is comatose?

Replace the Big Four with a Monstrous One,

And hand the whole show over to The Times to run?

TO-DAY IN THE FOOD GARDEN.

PEAS.—Have you planted your early peas yet? If not you should do so at once. Select a piece of well-tilled ground running North and South. To find the North go out at twelve o'clock and stand facing the direction you think the sun would be in if it were visible. Turn smartly about bringing up the left foot on the word "Two." If you guessed right the first time you will now be facing North. Without taking your eye off it, drill your peas into the ground in columns of fours. Don't forget to soak them in prussic acid or any simple poison (this is done more easily before they are sown) to prevent them being eaten by mice. A less effective precaution is to sit up all night near the vegetable garden and miaow.

Here is a good recipe for cooking peas. Shell the peas. Take a piece of butter as big as a nut, two ducklings, six ounces sage and onions and three drops of mushroom catsup. Roast together briskly for twenty minutes. Boil the peas for fifteen minutes. Serve together.

ONIONS.—The big, gentle onions seen in the shops can only be brought to maturity on very warm sandy soil. Most of them come from Portugal. How the natives can bear to part with them is a mystery. The small high-powered onions, on the other hand, are easily cultivated. The best varieties are Eau de Jazz, Cook's Revenge, Sutton's Saucepan Corroder and Soho Violet. Sow in rows and beat the soil flat with the back of a spade. Your neighbour's spade is as good as any other for this purpose. Goats are said to be very fond of onion tops, but many people hesitate to keep both.

PARSNIPS.—To get big parsnips plant a single row twenty feet long. Thin out to ten feet apart. The crop you will get will last you until the following year. Placed in a quiet corner of the potting-shed and covered with sand it will last for several years. To get the best out of parsnips stew them in a bain-marie for eight hours. Remove the undissolved portion of the parsnips and set the liquid on the stone floor of the larder to cool. Prepare a nice thick stock, adding seasoning to taste. Cut up three carrots. Place the carrots in the saucepan in which the parsnips were cooked, being careful to wash it out first. Add the stock, bring to a boil and serve.

A LADY-FRIEND sends me the following instructions for growing vegetable marrows: In the sunniest part of the garden—the middle of the tennis-court is as good as anywhere else—dig a trench ten feet deep and about six wide, taking care to keep the top soil separate from the subsoil. Into this trench tip about six hundredweight of a compost made up of equal parts of hyperphosphate of lime, ground bones, nitrate of soda and basic-slag. The basic-slag should be obtained direct from the iron-foundry. That kept by the chemist is not always fresh. Add one chive, one cardamon, two cloves, half a nutmeg and salt to taste. Replace the top-soil. Top-soil and sub-soil can easily be distinguished in the following way. If it is on your whiskers it is top-soil, if on your boots sub-soil. In the middle of the bed set a good strong marrow seedling, root downwards. As it grows remove all the marrows except the one you wish to develop. When it stands about two hands high, thread a piece of worsted through it, allowing the end of the worsted to hang in a pail of water. Some gardeners recommend whisky-and-water. If the marrow is intended for exhibition a half-inch pipe connected with the water main may be substituted for the worsted as soon as the marrow is about six feet long. Make a muslin bag out of a pair of drawing-room curtains and enclose the marrow in it. This will protect it from mosquitoes. As soon as the marrow ceases growing or if it becomes sluggish and exhibits loss of appetite it is ready for the table. Marrows grown in this way make delicious orange-marmalade.

HOW TO GET RID OF SLUGS.—Take a piece of hose-pipe about forty feet long. Lay one end anywhere and the other on the lawn. At the latter end place some cabbage leaves fried in bacon fat. The slugs will be attracted by the cabbage leaves and, having eaten their fill, will enter the hose-pipe to rest. Now hold the hose-pipe perpendicularly over a pail of water and pour into it a few drops of chloroform. This will cause the slugs to faint and relax their hold. They will then fall through the pipe into the water and be drowned. ALGOL.

Our Helpful Press.

"Summer time commences to-morrow morning at 2 o'clock, and it will be necessary for people to put their clocks by one hour before retiring to bed to-night. In Southport the Cambridge Hall clock, which governs the clocks for the municipal buildings, will be put one hour at midnight."—Provincial Paper.

"The —— Society has a large selection of literature tracing the origin and development of Bolshevism, and exposing its miseries and horrors, of which samples will be forwarded on application."—Times.

We are not applying; it is bad enough to read about them.

From a General Routine Order:—

"Shoeing.—G.R.O. No. —— /d 23/10/18. With the exception of Pack and Draught Mules ..., all animals proceeding to join Units in the forward area must be shot all round without delay."

That should save the farriers a lot of trouble.

THE ARMY OF UNOCCUPATION.

FIRST GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE. "I SEE THEY'RE GIVING US ANOTHER SIX MONTHS' UNEMPLOYMENT PAY. SEEMS ALL RIGHT."

SECOND GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE. "YES. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INDIGNITY OF HAVING TO FETCH IT? WHY CAN'T THEY BRING IT TO US?"

War Profiteer. "AH, THAT'S BEAUTIFUL—GOT ME TO THE LIFE, THAT 'AS. WOTIMEANTERSAY IT LOOKS LIKE MONEY, THAT DOES!"

ON THE RHINE.

III.

In spite of oft-repeated warnings—in spite of the fact that I personally explained to each sentry that all he had to remember was that there were only seven different kinds of military passes, each one of different colour and all with dates, stamps and signatures, and that there was no difficulty in recognising its validity if a pass had the right British official stamp and so long as the signature underneath was one of the twenty-four people authorised to sign (a list of which would be kept in every sentry-box and constantly revised), and if the number of the pass, the name of the person, his address, destination, habits, hobbies and past life tallied exactly with the information on his "personal Ausweis," which must be produced except in the case of a licence to proceed by bicycle, which differed, of course, in colour, shape, size and other small details (which would have to be learnt by heart) from the licence to carry foodstuffs—in spite, also, of the fact that all necessary details of the examination of passes were typewritten in not more than three pages of the clearest official language and were posted up in every sentry-box—even then that ass Nijinsky let the whole company down by passing a member of the Intelligence Police through the line on his giving his word of honour that it was all right.

The