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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16164, 19 March 1918, Page 6

More than one correspondent on the "Western front has told of the strange up.springing in the desolation of Xo Man's Land of a wealth of flowers, n.nd there is at least one garden near Christclr.srch in which have bloomed this summer red poppies grown from seed gathered on the .shot-torn field of Mesunes. The Kew "Bulletin" hus lately published a list of no fewer than fourteen familiar wild plants—mostly recognised as weeds—which have been observed flowering in their seasons on the battlefield of the Sonnne. They include the poppy, cornflower, forget-me-not, speed-well, yellow and white, charlock and camomile. It is remarked that the ground over which the buttle was fought ia the summer and autumn of 1916, was duiir.g the following winter and spring a dreary waste of mud. and water, and even iu the height of summer was covered >vith innumerable rends, formed in shellholes. The whole area had been out of cultivation since the early autumn of 191=1, r.nd the clothing of thousands of acres with abundant plant life is regarded as proof that the plants must lune sprung from seed lying dormant iu the ground.

Tho prospcct of having to clear land on which these weeds are flourishing with such prolific growth may be regarded with some dismay by the farmers and little land-owners, but there is some comfort to be drawn from the proof thus afforded that the ground lias not been so utterly ruined as has been alleged by some observers. An American farmer, writing in "Land and Water" with respect to the theory that the land of the battle area has been "poisoned" beyond remedy by gas and shell fumes, says that "while these fumes occasionally bleach anil cause fresh grass and foliage to wilt and die down, the effect is only temporary. If the roots are injured it is from being torn up by explosions, not from the fumes. In any event, the soil itself is not deleteriously affected. As to the effect of the constant churning of the earth by bursting shells, 1 hiight point out that sub-soil cultivation by the use of dynamite has been practised with invariable success in America for several years." "Whether the land of Northern France has been improved by being "churned up" ! y sholl explosions depends, wo should think, on tho nature of the sub-soil, and in parts at least long-standing injury is said to have been done by a harsh, chalky sub-soil being brought to the surface. Bub if the land will grow abundant weeds, it ought to be able to produce more useful crops.

Germany, it appears from a recent cable, promised tho Turks that she would restore Mesopotamia to them. It is probable that this promise will join the large numbor of unredeemed promises by which, according to a pamphlet which has just reached America, a largo number of German business and commercial men wer© induced to support the Hohcnzollern war policy. Tho author of the pamphlet, August Thyssen, a relative of tho German millionaire ironmaster, declares that he was promised a free giant of 80,000 acres in Australia and a loan at 3 per cent, of £150,000 to develop his property. Some firms were led to expect special trading facilities in India, which was to be a German territory by the end of 1915, and a syndicate of other firms, half of whose capital of twenty millions, was to bo provided by the German Government, was to be assisted to exploit Uanada. New Zealand, so far as wo can learn, was not given away to any one.

These promises, Horr Thyssen asserts, were not only definitely made by tho then Chancellor, Bethmann-Holl-weg, but were confirmed by the Kaiser at private gatherings of business men in various cities in 1912 and 1913! If this is true, it is a furthor proof of tho Kaiser's intention to go to war with England. It should interest the native rulers of India to learn that at one of these gatherings the Kaiser said: — "We shall not merely occupy India, wo shall conquer it, and the vast revenues that the British allow to be taken by the Indian princes will flow in a golden stream into the Fatherland." How much of this is true cannot yet be learned, Thyssen is a man with a grievance, for in December, 1916, when tho Chancellor asked 78 German business men to guarantee two hundred millions sterling to the next war loan, Thyssen, who was asked to contribute £200,000, refused, and in consequence lost his War Office contracts, his business being practically confiscated. His refusal eeoms to have been based on a surprisingly clear idea as to what the effect of the war would be on Germany. "We have been fooled," he writes, "into supporting a war from which the utmost we can hope to gain is to emerge without national bankrupty."