Letters to the Editor - August 2010

In the June issue, a reader asked about the use of cotton to keep birds off the crops. It would be more for large birds not small ones, and one year this was used by my father around the end of the war.

My father, like many other farmers, grew beans often called horse beans, very similar to broad beans in the garden but smaller in size. They were very important to produce protein because of the lack of imports. The trouble was that birds like rooks, crows and pigeons loved them.

The seed was sown by a small wheel on the bottom of a triangular metal hose fixed to the back of a two-furrow plough. The seed was ploughed in at least six inches (15 cm) deep. The birds were unable to dig down that depth, but there was a stage when the plants were just coming through the ground and the birds would pull up the plants with the seed attached and eat them if the weather was just right.

This started to happen on a seven-and-a-half-acre (3 ha) field, so my father decided to put up cotton to keep the birds away. It sounds an impossible task but did not take that long. We already had nearly a thousand rick pegs to thatch, then ten to fifteen stacks of corn and hay each year. These were cut during the winter months to about two feet six inches (75 cm) long with a sharp point at one end. So now they had another use.

The sticks were put about seven yards apart in rows across mainly the centre of the field, with rows about four yards between them. Strong cotton thread was used, and alternate rows were white and then black. One man ran the cotton across the field while another followed him and twisted the cotton over the top of the sticks, in the same way as string is used to keep thatch on a stack.

It stopped the birds landing for the vulnerable time before the beans could root well and grow too big — it saved the crop. It was all taken down after about three weeks and then sticks put back for thatching.

Of course the same thing could be used to stop pigeons flying into allotments for cabbages.

I can remember the same field causing problems when the crop of oats grew over eight feet high, but that is another story.

John Blake, Banbury

I read with interest the article ‘Any Old Iron?’ in the June issue about corrugated buildings round the country.

The house where I lived for over forty years was constructed of timber and corrugated iron, the roof was asbestos tiles and later the front roof was replaced with asbestos sheets.

We believe it was put up in the 1900s, possibly for soldiers in the First World War. We had no running water; the only water was from the asbestos roof into a well, where it was pumped up into the scullery as needed. There was no septic tank, no main sewer, just simply a bucket at first, a toilet then an Elsan camping loo. The electricity was not put in until about 1977; we had oil lamps until then.

It was a warm and comfortable home: three rooms had open fires, the kitchen had a range, later replaced by an old Rayburn (no back boiler). When my mother passed away six years ago, it went to my son who did not want to live there so he sold it — sadly it was bulldozed only last year and the iron was put into two skips, the wood onto a big bonfire.

We now have a giant white building being built. How I wish the old corrugated home was still there.

Mrs Margaret McFadzean

I am alarmed by the amount of oilseed rape plants in our country­side, not only the vast fields of this foreign crop, but the amount growing in roadside verges.

I recently travelled up the A49 in Shropshire between Leominster and Church Stretton, and the roadside verges were lined with this invader for a large part of the journey.

We are rightly worried about Himalayan balsam, Japanese knot­weed and rhododendrons but we are still allowing non-native species to be planted wholesale in our countryside. Will we never learn?

Just imagine the impact of GM crops spreading in this way and cross-breeding with our native plants. Who knows what the result will be — herbicide-resistant super-weeds?

Also it seems that a bigger proportion of our population now suffers from allergies and hay fever than ever before and I wonder how much of this increase is due to the introduced plant crops like oilseed rape which produce vast amounts of pollen during spring and early summer.

Chris Smith, Horsehay

As a Gowerman born and bred,I must correct the caption for the Country Lens photograph in July.

The beach dominating the picture centre is Pobbles Bay and not Three Cliffs. The conical formation of the cliffs at the far end of Pobbles are in fact the three cliffs (not very clear in the photo) which give the name to the bay further on.

The cliffs forming the Great Tor guard the western end of Three Cliffs Bay (in the top left corner of the photograph) and the farthest visible beach is Crawley Woods.

E A Thomas, Swansea

Many thanks to all those who replied to W Salmon’s letter about ‘The Lion and Albert’. It was one of a number of monologues written by Marriott Edgar (born George Marriott Edgar in Kirkcudbright in 1880) for the music-hall performer Stanley Holloway. Ed.

To leave room for a wider range of topics, I have halted correspondence on the subject of birds of prey. If anyone wants to continue the debate on the Forum of the Countryman’s website (www.thecountryman.co.uk) they are welcome to contribute. Ed.

The editor reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.