A Lily-White Farm.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8196, 24 May 1906, Page 7

A Lily-White Farm.

A theme dear to garden essayists is the charm of the " white garden," one of the loveliest examples of which in EngJand has also an appropriate legend concerning a grief stricken maid, who chose that all flowers surrounding her should be as colourless as her sorrowful fate. But quite as notable is the experiment now being carried on in the " White Farm" at Cnchel, where Lord and Lady Alington have extended the principle of colour exclusion to animals and birds as well as flowers. All thu farm work is done by white horses, white cows supply the milk, white fowis, geese, and pigeons flock together at feeding-time, and the white turkeys are valued not only for their rarity, but as much less quarrelsome and unmanageable than the everyday " bubblyjock." White cats, white dogs, white rats, white guinea-pigs, and white owls, are amongst the attractions of the place, which boasts also more remarkable guests, such as a white Egyptian zebu, a white yak from Thibet, and a beautiful silver peacock, a gift to the farm from the Sultan of Turkey. If the traditional white cow browsing along a country lane accounts for as ; many stories of the supernatural as have been ascribed to her, it would be i a still more nerve trying ordeal for aj stranger, approaching this farm by ! night, to find all the creatures in every I field fronting him like glimmering ghosts ! Ghosts, by the way, should be really plentiful, if animal deaths evolve them, for 'Criclael experience has confirmed the theory of unusual mortality amongst light-coloured animals. " In the sun, he melts like butter; In the rain, ho melts like salt" — is the proverb of certain Arab tribes against the white horse; and it takes a good deal of anxious care to keep up the distinctive character of this snowscattered pleasance. But " The World and his Wife," in a recent page on this experiment, reports eager visitors from, all countries seeking out and admiring the "White Farm." Possibly colourfarming may bo the hobby of the future. The " Bed Farm " might work out brilliantly with high-coloured poultry, tor-toise-shell cats red cows, and the Drighest bay horses; or sciao agricultural pessimist expresses himself in funereal fields reserved for birds in sable, and the blackest of black sheep.