The Earth writer Herbert Ernest Bates

H.E. Bates, was born in 1905 at Northampton, in  England. The town was surrounded by good farming areas and Bates, as a boy , knew well the English countryside  and the peasants who lived there. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and wrote two novels.

Wire coop: enclosed place shut in with wire netting                                                        

Seeded cabbages: cabbages which have been left in the ground too long and have flowered and produced seeds

Laying pullets: young hens that have begun lying eggs

White Leghorns & Rhode Islands: two famous breeds of hen

Gone on: been taken to the house where they were going to live   

                                                      From the book - Ten short Stories
                                                                                Edited by Jatin Mohanty