well-contented with the present state of things, and
apt to get a little impatient at any talk about national ruin and
agricultural distress. 'They talk of public distress,' said the
General this day to me at dinner, as he smacked a glass of rich
burgundy and cast his eyes about the ample board: 'They talk of public
distress, but where do we find it, sir? I see none; I see no reason
anyone has to complain. Take my word for it, sir, this talk about
public distress is all humbug!'"
At Evesham, long before the depression grew into a debacle, the
shadows of coming events could easily be detected. There was the
disappearance of the long rows of farmers' conveyances at the inns in
the town on market-days; there was the eclipse of shops--for other
than necessities--such as a little fish shop, opposite the corner at
the cross roads; a corner where much business was formerly transacted
in the open street, and where I myself have sold by sample some
thousands of sacks of wheat. A tempting little shop it used to be,
displaying shining Severn salmon; and it was here that the farmers,
after the market, obtained the supplies commanded by the missus at
home.
And there was the abandonment of the Corn Market proper, for the class
of farmers who survived hated to transact their business indoors. The
attendance of millers and dealers, except of those who had cargoes of
foreign corn at Gloucester or Bristol to dispose of, became irregular.
Sales of farm stock and implements took place in every village on
farms which had passed from father to son for generations, coupled
with the sacrifice of valuable implements and machinery for want of
buyers. There followed the stage when landowners who could find no
tenants, and had heavily mortgaged estates, essayed to make the best
of them by laying away the arable land to pasture, undertaking the
management themselves with, perhaps, an old broken-down tenant as
bailiff. The politicians and the general public did not apprehend the
danger of the situation, in spite of innumerable warnings, until the
German submarines were sending our foreign food supplies to the bottom
of the sea; and now that the immediate danger of starvation has
passed, they appear already to have lapsed again into an attitude of
apathy.
We hear the blessed word "reconstruction" on every side, but the only
official propositions for the permanent establishment of agricultural
prosperity that I have heard are utterly inadequate. It is ridiculous
to suppose that a few thousand acres of special crops, like tobacco,
for instance, only possible in favoured spots, can in any way
compensate for the loss of millions of acres of arable land under
rotations of corn and green crops. Under present conditions nothing is
more certain than the abandonment of arable land as such; and it is
folly to talk of novel systems of transport for a dwindling output, or
of building labourers' cottages at an unjustifiable cost, which are
never likely to be wanted by a dying industry.
Among my experiences of abnormal weather, I have a note of a
remarkable summer flood on July 21, 1875, when my hay was lying in the
meadows beside the brooks, and had to be removed to higher ground in
pouring rain to prevent its disappearance with the current. On the
following day, July 22, the highest flood since 1845 occurred at
Evesham.
October 14, 1877, was memorable for the most terrific south-west gale
that happened in all the years I passed at Aldington; thirteen trees,
mostly old apple trees and elms, were blown down, including the
splendid veteran "Chate boy" pear tree at Blackminster, an exceedingly
sad and irreparable loss. The gale blew hardest in special tracks, the
course of which could be followed by the destruction of trees and
branches in distinct lanes, cut through woods and plantations.
The winter of 1880-1881 was very severe, the mean temperature of
January, 1881, being 27.8 degrees F., the coldest January since 1820.
Ten years later, 1890-1891, another very prolonged winter occurred:
the frost began on the 6th of December, and, with scarcely a break,
continued till well into February. The feature of this frost was the
fine settled weather, and the warmth of the midday sun in the
brilliant air, when skaters could sit on the river banks and enjoy
their rest and lunch in its rays. I took my elder daughter back to
school at Richmond at the end of January, and in London we saw the
Thames choked by huge hummocks of ice, on which people were crossing
the river. An ox was roasted whole on the Avon at Evesham, and, when
the frost broke up, the ice on our millpond was 17 inches thick.
Another great frost happened in 1894-1895, beginning late in December,
and lasting till the end of February, with a single intervening week
of thaw; and in March the ground, in places, was too hard to plough.
It was the only time that I was completely at a loss to find work for
my men; all the carting was finished in the early days of the frost,
and all the thrashing possible followed; ploughing and all working of
the land, or draining, were impracticable. The men, seeing that there
would be no employment for them until the frost broke up, told me that
if they might get what wood they could from fallen trees in the brook,
and if I would lend them horses and carts to get it home, they would
be glad to work in that way for themselves for a time. Just as they
had cleared both brooks from end to end of the farm which occupied
them about ten days, the thaw came and I was able to find them plenty
to do.
We suffered very little from droughts at Aldington, the land was
naturally so retentive of moisture, but 1893 was a dry year, not
easily forgotten; no rain fell from early in March to July 13; the hay
crop was the lightest in remembrance, and straw was so short and
scarce that the hay-ricks of the following year, 1894, had to go
unthatched until the harvest of that year provided the necessary
straw.
The spring of 1895 was remarkable for a plague of the caterpillars of
the winter-moth, due to the destruction of insect-eating birds by the
great frost; the caterpillars devoured the young leaves of the
plum-trees, so that whole orchards were completely stripped. The
balance between insectivorous birds and caterpillar life was destroyed
for a time, and the caterpillars conquered the plum-trees. In 1917,
during the persistent north-east blasts of February, March, and part
of April, the destruction of birds was terrible; all the tit tribe
suffered greatly, and the charming little golden-crested wren, which
here in the Forest was quite common, has scarcely been seen since.
Caterpillars again were a plague in my apple trees that spring, but
were not really destructive, and in the autumn the apples escaped
their usual punishment from the birds and wasps. Tits are often very
troublesome; they peck holes in the fruit, apparently in search of the
larvae of the codlin moth, leaving an opening for wasps and flies. I
find the berries of the laurel, which is a species of cherry, very
attractive to blackbirds, and as long as there are any left they seem
to prefer them to the apples. In 1895 cuckoos came to the rescue of my
young plum orchard; there were dozens of them at work on the nine
acres at once, and they must have cleared away an immense number of
the grubs.
The most remarkable season we have had since I left Aldington was the
great drought of 1911. There was no rain here worth mention from June
22, the Coronation of King George V., until August 30, and the
pastures on this thin land were burnt up. On August 30 we had some
friends for tennis, and we had not been playing long before a mighty
cloud-burst occurred; the rain fell in torrents. "It didn't stop to
rain, it tumbled down," as my men used to say, and in about half an
hour the lawn was a sheet of water, the ground being so hard, that it
could not soak away. It was all over in an hour, and a neighbour with
a rain-gauge registered 0.66 of an inch of rain, equal to 66 tons on
an acre, or 330 tons on my five acres.
One of my ambitions has always been to see a Will-o'-the-wisp, and I
am still hoping; but that hot summer, had I known it at the time, they
were quite common within an easy walk of my house in the New Forest.
There was some correspondence on the subject in _The Observer_, and
the following is extracted from one of the letters:
"As none of your correspondents seem to be aware of a comparatively
recent instance, I write to say that there were enough indubitable
Will-o'-the-wisps to convince the most incredulous during the
extremely hot weather of July, 1911.
"From July 18 to 22 I was at Thorney Hill in the New Forest, some
seven miles behind Christchurch. Owing to the abnormal drought the
bogs and bog-streams at the foot of the hill westward were all but
dry; a dense mist, however, sometimes rose from them at night. On July
19, and the three following nights, the Will-o'-the-wisps were in
great form over the bog. They were like small balls of bluish fire,
which projected themselves with hops and jerks across the most
inaccessible parts of the bog, starting always, so far as could be
told, from where a little stagnant moisture still remained. They moved
with an erratic velocity, so to speak, appearing and reappearing at
distances of several hundred yards. There wasn't the slightest doubt
of their authenticity.
"The inhabitants of Thorney Hill, I believe, regarded these
appearances with alarm, as being, though not exactly novelties,
harbingers of much misfortune. But the drought was quite bad enough,
without having the Jack-o'-lanterns to accentuate it!"
This instance was the more remarkable as I have never succeeded in
finding anyone, even among people who are constantly on duty in the
Forest, who could testify to having seen a Will-o'-the-wisp.
Waterspouts are, I believe, more frequently seen at sea than on land,
but I have an account from my brother, Mr. F.E. Savory, of one he saw
many years ago in Wiltshire. He writes:
"When I was at Manningford Bruce in 1873 or 1874, I saw a dense black
cloud travelling towards the southeast, the lower part of which became
pointed like a funnel in shape, waving about as it descended until, I
suppose, the attraction of the earth overcame the cohesion of the
cloud's vapour, and it discharged itself. I could see it looking
lighter and lighter, from the middle outwards, until it was entirely
dispersed. I heard that the water fell on the side of the Down near
Collingbourne, about five miles off, and washed some of the soil away,
but I did not see that. The weather was stormy, but I do not remember
the time of year or any other particulars."
It would seem that a waterspout is caused by a whirlwind entering a
cloud and gathering vapour together by its rotary action into such a
heavy mass that it descends in the funnel shape described. We are all
familiar with the small whirlwinds that travel across a road in
summer, carrying the dust round and round with them; these are called
"whirly-curlies" in Worcestershire, and are regarded as a sign of fine
weather. I have sometimes seen quite a strong one crossing rows of hay
just ready to carry, cutting a clean track through each row, and
leaving the ground bare where it passed. The hay is often carried to a
great height, and sometimes dropped in an adjoining field.
On a bright morning in summer one often sees, a little distance away,
a tremulous or flickering movement in the air, not far from the
ground, which Tennyson refers to in _In Memoriam_, as, "The landscape
winking thro' the heat"; and again in _The Princess_:
"All the rich to come
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds."
I am told that this appearance is "due to layers of air of different
degrees of refracting power, in motion, relative to one another. Air
at different temperatures will refract light differently." In
Hampshire this phenomenon is known by the pretty name of "the summer
dance."
Since I came to the Forest I have seen two very curious and, I think,
unusual natural appearances. As I was cycling one rather dull
afternoon from Wimborne to Ringwood, I noticed a colourless rainbow,
or perhaps I should say, "mist-bow," for there was no rain, and the
sun was partially obscured. The sun was about south-west, and the bow
was north-east; it was merely a series of well-defined but colourless
segments of circles, close to each other but shaded so as to make them
distinguishable, arranged exactly like a rainbow but without a trace
of colour beyond a grey uniformity. It was on my left for several
miles, perhaps half of the total distance of nine miles between the
two towns.
Cycling another day between Lyndhurst and Burley, I reached the east
entrance of Burley Lodge, which is on higher ground than the farm
spread out to the right in the valley. The whole valley was filled
with thick white mist, as level as a lake, so that nothing could be
seen of the fields. The setting sun was low down at the further
extremity of the valley, and the surface of the mist-lake reflected
its rays in a rosy sheen, with a track of brighter light in the
middle, stretching from the far end of the lake in a broad path almost
to where I was standing; just as we see the track of sunlight or
moonlight, sometimes, on the sea, from the shore. This phenomenon is
not uncommon when one is looking down from the top of a hill in the
sunshine, upon a valley full of mist, but I have never seen it before
from comparatively low ground, as on this occasion.
My summers at Aldington were nearly always too busy to allow me to
take a holiday, except for a very few days, but when the urgent work
of the year was over, the harvest completed, and the hops and the
fruit picked, we always had a clear month away from home, about the
middle of October to the middle of November; and, as we found the
autumn much less advanced in the south than in the midlands, we often
spent the time on the south coast or in the Isle of Wight, and we were
nearly always favoured by fine weather. On one of these occasions,
when we were exploring the whole island on bicycles, I never once
found it necessary to carry a waterproof cape, though in the course of
this visit we rode over 600 miles.
[Illustration: NOTE. THE CHANGING COURSE OF STREAMS.]