The Country of White Clover.
London: Michael Joseph, 1952 (26 May). Drawings by Broom Lynne. With a title describing his adopted county of Kent, Bates explores some favorite topics of earlier essay collections: flowers, gardening, and country life. Like his columns collected in Country Life, he also touches on the English and Kentish character, the effects of the war and technological change, and expresses opinions about the work ethic in a welfare economy. Entertaining anecdotes about the trimming of trees on his property, the hiring of gardeners (including a reappearance of the character of Mr. Pimpkins from the 1943 O More Than Happy Countryman), and a village flower show flesh out the volume. In contrast to his other non-fiction volumes of essays on nature and rural life, the volume includes much about flowers and the changing of the seasons in France and Spain; these chapters, sometimes only tenuously related to the core topic of Kentish life, render the book more a compilation of unconnected essays than any of Bates's previous non-fictional works. Sections of some of the essays were published prior to book publication. Contains: Journey to Spring (published with title "Journey into Spring" in Woman's Journal, February 1952), The Country of White Clover, A Piece of England, Trees and Men (reprinted in The Atlantic in July 1956), Union Rustic, The Face of Summer (sections published with title "Island of Flowers" in Woman's Journal, March 1952), Railway Flowers (published in 1949 in The Sunday Times and also published in part with the title "Night Light" in Woman's Journal, April 1952), The Show, All Summer in a Day, The New Hodge, Sea and September, The Turn of the Year (published in the Sunday Times in 1949..