The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-08-24
HOW NATURE COVERS
UP THE RAVAGES
OF WARFARE
Flowers Grow in the Valley of the Ancre,
and Birds Are There, Though the
Woods Are Desolate.

| WVouo xAiC 0Souidhcs
The valley of the Ancre, which wa:
so hideous last year when the trickle OF
the strea-1 ran from one.half stagnant
pool to another through brown waste
Of shell-kneaded earth, is now all wav.
ing rushes dotted with meadowsweet
and hemp, agrimouy and purple loose
strife. In Avauy wood the riven tree
stumps stand out against a background
of acres of red rosebay. And so it is all
over the battlefelds of year ago.
1t is'an old legend that roses never
blow so red as over a hero's grave.
think it must be true of peoples. Nor
folk poppyland itself can show no brav-
er fields of scarlet than these year-old
backgrounds, and though it may be
only fancy it seems that the sheets OF
color are richer and more unbroken
where the fighting was fiercest. No
where does the ground fame quite SO
brilliantly as around the Butte de War
lencourt, on the dreadful expanse above
the Bazentins toward High wood, and
on the face of the Thiepyal slope, where
the Ulstermeu passed on July /, In
these places the ground is all peoples
for rods together Elsewhere the scarlet
is half yelled in the mist of Towering
grasses, and mixed with them are pro-
fusion of other blossoms, yellow rag
wort, hawkweed, SOW thistles and ladies'
bedstraw. mauve sealdous and purple
veteh and knapweed, tall campsnulas, /
blue chickory and vipers' bugloss and
and nearer 10 the ground pale |
field convolvIius and pimpernel, with |
everywhere, white yarrow and camo
mile.
No yard of all this ground but last !
year was piowed up by shells and beaten |
and plowed again, so that much of the |
soil which now lies on the surface must
nave been thrown up from two or three
ieet below, and then it was churned and
,hurned again. Yet the grass and the
lowers are as in any rich meadow at
rome and grow taller and more Mxu-
'iantly. There are no villages, no land
marks beyond the occasional patches of
parse tree stumps which once were
woods, but only the underwriting ex-
'anse, where there are no human beings,
s if it were the heart of some new CON
inent which man had but just discov-
red. All larger things were destroyed !
nd swept away by war, and only the
title things like plant seeds and insects
ggs were able to survive.
Rarely outside the tropics have I seen {
.,,tt r
tastes to-day, whites and tortoise shells 7
nd peacocks and shippers and little i
rambite moths. The kingly swallow
ais are here, too, but so far | have 5
HANGED this summer to see only one, and C
nat was not among the flowers, but on o
he bare white summit of the Butte de t
Tsrlencourt when the king was there. Il
he royal butterfly sailed round and 5
,und the little party and, as if recog- il
zing kinship, more than once made as I
to settle ON the king while he stood d
oking at the graves of the gallant Dur a
ans. e.
There are places where crops flourish, &
,tches of an acre or more being covered
it'll oats or barley OF wheat, mixed with
weeds" certainly, but hardly less close
ID even than if they had been truly
wn. One patch of barley tone almost 81
clines to call it a ''field'') which / saw Of
as especially fine; but all three are II
owing strongly between Longueval and in
nchy. where it seems impossible that in
ey could have been sown last year. ci
ore likely, they survive from three W
miners age and, self-seeded, they have n,
Id their own well against the wild
ings which riot around and among
EN-. IN one place I found solitary
tsto plant, going strong, sprung pre-
msbly from some potato strayed from
German field kitchen.
Next TO peoples the most abundant
wer is csmomile. and il alone seems to
We been able 20 spring up and grow on
! roads and beaten paths by. which the
emy used 70 travel to and from his
Is; 50 that, looking over the country.
I'D the deep green and waving velours.
q can often trace the course Of an old
II where il runs like a pure white
bon amid the Sc Of green and waving
ors
n, woods remain dssolat. beyond