12.9.39

Chilly (enough to have a fire), overcast & windy. Some light rain in the evening. Began cleaning out the maincrop potatoes & cutting the haulm preparatory to digging. They may as well however stay in the ground another fortnight to let the skins harden. Titley’s spring cabbages are too young to plant out yet, but will be ready in a fortnight, so about 25.9.39[1] will be the date for this. There should be room for 6 or 7 rows, ie. 100-150 plants. The bullaces only made 4lb. of jam.

Sold the two old boiling fowls, 6/6 for the two, ie. about 7/6 but commission comes off this.

This morning saw what I am virtually certain was a flight of woodcock. Possibly they flock together for migration. About 8.30 a flight of about a dozen birds went over, & by their long beaks & general shape I thought for a moment they were curlews, which are never seen round here. However they were just a little too small for curlews & their flight a little too fast. At a little distance past me they made the characteristic sideways dip, & I realized they were woodcock. The thing that still makes me slightly uncertain is not there being a dozen of them together, but their being so early. Others I have seen just arriving on the Suffolk coast came in October.

NB. To save seed (about 28 lb.) when digging the maincrop potatoes.

9 eggs. (Not listing the pullets’ eggs separately now as they are somewhat larger & sell for the same price. Titley says he is getting 3/4 a score from Moss’s.)

[1] Presumably the date is underlined as a reminder. Orwell was away for the ten days before his diary entry for 28 September, when he records planting sixty spring cabbages. Peter Davison

11.9.39

Somewhat less warm, overcast, a very few drops of rain about dark. Last night’s rain had made no difference to the soil.

Weeded out the onions. These will be ready to pick in 2-3 weeks, but are not good. Applied sodium chlorate to the nettles beyond the walnut tree. Pickled 1lb. of damsons & 3¹/₄ bullaces. The damsons made almost 2lb. jam, so the bullaces should make 5 or 6. The 2 rows of potatoes made 3 small sacks, I should say 50 or at most 60lb. so if the main crop are equally bad we shall have at most another 300 lb., which is not nearly enough.

Picked out 2 boiling fowls (the old light Sussex & the one which mothered the 2^nd lot of chicks) to go to market tomorrow.

Swallows beginning to gather on the telephone wires.

9 eggs.

10.9.39

Warmish, but overcast. Dug the 2 rows of King Edward potatoes (actually most of them are not K.E. but another larger kind, perhaps Great Scott). Again very poor though better than the earlies. The best had 16 sizeable potatoes to the root, average about 8. A great many I had to throw away as they were squashy. Everyone here is making the same complaint, so evidently we have some disease about. The first bush marrow has produced a great number of marrows. We had already cut 2 or 3 off it & now it has 4 more sizeable ones & others coming. The pumpkin has at last got hold & is swelling rapidly, so should have some time to reach a fair size before the frosts.

8 eggs.

NB. That M[uriel, Orwell’s goat]. was showing signs of heat about 8^th & 9^th, so should come on again about the 30^th.

9.9.39

Very hot. Dug up 3^rd batch of peas & dug over that piece of ground. Red mite again very bad. Most of the leghorns now moulting but not so many of the Rhodes. Notice that the birds’ appetites always drop off in this weather, ditto the goats, though they don’t drink much.

11 eggs. Sold 35 @ 2/- score. Total this week: 58

[NEWSPAPER CUTTING]

FEEDING ALL HOME-GROWN FOODS

A Hampshire smallholder’s system

SMALLHOLDER poultry-keepers should be able to make a good income from their fowls if they take advantage of the opportunities for growing their own foodstuffs, or using those which they may have already grown.

On a Hampshire holding recently was met a poultry-keeper who uses nothing but home-grown produce, except fish meal.

Like many others, he has no special equipment for milling, although he can grind his corn coarsely. He has naturally adopted an all-mash feeding system, because coarse ground meals are excellent for such a purpose. It may not be the ideal way of feeding layers, but then, he says, it must be remembered that profit is the difference between production costs and returns.

The Grain Crops Used

The three crops which he uses are wheat, oats and beans. These are coarsely ground and the fish meal is added. The mixture consists of: Wheat, 34 parts by the weight; oats, 43 parts; beans, 14 parts; and fish meal, 12 parts. This makes just a hundredweight.

The food is kept in front of the birds all the time in hoppers large enough to hold four-days’ supply. This supply is plenty, because one of the secrets of feeding is to use freshly-ground meals, since they are more palatable, and thus the birds eat more.

However, with this feeding system, it is essential to supply a considerable quantity of greenfood – on occasions when the daily allowance has been omitted production has fallen off considerably. But the farm produces plenty of kale and other forms of greenstuff, which is fed at the rate of about 1¹/₄ oz. per bird per day.

A second point for emphasis is that, being fed on an all-mash diet, the birds require more water than usual. The vessels must be kept filled and during the hot weather shaded, so that the birds have a cooling drink whenever they want it.

8.9.39

Hot. Blackberries not ripe yet. Have lifted the remained of the early potatoes, which are very poor, only about 5 potatoes to a root.

8 eggs.

[NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS]

Curing a Goat Skin. – The skin should be as free from fat as possible, any adhering pieces being scraped off with a blunt knife, Mrs A. W. (Warwick). Place the skin fur down on three or four folds of newspaper. Mix, in equal proportions by measure, salt, saltpetre and powdered alum. A tablespoonful of each will be ample for a small skin. Rub the mixture well into the skin with the three middle fingers, going carefully round the edges. The salt must not get into the fur or this will sweat. Having been all over the skin, place three or four folds of newspaper at the top and roll up tightly, tie a piece of string round the middle and put away for 10 days to a fortnight. Afterwards, with a blunt knife, peel off the inside skin. This should come away quite easily and leave a chamois skin, soft and pliable.[1]

FOR GATHERING OUT-OF-REACH FRUIT

OUT-OF-THE-WAY parts of apple and pear trees can be easily covered by the fruit picker who makes a tool similar to the one shown in the accompanying sketch.

Get a large fruit can and instead of cutting the top in the usual way remove only about two-thirds, trimming the remaining third in a straight line. In this part cut a nick, on the lines indicated.

Now get a very rounded pole, a broomstick being very suitable for this purpose. One end of this is cut off squarely and a long screw is then drive through a hole in the tin into the top of the pole. See that the join between the can and the pole is very secure.

In use the fruit is allowed to come into the can and this is then worked so that the “nick” in the top comes against the stalk.

A slight downward pull frees the fruit, which drops into the can. When the pole is not long enough another may be tied to it by way of an extension.

[1] Orwell may have had particular interest in this subject, as shown by his account of Flory’s disastrous attempt to have a leopard skin cured for Elizabeth in Burmese Days; see CW, II, 226-7. He was later to cure skins on Jura. Peter Davison

7.9.39

Very hot. Weeded out first lot of broccoli & dug between. Cut down nettles under the apple tree & applied 1 lb. sodium chlorate. A lot of apples but they are not very good or big, & many windfalls. Made 2-3 lb. apple jelly out of the windfalls.

8 eggs (1 small).

Forgot to mention that at Ringwood I several times saw large flocks of goldfinches, in one case over 30 in a flock.

NB. to count eggs for earlier days of this week at 7 a day, as during our absence they laid 85 in 12 days.

6.9.39

Very hot. Rooted up first lot of French beans & dug over that patch, which will do for spring cabbage. Cut side shoots out of tomatoes. These have not done at all well. All leaf & stalk, the plants growing so huge that it is almost impossible to get them to stand upright, & few & poor tomatoes (one or two now ripening.) Probable cause too much animal manure & not enough light.

10 eggs.

5.9.39

Have not been able to keep up the diary owing to travelling to & fro, dislocation caused by the war etc. The weather has been mainly hot & still. On the night of 2.9.39 a tremendous thunderstorm which went on almost continuously all night.

On returning to Wallington after 10 days absence find weeds are terrible. Turnips good & some carrots have now reached a very large size. Runner beans fairly good. The last lot of peas did not come to much. A number of marrows. One pumpkin about the size of a billiard ball. Apples on the grenadier almost ripe. Damsons & bullaces ripe. All the winter vegetables have taken all right. Early potatoes rather poor, only about 5-6 potatoes to a plant, but the later ones look as if they would be good. Onions fair. Lettuces have all gone to seed. Flowers in nursery beds (wallflowers 2 kinds, sweet williams & carnations) doing all right. Hollyhocks and marigolds almost over. Roses (not ramblers) blooming again. Larkspurs quite good. Bergamot over, & phloxes almost over. Dahlias full out. Some michaelmas daisies out. Grass has grown very tall in 10 days.

It seems that since 24.8.39 (ie. 12 days) the hens have laid only 85[1] eggs, mostly big ones. All the older hens are moulting. Goats have been a week on grass only owing to Clarke’s failing to deliver grain last week but in good condition & still giving a reasonable amount of milk.

[1] Orwell originally wrote ‘69’. Peter Davison

3.9.39. (Greenwich)

Have again been traveling etc. Shall close this diary today, & it will as it stands serve as a diary of events leading up to the war.
We have apparently been in a state of war since 11 am. this morning. No reply was received from the German gov.t to the demand to evacuate Polish territory. The Italian gov.t made some kind of last-minute appeal for a conference to settle differences peacefully, which made some of the papers as late as this morning show a faint doubt as to whether war would actually break out. Daladier made grateful reference to the “noble effort” of Italy which may be taken as meaning that Italy’s neutrality is to be respected.
No definite news yet as to what military operations are actually taking place. The Germans have taken Danzig & are attacking the corridor from 4 points north & south. Otherwise only the usual claims & counterclaims about air-raids, numbers of aeroplanes shot down etc. From reports in Sunday Express [a] & elsewhere it seems clear that the first attempted raid on Warsaw failed to get as far as the town itself. It is rumoured that there is already a British force in France. Bodies of troops with full kits constantly leaving from Waterloo, but not in enormous numbers at any one moment. Air-raid practice this morning immediately after the proclamation of state of war. Seems to have gone off satisfactorily though believed by many people to be real raid. There are now great numbers of public air-raid shelters, though most of them will take another day or two to complete. Gasmasks° being handed out free, & the public appears to take them seriously. Voluntary fire-brigades etc. all active & look quite efficient. Police from now on wear steel helmets. No panic, on the other hand no enthusiasm, & in fact not much interest. Balloon barrage completely covers London & would evidently make low-flying quite impossible. Black-out at nights fairly complete but they are instituting very stringent penalties for infringement. Evacuation involving 3 m. people (over 1 m. from London alone) going on rapidly. Train service somewhat disorganized in consequence.
Churchill & Eden are coming into the cabinet. Labour are refusing office for the time being. Labour MPs. in the house make violent protestations of loyalty but tone of the left press very sour as they evidently realize the wind has been taken out of their sails. Controversy about the Russo-German pact continues to some extent. All the letters printed in Reynolds’s [b] extol the pact but have shifted the emphasis from this being a “peace move” to its being a self-protecting move by U.S.S.R. “Action” of 2.9.3.9. still agitating against the war. No atrocity stories or violent propaganda posters as yet.
M[ilitary].T[raining]. Act  extended to all men between 18-41. It is however clear that they do not as yet want large numbers of men but are passing the act in order to be able to pick on anyone they choose, & for purpose of later enforcing industrial conscription.
[Conclusion of Orwell’s record of events leading up to the war]

[a] [b]

1.9.39.

Invasion of Poland began this morning. Warsaw bombed. General mobilization proclaimed in England, ditto in France plus martial law. [Radio]
Foreign & General
1. Hitler’s terms to Poland boil down to return of Danzig & plebiscite in the corridor, to be held 1 year hence & based on 1918 census. There is some hanky panky about time the terms were presented, & as they were to be answered by night of 30.8.39,[1] H.[2] claims that they are already refused. Daily Telegraph [a]
2. Naval reservists and rest of army and R.A.F. reservists called up. Evacuation of children etc. begins today, involving 3m. people & expected to take 3 days. [Radio; undated]
3. Russo-German pact ratified. Russian armed forces to be further increased. Voroshilov’s speech taken as meaning that Russo-German alliance is not contemplated. Daily Express [b]
4. Berlin report states Russian military mission is expected to arrive there shortly. Daily Telegraph [a]

[a] [b]

[1] Orwell wrote the date as 30.9.30 by mistake.
[2] Hitler. Peter Davison