Occasionally I see a chirpy London sparrow, » with

Occasionally I see a chirpy London sparrow, » with its black chest. Our starlings came from Cen* tral Europe, but I am sure their jumping off place « was England. Some birds stowed away in the rig* ging of sailing ships, and hung on for the ride. It’s l strange, but I don’t know of any American birds * that immigrated the other way. Cardinals, bob* white, quail, and mockingbirds all seem to be « happy to stay in Virginia. When my friends ask me how I took up farm* ing, I reply, “the hard way.” As a youngster in t the 1940s I was taken out of school and drafted to , help the war effort. Groups of us schoolboys handweeded fields of carrots where the rows stretched out half a mile long. Then we had to snip the tops off beans, pull peas and pick potatoes — all by hand. I was happier when the bombs came, because I was evacuated from the East Anglican coast to a small farm in Nottinghamshire. I was what they ^ called an “evacuee,” living with new foster parents and a foster sister. I attended school fulltime, but I enjoyed helping on the farm during the long summer evenings and on holidays. The farm had four fields, but there were never cultivated — it was the original of the notill method. There was a permanent pasture, permanently grazed short, and a hayfield rooted with 100-year-old orchard grass. Because of the lati