THE TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

THE TRANSITION IN
AGRICULTURE

BY EDWIN A. PRATT

AUTHOR OF

' RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES,' ' THE ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURE,

'TRADE-UNIONISM AND BRITISH INDUSTRY,'

' AMERICAN RAILWAYS," ETC.

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1906

PREFACE

THE main purpose of the present volume is (i) to show,
by a series of facts and figures now to a large extent
first published, the substantial development which—
following on the decline in cereals, and aided by
changes in our economic conditions — has taken place
in various subsidiary branches of agricultural or kindred
pursuits, encouraging a spirit of confidence in the con-
tinued possibilities of the agricultural situation ; (2) to
give some idea of what is actually proceeding in this
country in the way of an increased acceptance of the
principles and practice of agricultural combination ;
and (3) to discuss some of the principles on which the
advent of the ' small holder ' can best be encouraged.

In dealing, however, with these three phases of the
transition which I thus seek to describe, my aim has
been less to give exhaustive details in regard to each
(a task which would have involved the writing of
several books instead of one, and an amount of labour
that could not well have been undertaken by an in-
dividual inquirer) than to present, in a single volume
of modest dimensions, such concrete examples and
illustrations as would allow of a general idea being
obtained of the situation as a whole.

vi PREFACE

The book has, therefore, been written less for statis-
ticians than for the British Public in general; and, I
may add, with no idea of lending special support to
either party in the great Fiscal controversy. That
the conclusions at which I arrive — especially on the
question of ' Ownership v. Tenancy ' in reference to
small holdings — will meet with universal acceptance
is more than I can hope for; yet even those whom I
may fail to convert to my individual views will, I trust,
nevertheless regard my statements of fact as an accept-
able contribution to the data on which questions of
vital importance to the well-being of the nation must
eventually be decided.

To the considerable number of authorities, organiza-
tions, traders, and others throughout the country, from
Penzance to Prestonpans, who have aided me in collect-
ing the materials on which the pages that follow are
based, and but for whose sympathetic assistance the
book itself could hardly have been written, I beg to
offer my most sincere acknowledgments.

EDWIN A. PRATT.
LONDON,
February, 1906.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY I AN ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION I

II. COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY - 8

III. ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT - 25

IV. THE FRUIT INDUSTRY - '41
V. A GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRUIT-FARM - 62

VI. FLOWERS - -70

VII. BULBS - 79

VIII. PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS - 88

IX. MARKET-GARDENING - 98

X. SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS - III

XI. EVESHAM AND ITS STORY 133

XII. THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY - 151

XIII. AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION - - 165

XIV. BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY - 178

XV. CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-GRADING - - 189

XVI. MARKETING PROBLEMS - - 195

XVII. TRANSPORT QUESTIONS - - 207

XVIII. THE LAND QUESTION : PEASANT PROPRIETARY

ABROAD - 229

XIX. PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME - 243

XX. TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK - 255

XXI. THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS - - 265

vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTKK PACK

XXII. SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES - 279

XXIII. SMALL HOLDINGS BY 'PRIVATE ENTERPRISE* 293

XXIV. THE HUMAN ELEMENT - 302
XXV. AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA - 313

XXVI. POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION - 323

APPENDIX :

AYLESTONE CO-OPERATIVE ALLOTMENTS SOCIETY

(TEXT OF AGREEMENT) - 341

ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS CLUBS

(RULES) - 343

SOUTH LINCOLNSHIRE SMALL HOLDINGS ASSOCIA-
TION (AGREEMENT) - - 346

REGISTERED V. NON-REGISTERED SOCIETIES - 349

INDEX - - - - - 351

PHOTOGRAPHS — PLAN OF MILK-LANDING A r EUSTON
— PLAN ILLUSTRATING PEASANT PROPRIETARY
IN HOLLAND.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SPRING FLOWER HARVEST AT WISBECH - Frontispiece

SPECIAL MILK-VAN, GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY

To face p. 16

STREET SCENE IN WISBECH : A CONSIGNMENT OF POTATOES

To face p. 46

A BED OF ST. BRIGID ANEMONES AT ROBERTSON'S BULB

FARM, RUSH, CO. DUBLIN - To face p. 84

TULIP MACROSPILA AT RUSH, CO. DUBLIN - To face p. 86

UNLOADING THE WORTHING SPECIAL (FRUIT, FLOWERS,
AND VEGETABLES) AT LONDON BRIDGE STATION,
LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST RAILWAY

To face p. 92

FRUIT-GROWING UNDER GLASS I A VINERY AT MR. G.
BULLEN'S HANGLETON NURSERIES, GORING, SUSSEX

To face p. 96

EGG - COLLECTING DEP6T AT STOKE FERRY, NORFOLK,

GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY - To face p. 154

ix

x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BRANDSBY ROAD MOTOR AND TRAILER, NORTH-
EASTERN RAILWAY - To face p. 1 88

SPECIAL MILK-TRAIN AT MILK-LANDING, EUSTON STATION,

LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY To face p. 214

PLANS

PLAN OF THE SPECIAL MILK-LANDING AT EUSTON STATION

To face p. 216

PLAN OF THE COMMUNE OF VLEDDER, DRENTHE (PEASANT

PROPRIETARY IN HOLLAND) - To face p. 350

THE

TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY: AN ECONOMIC
TRANSFORMATION

IT is open to consideration whether the bitter cry of
the distressed British agriculturist has not been per-
sisted in with undue energy of late years — whether, on
the one hand, a certain amount of the actual distress
has not been attributable to a lack of initiative and of
adaptability to changing circumstances; and whether,
on the other, the public, who have heard so much con-
cerning the unprofitableness of cereals, have been told
sufficiently of what producers in other directions are
doing in order to meet the demand for commodities in
regard to which new or greatly improved markets have
sprung up, with widespread possibilities of still further
development under suitable conditions, and especially,
I would say, under conditions which favour the smaller
type of cultivator, and should, therefore, naturally tend
to an increased land settlement.

The extreme gravity of the changes brought about
in the first instance is undeniable. They were changes

i

2 INTRODUCTORY

that amounted to a revolution in our economic con-
ditions. The opening up of vast expanses of virgin
soils in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Austra-
lasia, and elsewhere, to the production of wheat on a
scale to which there could be no possible approach in
the United Kingdom ; the quick transport of these and
other foreign or colonial supplies by ocean steamers at
rates which were so low that they became almost a
negligible quantity ; the invention of refrigerating
processes which nullified climate, as steam had already
annihilated distance, and opened up British markets to
the almost limitless supplies of meat, butter, and other
perishables from distant lands; the steady fall in the
price of wool, owing to the magnitude of the flocks
raised in our colonies ; — these and other causes, apart
from the advent of a succession of unfavourable seasons,
were sufficient in themselves to disturb the very founda-
tions of British agriculture, and to show that the old
order of things in regard thereto was passing away.

But while these adverse conditions were being ex-
perienced in Great Britain, and while individuals who
clung especially to the production of cereals were going
from bad to worse, other sets of modifying changes
wrere being developed which offered a certain degree
of compensation, had full advantage at once been taken
of them. The towns were, indeed, growing at the
expense of the country, whence the rapidly-increasing
industries and the various occupations of urban life
drew their supplies of labour. Yet in proportion as
the towns grew and manufactures developed, there was
an increase in the demand for food-supplies other than
simply the wheat and the meat, in regard to which the
foreign and colonial competition was especially severe ;
while, with the greater wealth of the country there
was brought about a greater purchasing power among

ALTERNATIVES TO WHEAT 3

all classes of the community, and a consequent greater
ability to gratify the increasing taste for articles of
food, and other things besides, which had previously
been regarded by the lower-middle and artisan classes,
at least, as luxuries altogether beyond their means.
Apart, also, from any question of increased earnings,
the very fact of bread and meat being cheaper, by
reason of the abundant foreign supplies, naturally
allowed of more money being spent — even where the
wages remained the same as before — on extensions of,
and variations in, a hitherto more or less restricted
dietary.

So it is (i) that the popular consumption in Great
Britain during the last two or three decades of milk,
cream, butter, vegetables, fruit, preserves, poultry, eggs,
etc., as supplementary to bread and meat, has been
greater than ever before in our history ; (2) that there
is a continued demand on the part of large sections
of the community for the best qualities of English or
Scotch meat, in spite of the large supplies of frozen or
chilled with wThich other consumers are satisfied; and
(3) that the breeding of high-class live stock of all types
has undergone great expansion, partly in order to pro-
vide good dairy cattle and those best qualities of meat
already mentioned, and partly as a separate commercial
enterprise, to supply the requirements of countries
which have looked to Great Britain as the land whence
the best of breeding stock could be obtained.

Home producers who either recognised at once these
newer wants and enlarged opportunities, and hastened
to take advantage of them, or else were already engaged
in what may be termed the ' lesser,' as distinct from the
* greater' agriculture, went through the period of
distress with comparative immunity, and did well, or
at least fairly well, at a time when large areas of land

I — 2

4 INTRODUCTORY

devoted to cereals were being abandoned, and wheat -
growers were declaring themselves ruined.

In some respects the foreigner was more ready to
recognise these changes, and to avail himself of the
wider opportunities so offered in our own markets, than
the British producer was, while the foreigner had the
greater reason for sending his increasing surplus to us,
either because of the lack of a home population of
sufficient dimensions to absorb his products, or because
countries other than Great Britain set up against him
the impediment of hostile tariffs. Want of enterprise
or of adaptability among British agriculturists thus
played into the hands of the foreigner ; and it so played
still more as shrewd English traders, who (i) were alive
to the trend of events, (2) realized the conservative
instincts of the British farmer, and (3) despaired of
gathering in at home the large quantities which they
knew our markets would take, themselves went abroad,
established depots in various centres on the continent
of Europe and elsewhere, collected supplies from the
peasantry over a large area, sorted, graded, and con-
signed them to England in large quantities under the
best conditions, and thus worked up a remunerative
business, to the advantage both of themselves and of
the consumer, while many a British agriculturist was
still bewailing the unremunerative price of wheat.

All the same, the awakening came in our own country,
and so well — especially of late years — have British
agriculturists of the more progressive type responded to
the aforesaid newer wants and enlarged opportunities
that, concurrently with the continued decline in cereals,
there has been a resort to alternative crops or industries
to an extent that hitherto the British public have failed
entirely to realize. The tradition of agricultural depres-
sion has been kept alive in the press by 'gentlemen

SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY 5

farmers,' who, with the decline of wheat-growing, found
their occupation gone, and the ' working farmer,' who is
taking their place, has not contradicted them. He is
too busy a man to spend his time in writing letters to
the newspapers !

Nor have official reports and statistics afforded much
enlightenment on the particular matters here under
review. Whether the difficulties of collecting the in-
formation were regarded as too great to be undertaken
by a State department, or whether the matters in
question were not thought of sufficient importance to
warrant official notice, is more than I can say. But
this fact I realized at the very outset of my own inquiry :
that to ascertain what was going on in the directions
indicated it would, in most cases, be necessary to visit
personally almost every district which came into con-
sideration at all, and seek for myself at first hand the
information I wanted.

This course I have pursued, so far as time and oppor-
tunity allowed ; but, in the circumstances, I wish the
reader clearly to understand that in the pages which
follow I make no attempt to give a complete survey of
the present state of British agriculture in regard even
to subsidiary crops and alternative industries. What,
as an individual inquirer, I have had to be content to
do is to gather in such facts and figures as would indicate
sufficiently the changes that have been going on, and
the magnitude of the developments that have already
taken place, hoping thereby to promote a greater degree
of public confidence in the continued vitality and the
widened possibilities of British agriculture (using that
word in its broadest sense), notwithstanding the period
of depression of which the effects have certainly not
yet entirely disappeared.

The restoration of such a feeling of confidence is of

6 INTRODUCTORY

the greater importance in view of the general attention
now being attracted in Great Britain to questions con-
cerning the land. If the country will only realize ade-
quately what can be done, and what is being done, with
land popularly supposed to have * gone out of cultiva-
tion,' more or less, because ' corn crops do not pay,'
there will be a still greater willingness to take practical
interest in schemes for a closer land settlement. To
my own mind it seemed that the securing of definite
facts, showing what was actually going on along these
particular lines, would be worth any possible amount of
trouble that might be involved in collecting them. The
restoration of wheat-growing to its former position in
this country may or may not be possible ; but assum-
ing, for the sake of argument, that the latter be the
case, then it becomes a matter of really national impor-
tance to see (i) what, under the continuance even of our
present economic and fiscal conditions, can be done with
the land instead; and (2) how far the new industries
which are either taking the place of, or at least consider-
ably supplementing, wheat production, are suitable for
the small holders whom it is desired to establish in
greater numbers on the soil.

Combined with these problems there are others.

Granted the capabilities of the land, as regards these
alternative purposes, how are the producers to gain the
best results from the enterprises they carry on ? Under
this head I propose to discuss various questions
connected with the theory of combination, and I hope
to adduce such evidence as will convince the reader
that here again a stage of transition has been un-
mistakably entered upon, as shown by the increasing
(though still far from complete) willingness to adopt
the principles and practice of co-operation. In connec-
tion with the idea of combination as a means of securing

A CATALOGUE OF PROBLEMS 7

cheaper transport, I shall have something to say on the
general question of the relations of the railways towards
the agriculturists.

Finally, assuming that the land can still be used to
advantage ; that the alternatives to wheat-growing
represent industries suitable for small holders ; that
combination will be of great practical assistance in
securing economical production, cheaper transport, and
more remunerative returns — assuming all this, there still
remains that important matter of detail : On what
principle can the small holders best occupy their land ?
Should it be ownership or tenancy ? Should land-owner
and small holder be left to their own resources, or should
there be an intermediary? If so, who should that
intermediary be ?

The reader will perhaps conclude that I have here a
pretty full catalogue of problems to deal with in the
circumscribed limits of a single volume ; but to my own
mind they all have a more or less direct bearing the
one upon the other, and must be regarded, in effect,
as representing different phases of one great and all-
important question.

With that expression of my own view of the matter
I bring these opening remarks to a close, and address
myself, without further delay, to my task.

CHAPTER II
COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

THE fact that so large an amount of arable land in
the United Kingdom has been laid down to pasture
during the last few decades is constantly adduced as one
of the most striking proofs of agricultural depression.
But those who bring forward this argument generally
omit to mention that one effect of this increase of
pasture land has been the development of a really
j stupendous business in the sale of fresh milk to the
towns.

Down to about the year 1875 large centres of popu-
lation in this country were supplied with milk either
from farms situate on their immediate outskirts, or from
cow-sheds in which the milch cows were housed within
the limits of the city or town. Milk produced at farms
any distance away was used mainly for the making of
butter or cheese. Various causes combined to change
these conditions. The towns swallowed up their rural
suburbs; the urban populations greatly increased; the
consumption of milk per head of the people developed
in an even greater ratio than the increase in the popu-
lation ; the old conditions of milk-supply were no longer
generally practicable; while the growing competition
from foreign and colonial butter and cheese led to the
seeking of wider outlets for the sale of that fresh milk

8

BUTTER-MAKING OR MILK-SELLING 9

in the supply of which to the large towns the British
farmer could have a monopoly.

The fact, I might here remark, that British dairy
farmers have allowed the trade in butter to get so much
into the hands of colonists and foreigners has often
been held up as a reproach to them. But the reply
they make is that, where their farms are wdthin easy
reach of a railway and of a large centre of population,
it pays them better to sell the new milk than to turn it
into butter, the latter course being expedient only
when the farm is at too great a distance from a railway
or a large town ; or, alternatively, when there is an excess
in supply over demand, butter-making then becoming
(among other expedients) a convenient means of using
up the surplus.

The general position, from the farmer's point of view,
is well stated in the following paragraph, published in
The Dairy World under the heading * Butter-making or
Milk-selling':

The lament is periodically made in the daily papers that such a
vast sum of money as ,£27,000,000 should be annually expended in
the purchase of dairy produce from abroad, and Lord Londonderry
has recently taken up the parable and expressed the opinion that
farmers' wives and daughters should take the matter seriously into
their consideration. The question, after all, resolves itself into one
of price. When a dairy farmer can, by selling fresh milk, get from
is. 4d. to is. lod. — according to season — for the quantity that
would be required to make a pound of butter, he is not likely,
neither is his wife nor his daughter, to take into serious considera-
tion the alternative of making butter to compete with produce
which is quoted on the market at from lod. to is. id. per pound.
In some cases where a special market is obtained, and the facilities
for sending milk to a large centre are not favourable, the making
of butter of a high quality can be carried on to advantage ; but the
instances where such butter can command as high a price as is. 6d.
per pound are very exceptional, and the possibilities of the exten-
sion of such trade so slight that no appreciable effect on the im-
ported produce could result. The conditions in Ireland are, of
course, different to those in Great Britain, but it is certain that to

io COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

the English dairy farmer with the high price of labour and higher
rent, as compared with that in Ireland, the making of butter would
mean the highroad to ruin.

Then, again, at a luncheon of the North Ribblesdale
Agricultural Society one of the speakers admitted
that ' something ought to be done ' to compete more
effectually with Denmark ; but he found that ' no doubt
there were many difficulties in the way. If,' he con-
tinued, ' you had a quart of cream, you could only make
a pound of butter out of it. If you sold the quart of
cream you got is. 6d. for it in Settle and 2s. 6d. in
Bradford, but you only got is. id. for the pound
of butter.'

Not only did the farmers find it to their interest
to sell the fresh milk as such, but the greatly increased
consumption, as the food-value of milk came to be
more appreciated, and the better means provided for
its distribution, by means of the railways, led to a
great expansion of the milk industry, which has now,
as I have said, become a very big enterprise indeed.

According to a report drawn up by a committee of
the Royal Statistical Society appointed to inquire into
the statistics available as a basis for an estimate of the
production of meat and milk in the United Kingdom
(presented in June, 1904), the total annual production
of milk available for consumption, in one form or
another, may be put at 1,723,000,000 gallons, distributed
as follows : Consumed as milk, 620,000,000 gallons ;
used in the making of butter, 944,000,000 gallons ;
ditto, cheese, 153,000,000 gallons ; ditto, condensed
milk, etc., 6,000,000 gallons. The annual production
of butter in the United Kingdom is estimated by the
same authority at 160,550 tons, and that of cheese at
68,300 tons. From these figures it would appear that,
notwithstanding the large sale of new milk, and not-

MILK TRAFFIC ON THE G. W. RAILWAY u

withstanding also the prodigious importations of
foreign and colonial butter, more milk is still used here
for the production of English butter than is sold for
direct consumption.

How the business in the distribution and sale of
new milk has increased of late years is well shown
by the experiences of different railway companies in
relation thereto. The following table, respecting the
traffic on the Great Western Railway, which carries
more milk than any other line in the country, is
especially interesting :

MILK TRAFFIC FORWARDED FROM GREAT WESTERN
STATIONS.

Year.

Total Number of Cans
carried.

Proportion received in
London.

1892 .

1,049,511

757,793

1893.

1,053,359

719,045

1894.

1,057,967

731,301

1895 .

1,228,356

822,205

1896 .

1,346,569

876,782

1897 .

.

1,442,502

932,682

1898 .

.

1,524,125

975,784

1899.

1,642,380

,024,363

1900 .

.

1,678,078

,036,327

1901 .

1,746,903

,057,188

1902 .

1,915,456

,089,156

1903 .

2,065,039

,137,769

1904 .

2,141,778

,206,616

Allowing (for the Western counties) an average of
14 J gallons to each can, one finds that the total quantity
of milk carried on the Great Western system in 1904
was over 31,000,000 gallons, of which nearly 17,500,000
gallons were brought to London. The proportion of

12 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

the supply for the Metropolis carried by the Great
Western comes mostly from stations on the main line
between Reading and Chippenham, and from the Berks,
Hants, and Winchester districts. Over 10,000 cans
were received in London during 1904 from the following
stations : Challow, Shrivenham, Chippenham, Cran-
more, Malmesbury, Sparkford, Stratton, Devizes,
Wantage, Calne, Mells Road, Swindon, Witham, West-
bury, Patney and Chirton, Umngton, Castle Gary,
Hallatrow, Little Somerford, Wootton Bassett, Trow-
bridge, Pewsey, Brinkworth, Hannington, Highworth,
Yetminster, and Shepton Mallet.

The longest distance for which milk is regularly
carried to London on the Great Western system is
about 130 miles, but the greater part would be brought
a distance of about 80 miles. The milk is collected by
local trains from the stations on branch lines, and
converges towards Swindon. It is there put into
express trains, which do the journey thence to London
(77 miles) in less than two hours. There are also
special milk trains, running at high speeds, which call
at the principal milk-sending stations on the way
to London. In the cooler months of the year milk
is sent longer distances than in the summer. During
1904, for example, 700 cans were conveyed from
St. Erth (Cornwall) to Paddington, a distance of 320
miles.

In addition to the milk conveyed by the Great
Western Railway, large quantities are also brought to
London from the Western counties by the London
and South-Western Railway Company, who likewise
run special express milk trains in order to facilitate
their very substantial traffic.

The following table shows at a glance the number
of cans and gallons of [milk forwarded from 450 of

L. AND N.-W. MILK TRAFFIC 13

the principal stations on the London and North-
Western Railway during the years 1904 and 1892
respectively :

Year.

Cans.

Imperial Gallons.

1904
1892

1,499,712
1,054,802

22,495,680
15,822,030

Increase ...

444,910 = 42 per cent.

i

6,673,650= 42 per cent.

The general average distance the milk is conveyed on
the London and North-Western may be taken at some-
thing like 80 miles ; but occasionally it comes from
places one or two hundred miles away. In the autumn
of 1905 the company were carrying to London two or
three cans daily from Goold's Cross, on the Great
Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, a distance
of 430 miles. The explanation is that, the general
scale of charge being the same for all distances
over 150 miles — viz., ijd. per gallon — distance, given
a sufficiently quick delivery, is no obstacle to
receivers getting their milk from any part of the
United Kingdom they please. Where there is a re-
gular supply going forward even lower rates for over
150 miles than ijd. per gallon are charged in some
cases.*

The special milk trains provided on the London and

* The question as to whether or not the milk traffic is really
profitable to the railway companies will be dealt with in a subse-
quent chapter on 'Transport Questions.'

14 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

North - Western Railway, and running into Euston,
Liverpool, or Manchester, are as follows :

7.40 p.m.

10.30 „
9.18 a.m.
7.10 p.m.

10.45 a.m.
8.0 „
7-26 „
9.32 „

Crewe to Euston.
Burton to Euston.
Bletchley to Euston.
Bletchley to Euston.
Willesden to Euston.
Longcliflfe to Manchester.
Stockport to Longsight.
Chester to Liverpool.

The times are slightly modified, and the number of
trains is augmented, on Sundays where the ordinary
passenger services are insufficient for the requirements
of the traffic. In addition to the milk going by the
* specials,' a very considerable quantity is carried by the
ordinary passenger trains every day of the week.

At Euston Station there are two commodious plat-
forms (with a roadway in between direct from the street)
which are specially allocated to the milk traffic, and
here as many as 1,500 cans of milk have been received
in a single day.

On the Great Eastern Railway the milk traffic from
country stations to London and suburban stations in
1904, as compared with 1894, was approximately as
under :

Year.

1904 ...
1894 ...

Increase

Number of Cans.

520,000
392,000

Number of Gallons.

7,280,000
4,700,000

128,000

2,580,000

About 30 per cent, of the traffic is sent to Liverpool

GREAT EASTERN ; NORTH EASTERN 15

Street, the remainder being distributed amongst some
fifty Great Eastern suburban stations in the North,
North-East, and East of London — viz., Tottenham,
Hackney, Bow, West Ham, East Ham, Ilford, etc.
Formerly the bulk of the traffic was received at Liver-
pool Street; but owing to the great expansion of the
suburban districts during the past few years, the milk
is now required more in the suburbs than in the City,

Deputy General Manager of the North-Eastern Rail-
way Company, Mr. Philip Burtt, is an active member)
buys milk from Wensleydale farmers, who, in return for
a close adherence to certain strict sanitary and other
regulations and conditions, are paid a higher price for
their milk than they have hitherto received. The milk
is taken to the Northallerton depot, where it is tested,
filtered, cooled, and run off into bottles. These are
then sealed, put into boxes for transit by rail, and

14 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

North - Western Railway, and running into Euston,
Liverpool, or Manchester, are as follows :

7.40 p.m.
10.30 „
9.18 a.m.
7.10 p.m.
10.45 a-m'
8.0 „
7-26 „
9-32 „

•

•

Crewe to Euston.
Burton to Euston.
Bletchley to Euston.
Bletchley to Euston.
Willesden to Euston.
Longcliffe to Manchester.
Stockport to Longsight.
Chester to Liverpool.

NOTE.-The figures given in lines 15 and 16 of page 15 refer
to the milk traffic carried by the North-Eastern Railway G
pany from the Wensleydale district only. The total number of
milk cans carried by that Company over the.r ent.re system
in 1904 was 360,000.

1904
1894

520,000
392,000

7,280,000
4,700,000

Increase

128,000

2,580,000

About 30 per cent, of the traffic is sent to Liverpool

GREAT EASTERN ; NORTH EASTERN 15

Street, the remainder being distributed amongst some
fifty Great Eastern suburban stations in the North,
North-East, and East of London — viz., Tottenham,
Hackney, Bow, West Ham, East Ham, Ilford, etc.
Formerly the bulk of the traffic was received at Liver-
pool Street; but owing to the great expansion of the
suburban districts during the past few years, the milk
is now required more in the suburbs than in the City,
and goes there direct. During the summer season a
considerable quantity of milk is also conveyed to seaside
resorts such as Cromer, Yarmouth, Southend-on-Sea,
etc., both from Great Eastern stations and over the
Great Eastern system from stations in Derbyshire,
Staffordshire, and elsewhere.

The North-Eastern Railway Company carried 29,000
cans of milk in 1904, as compared with only 9,000
four years previously. This considerable increase in
so short a time has encouraged the company to make
a special effort with a view both to securing still further
expansion and to placing the local milk-supply on a
better footing. To this end they erected alongside
their lines at Northallerton a commodious and well-
arranged depot, to serve as a collecting and distributing
centre for a newly-formed body known as the Wensley-
dale Pure Milk Society, which leases the depot from
the railway company. The society (of which the
Deputy General Manager of the North-Eastern Rail-
way Company, Mr. Philip Burtt, is an active member)
buys milk from Wensleydale farmers, who, in return for
a close adherence to certain strict sanitary and other
regulations and conditions, are paid a higher price for
their milk than they have hitherto received. The milk
is taken to the Northallerton depot, where it is tested,
filtered, cooled, and run off into bottles. These are
then sealed, put into boxes for transit by rail, and

16 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

placed in a refrigerating chamber pending consign-
ment. It is in these bottles that the milk reaches the
consumer.

When operations were started, in October, 1905, it
was understood that the entire supply then available,
about 500 gallons a day, would go to Newcastle-on-
Tyne, where it would be distributed by the Newcastle
Co-operative Society, already a large retailer of milk.
Notwithstanding the increased price paid to the farmers,
and also the higher railway rates on account of the
bottles, the charge to the consumer for the bottled
milk would be the same as the unbottled, the Newcastle
Co-operative Society being satisfied with a smaller
profit. Should the scheme answer it will be extended
to other towns as well.

The milk brought to London by the Great Northern
Railway Company comes mainly from North Stafford-
shire, though substantial quantities are also carried
from Nottingham, Leicester, Derbyshire, Hatfield, and
Huntingdon. Egginton Junction, near Burton, and
154 miles from London, is a collecting centre for the
North Staffordshire traffic. From this point a special
milk train leaves at 9.30 at night, and runs through
to London (but for two stops en route for locomotive
purposes), reaching Finsbury Park at 1.30 a.m., and
King's Cross at 2.30 a.m. Special milk sidings and
special staifs to attend to the traffic are provided at
each station. During the months of July, August, and
September, 1905, 36,000 churns were received at King's
Cross, and 57,000 at Finsbury Park, a total of 93,000
for the quarter. These were estimated to represent
1,488,000 gallons of milk.

Facing this page is a photograph giving the type <
special milk-van now employed on the Great Norther
Railway.

lo
rr

PRODUCERS AND COMBINATION 17

In regard to the milk traffic on the Midland system
during the course of a year, I have been favoured with
the following approximate statement :

Destination Station.

Number of Milk-cans
carried.

Number of Imperial
Gallons of Milk.

London

418,000

5,6l8,000

Birmingham..

193,000

2,711,000

Manchester ..

96,000

1,236,000

Nottingham ..

50,000

658,000

Sheffield ..

53,000

702,000

Leeds

65,000

8l6,000

Bradford

41,000

478,000

Other stations

283,000

2,913,000

Totals

1,199,000

15,132,000

The figures I have given are quite sufficient in them-
selves to demonstrate the large proportions which the
business in fresh milk has assumed, and I may therefore
now proceed to say that if, hitherto, the dairy farmers
of the country have not derived so large a profit from
that business as they would like, and as they ought, to
have, the reason has been due mainly to the lack of
such combination on their part as would enable them
to control the market, instead of being themselves, in
effect, controlled by middlemen. There may be diffi-
culties in the way of farmers living 100 miles or so
away from a large town attempting to sell their own
milk direct to the actual consumer, though co-operative
retail shops have been opened by dairy farmers in one
or two provincial centres with a fair prospect of success.
But when, on the other hand, the individual farmer in
the country sells to a London wholesale dealer, who
sells to a retail dealer, who sells to the householder,

2

i8 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

there are, clearly enough, intermediate profits being
made which, unless unduly high prices are to be paid by
the consumer, may well keep down the amount received
by the producer, especially if he should have no organ-
ization at his back to see that justice is done to him.
Some years ago, when the farmers in the West of
England complained of the small returns they were
getting on their milk, the Great Western Railway
Company, with the idea of helping them, granted a
reduction in the rates for the carriage of milk. But
the farmers got none of the benefit, as the wholesale
dealers at once reduced their allowance to the farmers
by a proportionate amount.

Obviously the real remedy lies in the direction of
combined effort among the milk-producers themselves ;
and what combination can do is well shown in the case
of the Staffordshire Farmers' Association, which was
formed, in 1897, writh the following object in view:

The object of the association is to secure for its members by
co-operation the most favourable condition for carrying on the
business of farming with financial success. This object may be
attained in the following manner :

1. By discussion and agreement upon the fair market price that
ought to be obtained for farm produce.

2. By giving information and assistance to members to help
them to make satisfactory contracts, and by supplying printed
forms for contracts, with a view of securing uniformity and fair
dealing.

3. By assisting members at any time in obtaining information as
to the stability of traders, and, in certain test cases, taking legal
advice, as the executive committee may decide.

4. By obtaining the best terms possible from the railway com-
panies for the carriage of all farm produce, and also by obtaining
all other railway facilities that may be required.

5. By using all efforts to prevent adulteration of dairy produce,
feeding-stuffs, and manures.

6. By co-operation, amalgamation, or affiliation with any other
kindred associations.

7. By making arrangements for bringing the producer into con-
tact with the retail dealers and consumers.

COMBINATION IN STAFFORDSHIRE 19

8. By purchasing for members, on favourable terms, feeding-
stuffs, manures, implements, and other farm requisites, as may be
required.

9. And generally by promoting the interests of farmers in every
way that may from time to time be considered desirable.*

The association has now 1,200 members, who dispose
of 12,500,000 gallons of milk per annum. Their net
return on this quantity, after allowing for railway
carriage, is £369,000 ; and it is calculated that the
financial gain they have secured through combination
is from £30,000 to £40,000 per annum, or an average
annual gain per member of from £30 to £40.

One may judge from these figures what the milk
industry is worth to the British farmer, and one sees
also how its conditions may be further improved. But
the particular circumstances under which the Stafford-
shire combination was brought about should also be
told.

The chief market for Staffordshire milk is London,
and, prior to 1897, the farmers of that county sent their
supplies to wholesale dealers in the Metropolis. The
farmers in Derbyshire did the same, and the London
wholesale dealers got into the way of setting the pro-
ducers in the one county against those in the other, in
order to reduce the returns made to each, and secure
larger profits for themselves. Meanwhile (as I shall show
subsequently, in a chapter on * Essex Past and Present ')
the dairy farmers of the Eastern counties had formed
an association having for one of its objects the creation

* A further statement issued by the association, showing the
advantages of membership, says, among other things : * You will
by joining the association encourage combination, without which
it is nowadays impossible for any business to be carried on to the
best pecuniary advantage. There are very many questions con-
nected with agriculture which cannot be properly dealt with except
by united action.'

2—2

20 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

of an agency in London for the sale of milk to retailers,
so as to dispense with the intermediate wholesale dealer.
The Staffordshire farmers began to think it would be
better for them if they adopted a similar policy, and
they approached the Derbyshire farmers to see if they
would join in an agency scheme to embrace the two
counties. Derbyshire approved the idea. But there
were financial difficulties to be solved. It was especially
thought the London agency should not be started with-
out a definite guarantee of the necessary capital for
three years. By the end of that time, in the opinion
of Mr. Edwin Smithells, secretary of the then newly-
formed Staffordshire Farmers' Association, the agency
would be self-supporting.

The matter was laid before the leading Staffordshire
land-owners, who were assured that if the proposed
scheme were carried out, the position of the farmers
would be substantially improved. The landlords res-
ponded by giving generous subscriptions or donations
to meet the initial expenses, and by guaranteeing any
further sums that might be wanted for a period of
three years. Not only, indeed, have the landlords done
this, but they have helped to form the executive com-
mittees of the Staffordshire and Derbyshire Associations,
and have taken an active and thoroughly sympathetic
part in the working details. The Earl of Lichfield,
President of the Staffordshire Farmers' Association,
attends all the meetings of the executive committee of
that body.

Once started, the London agency speedily attained
a success which has been described to me as ' pheno-
menal.' The agent does not himself sell the milk.
He finds customers, whom he introduces to the mem-
bers. If terms can be agreed to between them a form
of contract is drawn up through the intermediary of

AGENCY SCHEMES 21

the society ; but the society itself accepts no pecuniary
responsibility. It is the business of the agent to know
something about the customers he recommends, and
to guard the farmers, as far as he can, from being
victimized by unscrupulous or untrustworthy persons ;
but he gives no absolute guarantee, and any bad debts
that are made still fall upon the farmer. Nor is the
farmer under any obligation to sell through the agent,
if he finds he can do better elsewhere. But, in point of
fact, the sales through the joint agency in London have
amounted to as much as £70,000 in one year, and the
bad debts on the business done have not exceeded £30
or £40.

The expectation that the London agency would
become self-supporting within three years was duly
realized. The London agent receives salary and com-
mission, and, after these have been paid, the society
(which is a non-registered body, supported by voluntary
subscriptions only) had funds enough left to warrant
the starting of other agencies elsewhere. Attempts
were, therefore, made in this direction at Birmingham
and Manchester, combination in the latter city being
effected with the Cheshire Milk-Producers' Association,
which had been formed in 1898 as a further direct out-
come of the example set by the farmers in the Eastern
counties.

But the conditions in Birmingham and Manchester
are different from those in London. Whereas in the
Metropolis there are middlemen who do an exclusively
wholesale trade in milk, in Birmingham and Manchester
the wholesale dealers carry on a retail trade as well,
so that there the agency scheme presents greater diffi-
culties. It is now proposed, therefore, to go a step
further and open depots in the two cities in question,
supplementing them with horses and carts for the supply

22 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

of milk to small retailers who cannot go for it to the
railway-stations.

The result of these further developments will, doubt-
less, be awaited with interest by dairy farmers through-
out the country ; but in the meantime fresh difficulties
have arisen in another direction. The better terms
which combined effort has enabled the producers to get
for their milk are leading to a substantial increase in
the supplies put on the market, more especially because
many individuals who hitherto devoted their energies
to cheese-making are now disposing of the fresh milk
instead. For a succession of years the association has
maintained steady prices ; but it can do so no longer
in the face of over-production, and the problem of the
moment, as these lines are being written, is the pro-
fitable disposal of the surplus, so that it may no longer
come upon the fresh-milk market. Next, it seems, to
selling ' raw ' milk, the best thing to do is to turn it
into condensed milk ; the selling of cream comes next,
and the making of cheese next, while the conversion
into butter is regarded as the least remunerative of all.
What is proposed in Staffordshire is that a factory
should be set up at Uttoxeter, where the milk produced
in excess of actual fresh-milk requirements could be
dealt with by one or other of these different processes
of manufacture.

The Cheshire milk-producers, to whose Association
I have already alluded, send only a comparatively small
quantity of their total output to London ; but they find,
on the other hand, important markets in Manchester
(which city alone is said to take 30,000 gallons of milk
a day), Liverpool, Warrington, Stockport, St. Helens,
Oldham, Birkenhead, New Brighton and other towns
on the south side of the Mersey, the Potteries, Walsall,
Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. The Cheshire Asso-

CHESHIRE MILK-PRODUCERS' ACTION 23

elation not only operates throughout that county, but
embraces the whole of the districts of Derbyshire,
Shropshire, and North Wales covered by the Chester
and Whitchurch Dairy Farmers' Associations, and the
East Cheshire and North Derbyshire Farmers' Associa-
tion. Founded on lines analogous, generally speaking,
to those of the Staffordshire Farmers' Association, it
has, like that body, raised the whole tone of the dairy
industry in the district in which it operates, and placed
it on a greatly improved basis for those directly con-
cerned. Not only has the Cheshire Association joined
with those of Staffordshire and Derbyshire in establish-
ing the joint agency in Manchester, and not only has
it secured better and steadier prices generally, but it
has also, among other things, opened an inquiry office,
which enables the members to obtain information as
to the stability or honesty of milk-buyers ; it helps in
the collection of what might otherwise become bad
debts; it has been able to secure from the railway
companies in a number of instances improved arrange-
ments for the transit of milk, which are spoken of in
the annual report for 1905 as having been of great
value to the members in the district concerned, though
a strong desire is still expressed for modification of
* owner's risk ' conditions ; it has taken successful action
in regard to compensation for cows slaughtered on
account of being affected with tuberculosis of the
udder ; and it has undertaken the defence of members
charged with adulteration of milk when, after inquiry,
it has found that no fraud has been committed or
intended. The membership at the end of 1904 was
1,266.

There are various other combinations of dairy
farmers in the country to which reference could be
made ; but the examples given, coupled with what I

24 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY

have still to say in the next chapter concerning the
Eastern counties, will suffice to show that the great
and important industry which the production and the
sale of fresh milk have become (as the figures given at
the outset clearly prove) is now being placed on a much
more solid basis than it had ever occupied before.

CHAPTER III
ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

LONG before the era when wheat production was at its
best in Great Britain, Essex was a famous dairy
country, its nearness to so great a centre of consump-
tion as London giving to the local farmers an excep-
tionally good market for their produce, and especially
for their supplies of new milk. But when Wheat
became King, he had no more loyal and devoted
adherents than those who followed his standard in
Essex, and cereals took the leading place previously
occupied by dairy products. Land yielding good crops
fetched high rents so long as the crops in question
yielded good prices.

Not only were times prosperous for the landlords, but
wealth poured in upon the farmers, who could live a
life of ease and comfort, with a few bottles of wine at
their elbow when they sat down to dinner, two or three
good hunters in their stables to take them to the * meet,'
bailiffs to look after the labourers who toiled at a barely
living wage to provide them with the luxuries they
enjoyed, and dealers to relieve them of all trouble in the
buying and selling of stock. It was a Golden Age to
which a few impoverished survivors now look back as
the 'good old days ' — a time they may recall from the
recesses of their memory, but one that, for them at
least, is only a reminiscence and a dream.

25

26 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

For Essex felt more severely, perhaps, than any
other part of the country the depression that set in
when the price of wheat fell to 455. the quarter, as it
did in 1875. The depression became still more acute
with the further decline to 433. xod. in 1879, and the
throwing up of farms — especially with the advent of bad
seasons, as well — was resorted to on every hand. As
one ruined farmer after another abandoned the struggle,
more and more land went out of cultivation, or, left on
the hands of the owner, was cultivated by him as best
he could for a few years longer, in the hope that some-
one would come along and take on the farms at the
almost nominal rent to which most of them sank. In
some instances land which had been previously let at
from 253. to 403. per acre could be had for is. or 2s. the
acre, and in others the landlords were willing to leave
the question of rent in abeyance for a year or two, if
only new tenants would take the farms over and keep
them in fair condition.

When things were absolutely at their worst they
began to get better. Far away from Essex, in the
dairy districts of Ayrshire, and especially in the neigh-
bourhood of Kilmarnock, lived a sturdy race of farmers,
who also had troubles of their own to bear. They
were unspoiled by prosperity; they were thrifty and
hard-working, and they had great force of character ;
but there was this drawback to their position : there
were too many occupants of the Ayrshire hive, and the
time had come for a swarming off of some of them in
another direction. Such was the demand for dairy
farms in Ayrshire that the rents had increased to a
point which left the tenants with little or no margin for
profit from arduous labour, especially when the labour
itself was devoted to the production of butter and
cheese.

A SCOTTISH INVASION 27

It was at this time that some of the canny Scots
already settled in the South sent word to their friends
in Ayrshire that there was land in Essex which could
be had for the asking ; and it was thought that, with
such a market as London near at hand for the sale of
milk, there ought to be the chance for a Scottish dairy
farmer to get a living off the said land, even if an
English wheat-grower could not. So a few adventurous
spirits went as an advance-guard to look into the situa-
tion for themselves, and the reports they made to their
friends at home were so favourable that more and still
more followed. Before long there was a regular migra-
tion from Ayrshire to Essex, until the county began to
be almost overrun with Scotsmen. Special trains were
provided by the railway companies, in which the
flitting Scots took, not only their families and their
household effects, but all their cattle — some of them
had 50 or 100 cows each — their implements, and their
helpers. In this way they thought they could settle
down right off in that Land of Promise which the
Englishmen were deserting as though it were only a
Slough of Despond. They turned out no English
farmers, however, for they took only such land as had
been abandoned or was being feebly cultivated by the
landlords themselves. They had no difficulty in making
satisfactory terms in regard to rent, and the way they
set to work would have assured success under the most
unfavourable of circumstances.

The task, however, they had before them was no easy
one, willing enough as they were to adopt changes of
method. Such are the conditions of soil and climate
in Essex that the Scottish immigrants found they could
depend on good pasture for only about two months
in the year, and it was necessary they should grow
or otherwise provide supplies for the cattle for the

28 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

remainder of the year. Here, therefore, they were
at a disadvantage as compared with the dairy farmers
of Cheshire, Staffordshire, or Derbyshire. Then the
land itself had been ' starved ' by the previous tenants,
who, when times of depression came upon them, sacri-
ficed their bullocks, their cows, their sheep, and their
horses, and clung on to wheat-growing, so that not only
did they abandon that which might have paid, for the
sake of that which did not pay, but they deprived the
land of all home-made manure. Early in the days of
the new movement, however, and at a time when the
virtues of artificial manures were not so widely known
as is the case now, one of the shrewdest of the
Scottish settlers resorted to the use of basic slag,
and this he did with results that were regarded with
astonishment. His landlord had, for instance, 'thrown
in ' a piece of derelict land that seemed to have been so
exhausted as not to be worth any rent at all. A
judicious application of basic slag brought it into good
condition again, and a succession of excellent crops
followed.

True it is that in respect to their general farming the
Scottish settlers had various things to learn. Certain
methods which suited Ayrshire did not suit Essex, and
it was especially found that some of the agricultural
implements which had helped to fill up the aforesaid
special trains had better have been left behind in Scot-
land. But in this period of transition, when the settlers
were adapting Scottish farming principles to Essex
local requirements, they always had their dairy business
to fall back on, and it was to this they looked as the
main source of their revenue.

Here, however, fresh difficulties arose. The dairy
farmer was found to be in a hopeless position, especially
in his dealings with London middlemen, so long as he re-

COMBINATION AND BETTER PRICES 29

mained an individual unit. Hence, early in the nineties
there was formed an Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers'
Society, the larger proportion of whose members con-
sisted of Scotsmen ; though by this time the influx of
Scots into Essex had been followed by the immigration
of a goodly number of English dairy farmers as well.
The main object of the society was 'to watch over,
protect, and further the interests of the dairy industry
and farming generally in the Eastern counties/ other
matters which were to come within the scope of
operations being — ' meetings to discuss points in dairy
management ; the framing of equitable Michaelmas
contracts ; a standard analysis and measure for milk ;
the raising of the price of milk ; the legal defence and
protection of its members ; the promotion of dairy
factories where desirable ; the improvement in the
breeds of dairy cattle ; the mutual insurance of cows ;
the purchase of feeding stuffs and manures in quantities
and by analysis.'

Of these various purposes, the one of greatest imme-
diate importance was the securing of a better price for
the milk. Those particular disadvantages in regard to
soil and climate to which I have already alluded make
it especially necessary that, on account of the greater
cost of production, Essex farmers should obtain a good
price for their milk — if not a higher price than that
paid to the dairy farmers of the Midlands or the
Western counties. But the Scottish settlers found
that, although they were indeed near to a great
market for new milk, that market was practically con-
trolled by some half-dozen wholesale men, who bought
from the farmers, and sold again to the retail dis-
tributors who supplied the public. There were thus
two middlemen between the producer and the con-
sumer, and the former had practically to take such

30 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

terms as the wholesale man thought fit to offer him.
Not only was there a big difference — in favour of the
middleman — between the price at which the farmer
sold and that at which the consumer eventually bought,
but, after having been in operation some years, the
society discovered — what it had not known before —
that when the wholesale dealers bought from the
farmers the ' barn gallon ' consisted of 17 pints, though
when they resold to the milk distributors they reduced
the ' barn gallon ' to 16 pints — a supplementary benefit
to themselves of I pint on each * barn gallon ' handled.

So there was further organized, in 1896, an Eastern
Counties Dairy Farmers' Co-operative Society, Ltd.,
with a view to arranging for the sale of members'
produce, not direct to the householder, but certainly
direct to the retail distributor, in order that one
middleman at least — the wholesale dealer — should be
eliminated. At first the society adopted the commission
system ; but this it afterwards abandoned in favour of
purchasing outright from the farmers, under contracts
which required them to forward specified quantities of
milk, either direct to the society's own customers or to
the headquarters in Water Lane, Stratford, E. Here
there is a well-arranged establishment, on which about
£800 has been spent, the appliances provided including
a complete refrigerating and pasteurizing plant. The
society draws supplies from fifty-two farms, and the
quantity of milk dealt with in the six months ending
June 30, 1905, was 369,698 gallons. The average
prices paid per gallon to the farmers are 7^d. in the
summer and gjd. in the winter.

From these headquarters at Stratford the manager
makes contracts with retail distributors throughout the
East End of London. One of these distributors is the
Stratford Co-operative and Industrial Society, Ltd.,

RESULTS ATTAINED 31

which takes from 900 to 1,400 gallons of new milk per
day from the Eastern Counties Society. Should any
farmer fail to supply the quantity he has agreed to
forward, the manager is authorized to buy elsewhere,
and charge any difference in price to the account of the
defaulting member. An increasing trade is also being
done in eggs, poultry, butter, etc., the sales in this
branch being £840 in 1904, against £300 in 1903.

The society's total sales during 1904 amounted to
£27,081, as against £19,952 in 1903, and £15,237 in
1902. This business was done on a paid-up capital of
only £750. Not only had the members obtained sub-
stantially better prices for the milk sold to the society,
as compared with what they would have got from the
wholesale dealers, if left to their own resources, but the
operations of their society for the year 1904 showed
a net profit of £524, making, with a balance of £90
brought forward from the previous year, an available
balance of £614. Out of this it was proposed to pay a
dividend of 5 per cent, on the paid-up share capital ;
I per cent, on members' sales under contract to the
society ; £ per cent, on non-members' sales under con-
tract to the society ; and J per cent, on purchases from
the society ; £100 being put to general reserve, and
£319 carried forward to the following year.

An exceptionally difficult branch of combined effort
—that of co-operative sale — thus seems to have been
very successfully managed, though the combination is
still incomplete in the Eastern counties, as compared
with the policy followed by similar bodies in Holland,
since the members are not bound (as in Holland) to
send the whole of their available supplies to the co-
operative society, but keep their private customers,
with whom they make independent bargains as well.
As regards co-operative purchase, the total quantity of

32 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

artificial manures supplied to members of the parent
body, the Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers' Society,
during 1904, was 1,132 tons.

While all this progress was in the making, the posi-
tion alike of settlers and of survivors in Essex was
being improved in another direction. In 1892 the
Essex Education Committee, with funds placed at
their disposal under the Local Taxation (Customs and
Excise) Act of 1890, purchased the site of an old
grammar school at Chelmsford, and converted the
buildings (since considerably enlarged) into the County
Technical Laboratories, as they are now known, for
teaching biology and chemistry, the two sciences which
are of the greatest importance to the principal industries
of the county — namely, agriculture, horticulture, and
dairying.* From this point of view the arrangements
include a chemical laboratory, with balance - room,
store-room, etc. ; two large biological laboratories, and
a model dairy in the basement ; while the educational
courses given comprise a Winter School of Agriculture
(at which there are short courses in the science and
practice of agriculture, including both crops and stock,
attended mainly by farmers' sons) ; a County School of
Horticulture (conducted partly at the laboratories and
partly at the school gardens of 31 acres) ; day classes
for practical instruction in chemistry, biology, and
dairy bacteriology ; evening classes in chemistry and
botany; classes for the training of teachers in Nature
science and experimental science ; and instruction in
the science and practice of cheese-making and poultry-
keeping (given in the dairy school).

But the institution is much more than a technical
school for farmers' sons and dairymaids. It has the

* I shall refer in later chapters to the substantial developments
brought about in Essex in market-gardening, etc.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 33

further aim of being ' a centre at which farmers and
others can readily obtain scientific and practical infor-
mation respecting farming and allied industries.' The
principal room in the buildings, in fact, is the Agricul-
tural Room, on the ground-floor, which serves not only
as a classroom for agricultural students and as an
agricultural museum and reference library, but also
as a place where meetings of farmers can be held from
time to time on market-days to discuss agricultural
problems. During the winter of 1904-1905 the
following series of ' market-day lectures ' was given
on Friday afternoons at the laboratories :

Opening Address : Major Craigie, C.B., of the Board of Agri-
culture.

'The Manuring of Market-Garden Crops': Bernard Dyer,
D.Sc., F.I.C.

'The Marketing of Farm Produce': J. Wesley-Martin.

'Agricultural Co-operation in Suffolk': the Rev. R. Abbay,
President of the Framlingham and District Agricultural Co-opera-
tive Society.

'Some Hints on the Management of a Flock': T. Goodchild,
C.C., Chairman of the Agricultural Sub-Committee.

'The Improvement of Pastures' : Professor T. H. Middleton,
Cambridge University Department of Agriculture.

' How New Breeds of Agricultural Plants are produced3 : W. G.
Rattray, of Messrs. Cartons, Limited, of Warring ton and Nexvton-
le-Willows.

' Seeds : their Supply, Purity, Germination, and Growth ' : Wm.
Hasler.

'The Prevention of Injury by Wireworm ' : W. J. Moss.

'Poultry-Keeping on Farms': Miss Annie Matthews, of the
County Dairy School.

Short Lectures by Practical Men on Different Varieties of Soils :

1. 'Bagshot Sand Soils' : W. W. Bull, Ramsden.

2. 'Roothing Clay Soils': Geoffrey Matthews, Good

Easter,

3. 'London Clay Soils': Primrose McConnell, B.Sc.,

Ongar.

'The Cultivation of Maize': C. B. Russell, C.A.

'Varieties of Mangolds, with a Comparison of the Feeding
Value': Professor T. H. Middleton, Cambridge University
Department of Agriculture.

'Taints in Milk: how caused and how avoided': F. J.
Chittenden, County Technical Laboratories.

3

34 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

1 The Organization of Agricultural Opinion, with Special Refer-
ence to Essex': A. H. H. Matthews, Secretary of the Central
Chamber of Agriculture.

On Fridays, also, the leading members of the staff
hold regular levies of farmers, who come to them for
advice on some scientific or other problem connected
with farming. Then, an important work is done in the
way of field experiments. These have, mainly, the
double object of illustrating the principles of manuring,
and of investigating the manures best adapted for
permanent pasture and tillage crops on Essex soils.
Others relate to the best means of laying down land
to grass ; the improvement of grass land for feeding ;
the best varieties of cereal crops for cultivation ; the
elimination of field weeds ; fungoid diseases of crops,
etc. There are thirty different centres throughout
Essex at which the experiments are carried on. The
Education Committee supply seed and manure, a local
farmer provides land and labour, and, when the crop
is sufficiently advanced, the agricultural instructor goes
to the spot and holds a ' field meeting/ which is gene-
rally attended by from twenty to fifty farmers of
the neighbourhood. Reports on the results of the
experiments are published periodically, and circulated
through the county.

These branches of the work are followed with keen
interest by the older farmers, who could certainly never
be got to attend the classes of a technical school ; but
there is still another branch which they appreciate,
perhaps even more, and that is the making of agricul-
tural analyses. These are undertaken, at very low fees,
' for bond-fide agricultural purposes only.' They relate
to soils, manures, feeding-stuffs, milk, and water, and
the information given in relation to them is of an
essentially practical kind, likely to be of direct advantage

FIELD EXPERIMENTS : ANALYSES 35

to the farmer. The general results are collected into
series of ' Notes on Agricultural Analysis,' which are
published from time to time, and draw attention to the
more important of the facts the analyses in question
have brought out. As many as 350 samples, sent in by
different farmers, were dealt with during the twelve
months ending June, 1905, and experience shows that
no better means could be adopted for spreading informa-
tion of an essentially useful kind among working farmers,
and for enabling them both to effect reasonable economies
and to get good value for their money. In'one instance
a farmer sent in for analysis some mixed dairy cake, for
which he had paid £8 153. per ton. The analyst found
that, from the point of view of feeding-value, a fair price
would have been £6 73. In another instance mixed cake,
which had cost £7 los. per ton, was found to be worth
only £4 los — that, at least, being the amount per ton for
which the farmer could have bought the ingredients and
mixed them for himself. ' As long as these high prices
rule,' say the analysts in their ' Notes ' for 1901-1903,
' farmers will be well advised to purchase pure linseed
and cotton cakes and pure feeding meals and make their
own mixtures.' One Essex farmer whom I met, himself
a strong believer both in analysis and in co-operation,
told me that, even under these two conditions, his bills
for feeding-stuffs came to £"1,600 a year. It is obvious
that, even on a much lower figure than this, the
purchase of feeding-stuffs at a price substantially
in excess of their food-value might in itself make all
the difference between profit and loss on the year's
transactions.

In the case of artificial manures, again, certain of the
Essex farmers found, when they received their analyses
from the laboratories, that they had been paying at the
rate of £3 or £4 a ton for certain qualities which had

3—2

36 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

no agricultural value at all ; while, with the help of the
Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers' Society, they bought
at £2 45. 6d. per ton fertilizers for which, as individual
units, they had paid at the rate of £3 43. 6d. per ton,
thus saving £i per ton straight off, in addition to having
a guarantee of good quality.

There are other details in connection with the work
of agricultural education at Chelmsford which might be
mentioned, and it is especially interesting to learn that
deputations of Essex farmers have made tours of inquiry
in Holland, Denmark, and Hungary. But the facts
already given will suffice to show the twofold nature of
the general scheme. On the one hand, the rising
generation of Essex farmers — men of twenty-five or
twenty-eight years of age — in whom the greatest hope
of a complete agricultural revival is placed, are being
taught to farm on more scientific principles than those
followed by their fathers and grandfathers before them,
and the willingness on their part, at least, both to learn
and to adopt new methods is beyond any possibility
of doubt. On the other hand, the farmers of maturer
years, who are too old to go back to school, and are apt
to regard new methods with instinctive prejudice, get
intensely interested in the field experiments ; they
appreciate the value of analyses which show them how
to save money and how to produce better results ; and,
finally, they make a complete surrender to the ' new-
fangled ' notions of scientific farming when land in
their neighbourhood, which for years had lain derelict,
not producing * enough grass to feed a rabbit,' is trans-
formed, under scientific treatment, into fine pasture
land, and the feeding-value of herbage elsewhere is
doubled by the same means.

Here, then, in this sequence of events, we seem to
have all the essential details for a social and economic

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS 37

revolution in the once distressful county of Essex. But
that revolution is not yet complete, nor is it likely to be
until the rising generation takes the place of the one
that is passing, and all that is now being done in respect
to changes of method, co-operative organization, and
scientific instruction, ripens to maturity. Thus far,
also, the immediate advantages of the altered situation
in the county have been gained by the tenants more
than by the landlords. Of the immigrants from Scot-
land only a few — those who lacked the personal qualities
essential to success — have failed. The majority were
men and women of grit and determination, and,
though they had to work hard, they made headway.

In the case of one couple, the husband was originally
a small farmer in Ayrshire, where he had twenty cows ;
but misfortune overtook him, and he lost everything.
Some friends gave him a helping hand, and he and his
wife were thus enabled to start life afresh on a small
farm in Essex. At first they rose at three o'clock every
morning, and each of them milked twenty-five cows
twice daily. As compared with the old-time Essex
farmer and his family, they led for some years lives
almost of downright slavery. But where their prede-
cessors failed they prospered. The husband had a good
head for business, the wife was thrifty and an excellent
manager, and the final result is that to-day they have five
or six farms in Essex, comprising about 1,500 or 1,600
acres, and are the owners of 250 head of cattle.

Others of the Scotch settlers, who started with about
200 acres each some fifteen years ago, are now renting
500, 600, or 1,000 acres, are free of debt, and, with
hardly an exception, are ' doing well.' As tenants,
too, they have been quite content to remain, even
without the apparent advantage of long leases. On
this point Mr. Primrose McConnell says, in an article

38 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

on ' Experiences of a Scotsman on Essex Clays,' con-
tributed by him to the Journal of the Royal Agricultural
Society :

Corning from a country where long leases were the rule, it was
a novel experience to have farms as yearly tenants ; but I for one
prefer to have it so. On this farm where I write there was at first
a short lease — now expired — and we now sit on at a twelve months'
notice. The Agricultural Holdings Act, plus nitrate of soda, makes
me feel easy in my mind regarding this. The majority of incomers
have had their choice in this matter, but I have not heard of any
who have taken a long lease.

As regards the position of the landlords, I should
like to place on record the views expressed to me in the
course of a conversation with which I was favoured by
Mr. Alec Steel, of Prittlewell Temple, Southend, one
of the earliest and most successful of the Ayrshire
settlers in Essex. With his comments, alike on the
point in question and on the general situation, my
sketch of Essex Past and Present may be appropriately
concluded :

In my opinion (said Mr. Steel) many of the tenants are better
off than the landlords, bearing in mind the difference in the posi-
tions which each must maintain. It is not only that the landlords
have not yet had time to recover fully from the depression that
came upon them, but the prospects of their complete recovery are
heavily handicapped by the permanent burdens on the land. This
is especially the case with regard to the payment of tithe. There
is land I know of which for the last ten years or so has been let at
53. an acre. But out of that 55. the landlord has to pay 45. 6d.
in tithe. Reckoning other charges as well, the landlord gets
nothing. In another instance, where the landlord receives 363. an
acre, the tithe alone amounts to 123. the acre, apart from various
taxes. In Scotland, where there is no tithe, there is no land out of
cultivation. I never saw a derelict farm until I came to England.
Here even poor land must pay 6s. an acre or so for tithe, before
the landlord gets from it a single penny. If, however, a farm goes
out of cultivation there is no tithe to be paid, so that an owner of
land within forty miles of the greatest market in the world may
find it better to let his land lie derelict than accept a tenant at a
low rental.

When land represented the chief source of wealth in the country,
it may rightly have been required to bear these burdens. The

SCOTTISH VIEWS OF THE SITUATION 39

chief source of wealth has now been shifted to commerce and
manufacture ; but the burdens on agriculture remain almost the
same as before. The big importing firms in the cities are taking
the place of the landed interests in the country, in the matter of
the national food-supplies ; but the former hardly know what tithe
and the other burdens on the land mean, while the latter know only
too well. Free the land of these permanent burdens, or make
capital and commerce pay a fairer share of them, and British agri-
culture would then have a better chance. As it is, we compete on
our own markets with foreign countries which not only enjoy all
the benefits of cheap transport, but impose on agriculture no such
burdens as we have to bear here. If only we could stand on equal
terms with our competitors, and especially if we could produce as
cheaply as they, we should have nothing to fear, and could beat
them easily.

It is these permanent burdens on the land — the tithe, the taxes,
and the ever-increasing rates — that, in my opinion, constitute the
worst feature in the situation to-day, especially if agriculture be
regarded as a business in which cost of production is all-important.
Otherwise, I see around me in the county of Essex signs of marked
improvement, compared with the conditions that prevailed when I
first came here from Ayrshire. In my humble opinion, the decline
in the price of wheat had done less harm to the Essex farmer of
those days than his own previous prosperity. It was this which
gave him his fine tastes and his expensive habits, and unfitted him
for new conditions of agricultural production, which called for per-
sonal energy, arduous labour, and unremitting attention. It was
this prosperity which unfitted his wife and family to play that part
in a resort to fresh enterprises for which the wives and children of
our Scottish farmers and labourers were so well adapted.

The Essex farmer of old was not equal to the fresh situation that
arose ; so his place has been largely taken in Essex by a new type
of men. Of these, many were only labourers, or little more than
labourers; but they started with this advantage : they came from a
country where class distinctions were less pronounced than in
England, and the labourer had better chances and higher aspira-
tions. In the days when the growing of wheat brought wealth, the
policy of the British farmer was to regard his labourers as little
more than part of the farm machinery. He gave them the smallest
wage on which they could live, and he would have scorned the
idea of their attempting to rise to the same social position as him-
self. When the awakening of the labourer came, he abandoned
prospects that appeared to be hopeless, went off to the towns, and
left the farmer to his own resources.

In Scotland the position has been different. There the labourer's
children and the farmer's children sit side by side in the schools,
and grow up to manhood with a closer bond of sympathy between
them than is the case in England. The labourers, again, have
good gardens — as much as they can cultivate. They take more

40 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT

land when they have saved money and their children can help
them. They have ambition, and, the more they endeavour to
realize that ambition, the wider becomes their mental horizon and
the broader becomes their view of life.

In all this the Scottish labourer is encouraged by his master,
who looks upon his men as helpmates rather than as servants, and,
when the time comes and a favourable opportunity occurs, encour-
ages them to take a small farm for themselves — even advancing
a little money, if necessary , to assist them in making a start. That
is the spirit which brings Scots and Scotland so much to the front,
inspiring the love and the reverence for country and countrymen
which make each individual feel that he has an honourable reputa-
tion to maintain far beyond the limits of his own doorstep !

What a pleasure, again, it is in after-years for a master, when
his old servants come back, one by one, to tell him how they have
bettered themselves in the struggle ; to thank him for what he
did for them in the days gone by ; to relate pleasant incidents
and experiences ; and to compare notes with him on countless
matters of mutual interest ! Meetings and memories such as
these make life worth living. They bring happiness alike to the
master who has helped and to the successful man who returns to
the old spot, to express gratitude for the chances opened out to him.

Then, there is that strongest of all characters— the Scottish
mother. She instils individuality and strength of mind into her
children, and she sets them a good example in the way of industry;
for in the country districts she will start work at five in the morn-
ing— from, at least, the month of March to the month of Septem-
ber— and will hardly leave off until nine at night. She milks the
cow, she feeds the pig and the poultry, she does countless other
duties as well, and she not only shares her husband's ambition to
get on, but proves herself his willing helper in all that he does.
So, from small beginnings the Scottish labourer will rise to higher
things, helped alike by his natural qualities and by the conditions
he finds around him.

It was people of this type who came to Essex from Scotland to
succeed English farmers whom prosperity had spoiled, and to put
fresh life into a sadly depressed industry. They came eventually
in such numbers that on some of the largest estates in the county
at least 50 per cent of the tenants are Scotsmen. The re-establish-
ment of the prosperity of Essex may, it is true, still be far from
complete ; but this I would say, without fear of contradiction : that
the troubles of the last twenty ./years are making a finer class of
British agriculturists than Britain ever had before., just as they are
also putting agriculture itself on a firmer basis, by encouraging
alike a more general resort to scientific teaching and a wider
acceptance of the advantages of combination. What we need in
addition is greater relief from permanent burdens on the land, with
such improvement in our laws as would encourage the agriculturist
to do his best for the land, and make him feel that he was, at the
same time, also doing his best for himself.

CHAPTER IV
THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

THE increase in the consumption of fruit in this
country is described in the Report of the Departmental
Committee on the Fruit Industry of Great Britain,
issued in the summer of 1905, as ' phenomenal.' ' In
the last thirty years,' the Committee say, ' not only has
the production doubled, but our importation of fruit
(after deducting the re-exports), has risen from an insig-
nificant quantity to the colossal amount of 13,000,000
cwt. per annum ; and so expansive has been the
public taste for fruit that this enormous increase in the
supply has in many cases not affected the average
prices realized to any appreciable extent.' There can
be no doubt, the Committee think, that fruit is becoming
more and more a regular article of food for all classes,
and they regard it as probable that, except in special
years of glut, the home supply has not kept pace with
the demand.

It is not only the demand for fresh fruit that has
increased, but the demand also for jam, preserved
fruits, and cider. Mr. T. F. Blackwell, of the firm of
Crosse and Blackwell, told the Committee that the
demand for fruit in various forms grows quite as
rapidly as the increase in the supply, adding that ' the
taste for preserved fruit was growing enormously.'

41

42 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

Another witness, Mr. Chivers, spoke of jam manufac-
turers as the biggest customers of the fruit-grower, and
mentioned that at his works at Histon, near Cam-
bridge, over 100 tons of strawberry jam had been made
up and put into jars in a single day. As for cider, not
only has there been a substantial increase in the
amount made, the value of the annual production in
the two counties of Herefordshire and Somersetshire
being put at about £500,000, but, according to one wit-
ness, there is * no limit to the extension of the demand '
for such qualities as well-instructed makers of the
smaller type, giving personal attention to the manu-
facture, are able to produce.

Official statistics in respect to the actual extent of
the fruit industry are somewhat vague and unsatis-
factory. Taking those that refer to orchards only, as
distinct from small fruit, I find the total acreage in
1904 given as 243,008, of which 236,705 acres were in
England, 2,490 in Scotland, and 3,813 in Wales. But
these statistics are compiled from returns voluntarily
made by owners or occupiers ; they are assumed to
have omissions ; they are known to exaggerate in a
county like Hereford, where old orchards with a mere
sprinkling of veteran trees rank as if they were in full
bearing ; while, per contra, no account is taken of
orchards on any holdings of less than i acre in
extent.

The total area under small fruit in 1904 was put
(on the same basis) at 77,947 acres, but some of
the returns under this head would be duplicated by
those referring to orchards. It is, therefore, only an
approximate estimate that the total amount of land in
Great Britain under fruit generally is about 300,000
acres.

In respect to orchards, the figures — even taking them

FRUIT-GROWING AT WISBECH 43

for what they are worth — show an increase of 63*9 per
cent, in thirty-one years, while those in respect to small
fruit show an increase in acreage of 117 per cent, in
seven years, no statistics at all trustworthy under the
latter head being available before 1897.

More striking, however, than these inadequate official
statistics is the evidence put before the Committee as to
the developments going on in particular districts.

The country around Wisbech was once devoted
mainly to wheat production. It has two distinct classes
of soil — heavy and light. The former was naturally
regarded in those earlier days as the more valuable of
the two, the latter being considered almost worthless.
To-day the position has changed completely, for wheat-
growing has gone back, the light soils are utilized
for potato-growing, while fruit and flowers have suc-
ceeded to the premier position once held by wheat.
In 1875 there were only about 200 acres in the district
devoted to fruit and flowers. In 1901 the total had
increased to 3,768 acres. To-day it is estimated at
4,500 acres. On the wheat-fields of a few decades ago
there are now grown prolific crops of apples, goose-
berries, plums, pears, currants, raspberries, and straw-
berries, not to speak of spring flowers and a large out-
put of bulbs.

The majority of the cultivators, too, come under the
definition of small holders. Many of them started as
agricultural labourers, with allotments which they
looked after in their leisure time, getting larger plots as
they saved sufficient money either to buy an acre or so
right out or to pay down enough to secure a larger
amount on mortgage. It is estimated that, exclusive
of garden allotments, 200 acres in the district are held
by occupiers of from i to 3 acres each, 1,000 by
occupiers holding less than 10 acres, 1,000 by occupiers

44 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

holding between 10 and 20 acres, and 2,000 by occupiers
holding over 20 acres, among the last-mentioned being
a few large growers who have from 100 to 500 or 600
acres each. Most of the fruit is consigned to provincial
markets, little of it coming to London, and the general
results are so good that when one of the witnesses before
the Committee — Mr. William Welchman, a solicitor
of Wisbech, who himself farms 35 acres cf orchards —
was asked, ' Do you know what is the return of money
to your district throughout the year ?' he replied : ' It
must be something enormous. It acts and reacts
throughout the whole of the district. It employs the
husband, the wife, the children, the baker, the grocer,
the merchant, the shopkeeper, the retailer, and the
wholesale man. It means a benefit all along the line.
It is astonishing/

I can supplement this very brief digest of the evidence
given before the Departmental Committee concerning
the Wisbech district by a few figures which may further
interest the reader, and will, at least, show that the
witnesses did not exaggerate.

The total consignments of fruit despatched by rail
from Wisbech alone during the course of an average
season may be put at from 14,000 to 15,000 tons. A
record for a single night, taking both the Great Eastern
and the Midland and Great Northern Joint systems,
gives a total despatch (by passenger and goods trains) of
380 tons of fruit. The season starts in June with goose-
berries (of which 200 tons have been sent from Wisbech
in one day), and goes on with various crops until the
end of October. Strawberries are handled in very
large quantities, and even raspberries produce their
30 to 40 tons a day. The fruit is despatched in special
trains, running either ' passenger ' or ' goods,' and is
consigned mainly to such centres as Liverpool, Man-

TONS OF SEPARATE PACKAGES 45

Chester, Glasgow, Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle, Shef-
field, Birmingham, Gloucester, Cardiff, etc.

One important feature of the traffic is that, although
the total quantities handled by the railways are so great,
they are consigned by hundreds of individual senders
(the majority of whom are of the * small ' type), and
consist of many thousands of separate packages, for-
warded to a great variety of salesmen or others, and
each requiring separate handling, with clerical work in
addition. It has been regarded as impracticable to
effect any combination among the growers with a view
to bulking their lots (the reason given being the perish-
able nature of the commodity), so that each consigner
acts independently of his neighbour, while even a
single consignment may be represented by 300 separate
baskets (' chips '), containing each only a few pounds of
fruit.

The result of these conditions is that a total of
53 tons 15 cwt. of fruit taken from Wisbech by the
Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, per
passenger train, in the course of one day's operations,
was represented by 17,289 separate packages, principally
' chips.' Even this figure has been surpassed in the
experience of the Great Eastern Company, which once
dealt, at Wisbech, with 25,122 packages of fruit in one
day, sent by passenger train, irrespective of consign-
ments by goods trains, one reason for this great number
being, perhaps, that the Great Eastern station is situate
in a part of the district where there is a larger proportion
of small growers.

It follows, therefore, that whatever the traders may
think of the rates that are charged for transit, the
railway companies have to do a good deal of work in
return for their money, apart from the cost of running
special trains. In fact, to handle the traffic at all with

46 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

the expedition which the nature of it demands, each
company requires to have at Wisbech, during the busy
season, a total staff (including clerks, draymen, etc.) of
something like 100 men. The growers naturally do not
deliver their consignments until the latest possible
minute, in order that the fruit shall be sent off as fresh
as may be ; and it is no unusual sight, especially in the
strawberry season, for the railway-yards to be blocked
up by 100 or more vehicles at a time, these being of
every imaginable variety, from a heavy dray to a sugar-
box on wheels, and all wanting to deliver fruit at the
same moment.

' You should see us then,' said to me a Wisbech
railway-man who had shared in the fray — and still
lived ; ' you wrould wonder how we get through it.'

But in the course of the next year or so there will be
still more for them to get through. The area under fruit
cultivation around Wisbech is constantly increasing. In
one locality an additional area of 25 acres was being pre-
pared in the autumn of 1905 for strawberry cultivation,
and smaller pieces of land were being taken up in all
directions wherever available. Wisbech, however,
represents only part of what is known as the ' Cam-
bridgeshire fruit-growing district.' Included therein,
on the south, is an area extending from near to Cam-
bridge through Histon (population 1,000), Oakington
(465), Long Stanton (340), and Swaversey (890), in the
direction of St. Ives, and thence through Haddenham
(1,686) and other places to Ely. The production of
fruit by the group of small villages within the triangle
thus formed — taking Cambridge and Ely as the base
and St. Ives (Hunts) as the apex — is not only extremely
substantial, but still constantly increasing ; so that in
the ' Cambridgeshire district,' as a whole, the fruit
traffic by goods trains on the Great Eastern Railway

CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND HOLT DISTRICTS 47

(exclusive of smaller quantities carried by passenger
train) has been as follows for the years stated :

Year.

Tons of Fruit.

1902

6,855

1903

3^24

1904

13,983

1905

8,700

Owing to the unfavourable season, there was, it will
be seen, a considerable decline in 1905 as compared
with 1904; but the great increase in 1904 over previous
years is sufficiently suggestive of the expansion that
has taken place in the fruit-producing possibilities of
the district. A fair quantity of the fruit included in
these figures comes to London, but the great bulk of it
goes, via March, to Sheffield, Manchester, and other
Midland and Northern towns.

Of what is taking place at Evesham and on the
Toddington Estate, Gloucestershire, I shall speak in
detail later on.

In the Holt district of Denbighshire (situated in the
Valley of the Dee, and possessing climatic conditions
directly influenced by the Gulf Stream) very little fruit,
with the exception, perhaps, of damsons, was produced
prior to 1861. There are now 800 acres devoted to
fruit, principally strawberries, the cultivation of which is
steadily increasing. For the last ten years the amount of
land in the locality, previously used for grazing or for the
growing of potatoes, grain, etc., that has been changed
each year to fruit production is about 40 acres, and
there is said to be plenty of other land higher up the
valley that could be similarly treated. Of the actual
cultivators at Holt, 80 per cent, occupy from i to 3

48 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

acres; 10 per cent, have from 3 to 10 acres; and the
remainder have over 10 acres. The small growers
consign principally to Manchester and Liverpool ; the
larger ones send to markets as far away as Scotland
and Ireland. In the fruit-picking season employment
is found for 1,000 or 1,500 pickers, chiefly discharged
soldiers or army reserve men and their families, from
various Lancashire towns. Such is the transformation
going on in the district that, as one local witness told
the Committee :

Persons who were solely engaged in agricultural and dairy
farming a few years ago are gradually relinquishing the cultivation
of cereal crops, or of cheese-making, and are devoting themselves
more and more to strawberry cultivation ; and probably in a few
years' time the former occupation will have passed away entirely
from the parish of Holt.

It is, further, interesting to know that not only is the
land used for the cultivation of strawberries in and
around the Holt district being extended every year,
but the large growers are planting all the hedges of
the fields with damson-trees, with the double object
of protecting the strawberries from the weather and
of increasing the production of damsons.

With all these newer districts coming to the front, it
is not surprising to learn, on the authority of Mr. W. W.
Berry, who has 130 acres under fruit at Faversham,
that the fruit area in Kent is not very largely on the
increase now. But Kent, long famed as * the garden
of England,' gained a leading position years ago, and
her capacity as a fruit-producer is well brought out by
some figures given to the Departmental Committee by
Mr. Vincent W. Hill, General Manager of the South-
Eastern and Chatham Railway, in respect to the fruit
traffic on that line. Taking 1901 as ' a very fair fruit-
year,' Mr. Hill adduced statistics which may be
tabulated thus :

POSITION IN KENT AND SCOTLAND 49

FRUIT CARRIED ON SOUTH-EASTERN AND CHATHAM
RAILWAY IN THE YEAR IQOI.

ENGLISH FRUIT : Tons.

By passenger train to London ... ... 4,368

By goods train to London ... ... 31,779

By passenger train via London, etc. ... 4,33 1

By goods train via London, etc. ... 3,079

Total English fruit ... ... 43,537

CONTINENTAL FRUIT :

Carried via Boulogne and Calais ... 6,952

Total English and Continental fruit ... 50,489

The quantities going via London are transferred to
other companies for direct delivery to various Northern
towns, and Mr. Berry said of this particular service :
* I want nothing better than the way in which a portion
of our business is dealt with. It is a very high price,
but it is splendidly manipulated — I mean the fast fruit
traffic to the North of England.' It need hardly be
said that the development of this traffic, by means of
which the risks of congestion on the London markets
are lessened, is essentially a step in the right direction.

Another noticeable point in the figures is the small
proportion of foreign fruit carried on the South-Eastern
and Chatham system as compared with the English,
while even this small proportion would include consider-
able quantities of foreign fruit imported before the home-
grown supplies were ready and then falling off.

In Scotland the principal fruit-producing district is
the Clyde Valley, which is now, as the Departmental
Committee were informed, ' nearly altogether orchards,
strawberries, gooseberries, or fruit on trees.' About
1,000 acres are devoted to apples, plums, etc. (goose-
berries and raspberries being grown under the trees),
and between 2,000 and 3,000 to strawberries. Many
of the growers are workmen who have secured an acre

4

50 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

or so of land, on which they have built themselves
a house, using the remainder of the ground for fruit-
growing. It was a small holder of this type who
introduced into the district the tomato-growing in-
dustry, now being extensively followed there. Ac-
cording to Mr. William Temple, who gave evidence
for the Clyde Valley growers, there are 400 holders
of 3 acres, 300 of 5 acres, 500 of from 10 to 15
acres, and about 100 who grow strawberries on 20
acres or over.

Fruit-growing in the Blairgowrie district — situate, as
Mr. J. M. Hodge has well described, ' on the last slope of
the Grampians, looking down on the fertile Valley of
Strathmore ' — has now been carried on for over forty
years ; but it was twenty-five years ago that it began to
attain to serious dimensions as an industry, while in
1899, and again in 1903, the further increase of the
business received such an impetus — owing mainly to
the combined effects of small holdings and of co-
operation— that the quantity of fruit sent away from
the district now amounts to 1,500 tons a year. Even
that figure is likely to be doubled in the course of three
or four years, judging from the amount of additional
planting that has been done. Climate and soil are es-
pecially well suited to the production of raspberries,
and one witness from Blairgowrie told the Departmental
Committee how the raspberry-canes there grow to a
height of 5, 6, and even 8 feet — so that the pickers have
to use ladders — and how in some instances 6 tons of
fruit to the acre have been gathered, the average being
3 or 4 tons. The present area under fruit is about 800
acres. The agricultural value of land in the district is
from 253. to 303. per acre. Leased land for fruit
culture lets at from £5 to £10, and small allotments
round the villages or towns realize £12 per acre. The

BLAIRGOWRIE 51

principal markets for the fruit are Manchester, Liver-
pool, Leeds, Bradford, and Newcastle. Large quantities
are sold to jam-makers. As for the profits made,
Mr. J. M. Hodge, in an article contributed by him
to Chambers' s Journal, giving some results of ' Fruit-
culture on Small Holdings ' in the Blairgowrie district,
mentions the case of one raspberry-grower who from a
single acre of ground made a total profit in nine years
of £492.

A considerable proportion of the growers in the
Blairgowrie district are small holders, cultivating, on
an average, 5 acres, though many of them have only
2 or 3 acres. These small holders have formed them-
selves into a co-operative society, and they dispose of
their fruit through the secretary, who deals with it in
bulk, saves them all trouble in finding a market, and is
generally able to dispense with salesmen, unless they
buy outright. He himself is paid a commission on the
business done. Since 1903 there has been a substantial
increase in the number of small holders in the district.
In that year a syndicate bought the estate of Wester-
Essendy, three miles from Blairgowrie, and, keeping 45
acres to plant as a fruit farm for themselves, cut up 205
acres into small holdings of from 5 to 25 acres each,
which they offered to working men desirous of taking up
fruit-farming as a business. The price they charged was
£50 per acre. Part of the purchase money was to be
paid down, and the balance cleared off at the rate of £5
per acre per year, plus 4 per cent, interest. On these
terms the whole of the holdings were taken up within a
year. The syndicate does cartage work for the small
holders, at a very low rate, and the co-operative society
provides them with an outlet for their produce. So
well has the scheme answered that more estates in the
neighbourhood are being dealt with in the same way.

4—2

52 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

In their report the Departmental Committee ex-
pressed the view that, instead of the fruit industry in
Great Britain having been overdone, 'there would
appear to be room for a further extension,' and they
found it ' evident that the profits from fruit-growing,
taking one year with another, are far greater than those
from ordinary farming,' while it is * undoubtedly the
case that the planting of fruit greatly increases the
value of land.' Then, they continued, the planting of
fruit leads to great additional employment of labour,
and ' no better means can be devised for bringing
people back to the land than an extension of the fruit
industry, where it can be done profitably.' There
could be but little doubt, they thought, that there is
abundance of land, in addition to the areas already
under cultivation, where fruit-growing might be profit-
ably undertaken.

Reverting to the question of jam production, I may
mention that there are in the United Kingdom between
200 and 300 jam-makers, large and small, and that the
quantity of fruit required every year by five alone of
the leading firms represents a total of 20,000 tons.

Down to a few years ago the jam-makers who use up
such large quantities of fruit as these figures suggest
depended mainly on foreign supplies, partly because
they may have been somewhat cheaper, but more
especially because the British production was not
equal to requirements. To-day there is an increas-
ing tendency among British jam-makers to depend
on British fruit for the bulk of their supplies. I am
told by those in a position to know that the discus-
sions which have arisen during the past two years
concerning the general industrial and commercial posi-
tion of this country have especially appealed to the
patriotic instincts of the preservers, and inclined

THE JAM INDUSTRY 53

them to show a distinct 'preference for British over
foreign fruit, provided the home producers can let
them have precisely what they want.

Already, as it happened, the considerable expansion
in the fruit-growing industry throughout Great Britain
had put it in the power of the home producers to meet
better than they were able to do before the wants of the
jam-makers; and one result of the dual change is that
the whole business has been practically reorganized,
and placed on a footing more satisfactory for everyone
concerned. At one time very little fruit was sent direct
to the preservers, who relied mainly on such supplies
as they found in the markets. Under the altered con-
ditions the jam-makers visit the fruit-growing districts
early in the season, learn what the prospects are, and
make contracts, which become approximately uniform
prices for the trade. This procedure has, of course, only
been possible since the increase in the production of fruit
at home ; but the result is beneficial, not only directly
to the fruit-grower, who knows in advance what he
will get for his crop, but also to the jam-makers, who
all, practically, buy their English fruit at the same
price, and are less likely to undersell one another in
consequence of one, say, having been able to buy at
£6 a ton on the Manchester market — owing to a tem-
porary ' glut ' there — fruit for which a competitor in
another town has had to pay £10 a ton.

Healthier conditions have thus been introduced all
round. Prices are steadier for the jam-makers, who
are learning to depend more and more on British and
less and less on foreign supplies; and the fruit-pro-
ducers at home, dealing direct with the jam-makers,
not only find an outlet with them for enormous quanti-
ties of fruit, but, by keeping these quantities off the
open market, stand to gain a better price for what

54 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

they send there in the interests of the ordinary con-
sumers.

The only person who, at first sight, appears likely to
suffer is the foreign producer; but he is finding com-
pensation in those cheaper prices of sugar which have
led to a substantial increase in the number of jam
factories on the Continent, and to a consequent de-
crease in the need for ' dumping ' surplus supplies on to
the shores of a country which thus seeks, so far as it
can, to meet its own requirements. Nor, it would
seem, is there much fear that the foreigner will attempt
to compete with the Britisher in the matter of jam.
Some years ago certain Dutch firms made a strong
effort to capture the British market for jam ; but the
commodity they sent over was so much inferior to the
British article that the latter had no difficulty in main-
taining a supremacy that — especially with the use of
the best and freshest of British fruit — nothing is now
likely to disturb.

These various developments in the jam-making in-
dustry have combined with the increased direct con-
sumption of fruit in this country to bring about
important results for fruit-growers, and the scope for
their activity and enterprise is certainly greater to-day
than it has ever been before.

But, although this praiseworthy policy of the British
jam-makers, seconded by the action of the home fruit-
growers in catering for their wants, may reduce the
chances of the foreigner on our markets as regards fruit
specially adapted for jam-making, there would seem to
be still greater call for their activity and enterprise in
regard to other classes of fruit. At a conference on
fruit-growing held in London in October, 1905, Sir
Trevor Lawrence, who presided, pointed to the fact
that in 1904 there was imported into this country fruit

LESSONS FROM ABROAD 55

of the value of £10,237,000, and of this sum £4,538,000
represented the value of fruit which could have been
grown in this country, the items being — raw apples,
£2,118,000 ; cherries, £319,000 ; currants, £143,000 ;
grapes, £827,000 ; pears, £503,000 ; plums, £526,000 ;
strawberries, peaches, apricots, £102,000.

It will be seen that the largest item in this list is the
one referring to apples ; and here there can be no doubt
whatever that the neglect of the British grower always
to produce the right sort of apples, in sufficiently large
quantities, and to send them to market properly graded
and in attractive form, has been of immense advantage
to colonials and foreigners, who have seen the weakness
of the British growers, and hastened to take advan-
tage of our shortcomings. In fact, Mr. James Harper,
in a paper which he read at the same conference, said
' it had come to this : that the home farmer, if he
would hope to hold his own against foreign competitors,
must copy their methods. They had taught him, if he
would but see, that attractiveness and evenness of
sample were two of the main factors to the successful
disposal of his produce.'*

Concurrently, therefore, with the great expansion in
the fruit industry now proceeding in Great Britain, and
concurrently also with the improved outlook for soft
fruit, there would seem to be special need to place the
production and the sale, especially, of apples, on a
better footing, if English growers are to maintain their
own in regard to that particular class of fruit, now

* To test this matter for myself, I sent, while writing this
chapter, to a farm in the country for a hamper of English Blenheims.
The hamper duly arrived, and I found on the top a fairly present-
able lot, but underneath, mixed up with a certain proportion of
good-sized specimens, were many that were miserably small/ with
a considerable number of windfalls and bruised or worm-eaten
apples that should have been kept back for the pigs.

56 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

imported to the tune of over £2,000,000 a year. Special
attention, therefore, may well be directed to a com-
mendable movement which has quite recently led to
the formation of a body known as the Hereford
Co-operative Fruit-Grading Society, to whose opera-
tions I shall devote a separate chapter in connection
with the organization movement.

While the present work is passing through the press,
I have received a copy of a thirty-two-page booklet,
entitled ' Fruit, Flower, Vegetable, and Potato Growers'
Guide,' which has just been issued by the Newcastle-
on-Tyne and District Fruit and Potato Merchants'
Association, Limited, Pringle's Buildings, St. Andrew's
Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. The special purpose of
the Guide is ' to assist growers in placing their produce
in populous towns of the North, where ready markets
are always obtainable, whether goods are sent to be
sold on commission or bought direct from the grower.'
Notes which are given with respect to grading, packing,
etc., are, it is further explained, * intended to help
growers to realize better prices by getting their produce
to these markets in prime condition and well selected,
to enable producers to secure the profits now going to
foreign growers.' Then there is a list of the chief fruit,
flower, vegetable, and potato merchants in Newcastle
and district, 'to enable growers to make the best
possible arrangements for the sale of their produce ';
with a corresponding list of growers in and around
Wisbech, whose names and addresses are given 'to
help the merchants to buy more extensively in the

BRITISH 7. FOREIGN 57

district, and thus bring growers and buyers more freely
together.' Tables are added showing the railway
classification of fruit and vegetables, the rates for those
commodities from Wisbech to the leading towns on the
North-east Coast, and the services for fruit traffic to
the North on both the Great Eastern and the North-
Eastern Railways.

From this most useful and essentially practical little
Guide I take the following, as having a direct bearing
on what I have already stated :

The importance of the English-grown fruit and vegetable trade
is increasing as the public taste for more freshly-gathered produce
develops, and it is in the hope that growers may be helped to make
the most of their opportunities that this pamphlet is issued.

The Fruit Committee's 1905 Report, section 72, states :

4 It seems to be generally held that English fruit is preferred to
foreign for the table — no doubt on account of its freshness — and
that preservers for a similar reason, would always prefer to make
jam from English fruit, if only the supply was assured.'

The concluding clause is the keynote of the matter. The
public want the best and the freshest, and if growers will profit by
our experience of the foreign fruit-growers' trade methods, they
may confidently hope to replace the enormous quantity of fruit
which the British nation now buys from abroad by home-grown
produce.

Foreign fruit - growers' associations vigorously maintain the
standard of their products —

By good cultivation of good trees only.

By preventing small and poor fruit from being exported, or

lowering the standard quality.
By close grading of all fruit and vegetables.
By good packing.

And consequently the fruit they send to this country has beaten
out of our great markets the mixed, ungraded, badly-selected and
badly-packed fruit from many British orchards, etc.

The trade is an enormous one, as may be seen from the follow-
ing tables, A, B, and C, and be it noted that these tables only
contain fruit which can be grown to perfection in our own country.
Oranges, lemons, and other warm climate fruits, are not included :

THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

g »

fa 2

S "
8 8

< i?

53 en

O &

fa y

g, 15

a

"•• CO CO O CO u-1

HH UTl Tfr \O

vO

CO I *J "^

a i ;*&

0,^0.00

ON COCO

O O
u~»co
co O

U

o^ "-i n
(-T i-T o"

O ro M u-i\o O
^ CO O moo O

^ co ri rf vO vd" co fl
U ^ ^J-\O N t^ M u->

CO i-n ON N O t-v rJ-OO >-< vr> u->

*"i coco -^)- rj r^ rv. n N co vo
M co co co o r^. O <-• t^ tn o

i-t c> i-i coco ^

vO ON IN. O O f •»

.

hii-oO
CON

*1«

N^ o O

M* ^f C>

CO^
CTv

I

\O

O <1 1

O co tx
CO O"o"

coco
co

co

OHvO CO

•^ 1-1 CO OO

r]-MO\ OO

CvO COCO NO

'5 o o cr\
i> coco" o"

c5 s w

* '

o

1

M

If

51

<u ?.

Total fruit and

sive of fruits not eas

5«5 «

IMPORTS: QUANTITIES AND VALUES 59

Tf Tf CO ^ COCO vO "1
O N CO M t^ c O co t^
MOO O O u~t ^J- LT> »-«">

oo o co I-* ro >o o c

M l-l Tf ft O M •<* tN

i— i CO i-t u-> ur> co

I

CO M vo rf COCO N CO
T -3- CO rl-vO vO \O HH
\O 1-1 »-o rj- rf M co -3-

O O i-o r^OO
r>* co O r>> n

N O rf N vO CO
n unoo O i-> ro
N vO t>. c-i O M

i-i r ooo v c o o

CJ OOO OO
fOO ^O
LT>I-( cOrO

00 o OOO
H-I c<~> L/->OO ON
ONu^O O O

vO L

. O ^

s O

vO N N
n «^J-CO

l-l O '5*'

CJ <-> O— fO-i

O o r^ Tf <-< M ^f toco
r^oo vo LOW M coco o
LOCO co-< n-^-

CO

oo
ooo

o -

'-' N roO1-"
co coco ^1-1 cj r^ ooo

•* M O "^l-vO OO Tf CO LT>

O

vo

OO

M co "^

t^x HH m

OCOO

oo

rf

O

TJ- oo o

O co OvO

'vj -^oo r^^^o f^ "^o
CS O CO I-H vO OOO OO
C CO CO CO N

O »J~»
r^oo

r, J

"

iill| 1111.1 &

III

"I

Tab

c
j£^

Is

D o

n

-a 'a

C
03 g

Total frui

sive of fruits

6o

THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

TABLE C.

AVERAGE PRICES PER CWT. OF FOREIGN AND COLONIAL
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES IMPORTED DURING THE
YEARS igOO TO 1904 INCLUSIVE.

Prices per Cwt. (to the nearest id.).

Description.

1900.

1901.

1902.

1903.

1904.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

Apples, raw

II 6

12 II

13 6

12 2

ii 3

Cherries, raw

25 5

20 I

26 o

*3° 4

24 7

Currants ,,

27 i

21 5

24 3

*28ll

24 8

Gooseberries, raw

ii 3

10 6

12 3

*i6 7

ii 7

Pears „

15 5

17 o

17 10

*24 I

18 10

Plums „

18 7

18 6

19 o

*20II

21 4

Strawberries ,,

32 ii

26 7

28 II

*3° 3

28 8

Unenumerated, raw (rasp-

berries, etc.)

ii 9

ii 3

12 4

*i3 i

ii 5

Fruits, preserved

18 10

19 4

ii 8

13 3

13 2

Fruit-juice (adjusted)
Cherries drained in bulk ...

16 3

14 8
70 ii

14 10
69 10

16 10
74 4

17 5
71 i

Fruit sugared

—

30 ii

30 o

29 9

30 6

Pickled vegetables (adjusted)

II 10

ii 9

10 7

10 7

10 5

Vegetables, dried

—

15 i

12 I

40 13

32 +5

„ canned...

—

23 2

21 5

20 8

20 9

„ unenumerated...

—

—

—

Tomatoes

19 o

18 6

17 10

17 9

17 9

Onions

4 6

4 5

4 ii

4 4

4 10

Potatoes

5 o

5 3

5 7

5 8

4 ii

The prices as given per cwt. are generally most useful, but if
prices per ton are required, read the shillings values as pounds
sterling and divide the pence by '6 to derive the fractions of ^i as

* The higher prices recorded in 1903 for soft fruits were ob-
tained by foreign growers owing to the very wet, dull season of
that year, when English fruit did not mature well ; consequently
Continental producers pressed their advantage and rushed their
fruit into the high-priced English markets.

t Haricot beans included to April 14, 1902, after which date
duty was levied on them and they were separately recorded under
4 corn, etc.,' ' beans, haricot.3

BRITISH OPPORTUNITIES 6r

shillings per ton — e.g.) apples, 1900,^11 los. per ton, and in
1904, 2n 5s. per ton.

Beyond those quantities and values the main fact of public
interest is the price per cvvt., which the Blue- Books fail to record.
We have therefore worked them out on Table C.

The prices given in Table C are derived from values declared
by Continental senders who would rather under than over declare,
and as those prices do not include over-sea and railway carriage,
commissions, cost of exchange, remittances, etc., we may be sure
that the values realized in Covent Garden (London) and other
markets were considerably higher. However, they are useful as
indicating the comparative prices at Continental ports from year
to year, when considered in connection with the quantities and
values in Tables A and B.

The great fact which the values in Table B should bring home
to British growers is, that we are sending about £11,000,000
per year to their competitors abroad, for fruit and vegetables
which could be better grown on English soil, to the profit of
English growers.

The fruit market is not a stationary one. It is extending.
Take one instance — tomatoes. A few years ago tomatoes were a
luxury for the wealthy ; now they are to be found in the homes of
the workers in our cities, etc. The demand is yearly increasing.
Has the British grower met the demand ? The following figures
show that he has not :

In 1900 the Continental growers sent us 833,030 cwt. of

tomatoes, value ,£792,339.
In 1904 they sent us 1,134,721 cvvt. of tomatoes, value

^ i, 007,274.

Most of that ;£ 1,007,274, which went abroad might have gone
to the British growers if they had kept abreast of foreign improved
methods, and made the best use of our growing markets.

The home grower has, it is true, made encouraging progress in
some directions during recent years, notably in the culture of
strawberries, and to some extent in tomatoes, etc., but the enormous
sums which still go abroad to pay for foreign-grown fruit point a
telling lesson to the British grower. This is most noticeable in
the case of the ,£2,000,000 worth of apples we annually purchase
abroad, although we could better grow them in England. The
foreigner is getting more of our money every year. Are we going
to let this go on until we become too impoverished to control our
home markets ?

CHAPTER V
A GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRUIT FARM

No better example of what may be done in the way of
fruit culture on an exceptionally large scale could well
be desired than that which is offered by the orchards
on the Toddington Estate, Gloucestershire, once the
property of Lord Sudeley, and now belonging to
Mr. Hugh Andrews.

The estate covers some 8,000 acres in a delightful
expanse of country that, geographically speaking, forms
a continuation of the Vale of Evesham. Its broad
stretches of extremely fertile land, well sheltered from
east winds, constitute an almost ideal spot for the
production of fruit, and this is especially the case as
regards those portions of the estate which are situated
on the slopes of the Cotswold hills, just above what is
locally known as * the frost line.'

It was under these essentially favourable conditions
that Lord Sudeley started fruit-growing on an extensive
experimental scale many years ago, and the present
proprietor has continued and expanded the undertak-
ing with renewed energy and enterprise, watching
assiduously over its further development along strictly
commercial lines.

Mr. Andrews is of opinion that the production of
fruit should be done on either a very small or a very

62

EIGHT HUNDRED ACRES OF FRUIT 63

large scale. In the one case there is the advantage of
close personal attention on the part of the individual
grower, assisted by his family, with small outlay for
labour ; in the other, important and far-reaching
advantages are gained by the wholesale purchase of
requirements for the fruit farm, and also the despatch
in large quantities of produce by rail to distant parts of
the country. Mr. Andrews himself has entered upon
a ' very large scale ' experiment, and, though various
difficulties have had to be encountered and overcome,
he looks forward to the ultimate results with every
feeling of confidence.

The area now under fruit cultivation at Toddington
is upwards of 800 acres. Of this, fully 600 acres are
planted mainly with plum-trees, 100 acres with apple-
trees, and 25 acres with cherry-trees, while a consider-
able amount of bush fruit is grown, either in conjunction
with the * top ' fruit or in separate fields. In this way
there are 40 acres of scarlet, or * Alpine,' strawberries ;
100 acres of ordinary strawberries ; 100 acres of rasp-
berries ; 100 acres of black currants ; 65 acres of red
currants ; 30 acres of gooseberries ; with about 80 acres
in course of preparation for other crops of bush fruit.
There are, also, 35 acres of nuts, and 6 acres devoted
to glass, for the production of grapes, peaches, necta-
rines, figs, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes,
mint, orchids, chrysanthemums, etc. Supplementary
to the orchards, there is a large apiary, together with
the beginnings of a poultry industry.

Much replanting has been going on at Toddington,
and a good deal of the acreage is not yet in fruit-
bearing condition ; yet the actual annual output of fruit
grown in the open is already no less than 2,000 tons.
In the season of 1904 plums yielded 1,357 tons> damsons
200 tons, apples 180 tons, greengages 23 tons, and

64 A GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRUIT FARM

cob-nuts 21 tons, the balance of the total tonnage being
made up of strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, etc.
The quantities of these will, of course, be substantially
increased when the young bushes planted during the
last few years come into bearing. It is expected that
the yield of bush fruit and strawberries will thus be
increased to 400 tons in a season. One hundred tons
of potatoes were lifted in 1905, together with cabbages,
sprouts and savoys, grown as ' catch crops ' under the
trees. In this same year the extensive glass-houses
on the estate produced, among other things, a large
tonnage of grapes, 4,500 peaches and nectarines,
19 tons of tomatoes, 1,000 dozen cucumbers, 4,000
bundles of rhubarb, 1,200 bunches of roses, and 233
dozen arum lilies.

The bulk of the fruit grown on these 800 acres at
Toddington goes, directly or indirectly, to jam-makers.
A considerable quantity is used in a jam factory on the
estate which is rented by Messrs. T. W. Beach and Sons,
Limited. The advantage of having such a factory
immediately adjoining the fruit-growing area, instead
of in the congested districts of a large city, is so
obvious that in the near future other makers will
probably avail themselves of opportunities so favour-
able. The remainder of the Toddington supplies goes
to jam-makers throughout Great Britain and Ireland.

Alike in the production and the ingathering of the
fruit, etc., so large an enterprise naturally necessitates
the employment of a considerable amount of labour,
apart from the transport of the fruit or the working of
it up in the jam factories. Of regular hands on the
estate the number ranges from 150 to 250. Mr. Andrews
entertains strong views as to the paramount importance
of keeping ' the bone and sinew ' of our increasing
population on tthe land, and he fully shares in the

OPENINGS FOR LABOUR 65

belief that one of the best means of achieving this aim
is to be found in an adequate supply of proper housing
accommodation. He has, accordingly, erected some
thirty additional cottages on the estate during the last
three years, in the interests of the workers.

The staff of regular hands is supplemented in the
fruit season by 500 or 600 women and girls, engaged
temporarily as pickers. Of these, 200 belong to the
neighbourhood, and the remainder are brought in
from some of the large manufacturing districts. For
the accommodation of the strangers, buildings have
been erected on different parts of the estate, sufficient
for the sleeping of 400 persons at one time. In those
that I saw there were three beds in each cubicle, and
the sleeping quarters themselves formed an open square,
in the centre of which was a large living-room, where
meals could be prepared. The compound is under the
charge of the foreman and his wife ; medical attendance
is provided through a ' club ' which the pickers form,
and a clergyman holds a service in their interests on
the Sunday. Not only is employment thus found for a
considerable number of women and girls, at good wages,
for a period of about three months in the year, but the
occasion is regarded by them in the light, also, of a
pleasant and health-giving holiday.

All the same, the work involved may be heavy
enough — and also anxious enough — in the height of
the season, so long as it lasts. The 1,300 or 1,400 tons
of plums, for instance, have all to be gathered in a very
short period, and Mr. Martin, the manager of the fruit
farm, pointed out to me the difficulty of dealing with
such quantities, should the weather be unfavourable at
that particular season — a shower of rain, for instance,
making it necessary to leave the perfectly ripe fruit on
the trees until it had again become dry. Then the

5

66 A GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRUIT FARM

various details connected with the picking, putting on
rail, and disposal of the produce in the best possible
condition, necessitate a considerable amount of effective
organization to meet adequately the sudden rushes that
occur.

The possibility of securing this effective organization
has been substantially increased of late by an improve-
ment in rail communication. Up to quite recently all
the fruit despatched from Toddington to various parts
of the country went to the Midland station at Beckford,
five miles away. The Great Western Railway Com-
pany are now constructing a line which, passing through
Toddington (with a station almost in the centre of the
estate), will link up Cheltenham with Honeybourne,
and thus establish new and direct communication
between the western and the northern sections of their
system. At the time of writing, the line has been com-
pleted as far as Winchcombe, the station beyond
Toddington; but already Toddington has secured
direct access to Birmingham and the North, via the
Great Western, as an alternative to the route via
Beckford on the Midland. Alongside the Toddington
station Mr. Andrews has constructed a depot and pack-
ing-shed, 100 ft. by 34 ft., for the more convenient hand-
ling of fruit intended for consignment by the Great
Western. On one side of the depot there are three
bays, into which the vans bringing the fruit can be
backed, so that the baskets will be on the floor level,
and on the other side there is a platform to allow of the
consignments being loaded direct into the railway-
waggons on the siding that immediately adjoins the
depot. There is also on the estate another large depot,
where consignments for transport by the Midland Com-
pany are collected and despatched.

The improvement in rail facilities at Toddington will

LANDOWNERS AND SMALL HOLDINGS 67

probably lead to a large increase in the production of
vegetable crops, hampered in the past by the cost of
cartage. Hitherto regarded mainly as ' catch crops,'
they will, under the improved conditions of transit, now
be found more profitable. In any case they should
yield better financial results, and thus add to the general
prosperity of the fruit farm as a whole.

There are, in fact, unlimited possibilities of further
development at Toddington, especially in the supple-
menting of ' large ' by ' small ' scale fruit-growing. I
see no reason why Toddington should not, in course of
time, become a second Evesham, now that it has this
better rail communication. A more favourable locality
for a collection of small holdings, cultivated by capable
and energtic men, engaging in fruit production and
market-gardening, could hardly be found in any part
of England.

Here, of course, the all-important question is the
point of view from which the land-owner would regard
such an idea, and during my visit to Toddington I took
the opportunity of discussing the subject with Mr.
Andrews. What he said confirmed me in certain
impressions (to which I shall revert later on in the
present volume, in connection with the subject of small
holdings) as to the difficulties likely to be encountered
in establishing, on a large estate, a colony of the type
suggested, when the whole responsibility is left on the
hands of the land-owner. Mr. Andrews, I found, was
distinctly sympathetic towards the small holdings
movement, but he felt that such undertakings should
be entrusted to syndicates or powerful combinations,
with capital sufficient to enable them to grapple with the
housing problem. So I ventured to put the following
question to him : ' Suppose that some intermediary
between yourself and the prospective small holders could

5—2

68 A GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRUIT FARM

be created, in the form either of a co-operative organiza-
tion or of a syndicate, and that such intermediary
undertook the whole responsibility, trouble, and expense
of erecting cottages and other necessary buildings
required for settling the small holders, paying you an
agreed rental under the terms of a lease, would not
that meet the position, and would you then be willing
to let some portion of your estate to such a body for the
purposes in question ?' To this inquiry Mr. Andrews
replied at once in the affirmative, saying that, although
he would not be disposed to sell, he would be willing to
let any quantity of land under lease for long periods and
on suitable terms. He would even be willing, he added,
to give up, for experimental purposes, if desired, some
portions of land already planted with fruit, so that the
small holders could begin operations at once, without
having to wait for the coming to maturity of trees and
bushes on land previously undeveloped.

This sympathetic attitude on the part of a large land-
owner, himself conducting an important commercial
undertaking connected with the land, is, I think, well
worth recording, and I am inclined to think there are
many other land-owners in the country who would be
equally ready to act on the same lines. Mr. Andrews
was further of opinion, however, that something should
be done beyond merely putting small fruit-growers on
the soil ; and I found he was especially keen on the
establishment of central experimental farms, where the
various problems connected with fruit culture on prin-
ciples at once scientific and commercially sound could
be effectively worked out. If, he said, such a farm were
set up in that district by the Government (and he
thought it most desirable that experimental farms
should have the status of Government institutions), he
would be quite willing to afford facilities, or assist, in

CENTRAL AND EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 69

regard to a site, and he would also, if desired, contribute
towards the cost. But wherever and under whatsoever
conditions central experimental farms might be estab-
lished, he held that they were imperatively necessary in
the best interests of the fruit and kindred industries.

Although himself engaged in operations of such con-
siderable magnitude, Mr. Andrews is a firm believer in
agricultural combination. He is an active supporter of
the Winchcombe, Toddington and District Agricultural
Co-operative Association, which, like the Beckford
Farmers' Association, Limited, has been formed for the
joint purchase of farmers' necessaries, both being
affiliated to the Agricultural Organization Society. He
was also one of the founders of the Winchcombe Co-
operative Auction Mart, Limited, which started opera-
tions, in 1904, on a site immediately adjoining Winch-
combe Railway-station, and did so well in the sale of
cattle, sheep and pigs during the first year that it was
able to pay to the tenants and other shareholders a
dividend of 5 per cent. (This third society is also
connected with the Agricultural Organization Society.)

So the Toddington Fruit Farm is being conducted
under conditions that are essentially progressive, and
foreshadow important possibilities in the future. One
feels in visiting the district, that, however great the
results already attained, they are only in an adolescent
stage, and that still greater results must come, especially
if competent but despairing workers, who now think
their only hope of economic salvation lies in settling in
some country beyond our shores, could be enabled, under
suitable conditions, to establish their homes, instead,
amid the picturesque surroundings of this very promis-
ing corner of Gloucestershire.

CHAPTER VI
FLOWERS

IN the course of a paper on ' The Progress of Market-
Gardening Cultivation during Queen Victoria's Reign,'
which he read before the Royal Agricultural Society in
1897, Mr. Assbee, Superintendent of Covent Garden
Market, said :

Large as have been the areas of agricultural land transferred
from the farmer to the market-gardener to supply vegetables and
fruit, and great as has been the progress of those grown under
glass, the crowning-point of modern gardening is most certainly
shown in the rise and progress of flower culture for the market.
There can be no comparison made between 1837 and 1897 in this
branch of market work. The few loads of potted plants and
bunches of flowers only obtainable at Covent Garden Centre Row
have been changed into the unique and magnificent spectacle
presented by the early Covent Garden flower market of to-day.
Nothing so much marks the advance of our working and middle
classes in material progress, in improved taste and refinement, as
their increased outlay upon flowers. At all seasons and under all
conditions of life, from the sick-room in a London lodging or the
ward of a public hospital, up through all times of joy and sorrow,
to the highest function of society (the Drawing-room), we find them
shedding their joyous light and delicious perfume, Nature's most
charming productions.

In the matter of flower production supply and demand
have, indeed, acted and re-acted the one upon the other.
The more that the popular taste for flowers increased,
the greater were the efforts made to put attractive
flowers on the market ; and the larger the supply of
charming blooms at a moderate price, the more willing

70

THE BUSINESS OF FLOWER-GROWING 71

were the people to buy. In this way a business that was
of small proportions even thirty years ago has attained
to very considerable magnitude. It is no longer a
question of cultivating for sale a comparatively few
flowers in market-gardens on the immediate outskirts of
large towns, to supplement the receipts from cabbages
and cauliflowers. This is still extensively done, of
course ; but what one finds, in addition, is that flower
production is being carried on as a separate business in
certain districts, where the output is often really
prodigious. Particular flowers, or even special varieties
thereof, are grown by the field, and, in place of acres of
yellow corn, swaying with the wind, one now sees acres
and acres of beautiful bloom. One grower I have met
has on his flower farm a field of 16 acres which he devotes
exclusively to just one particular kind of daffodil ; and
a single wholesale dealer, I may add, takes his entire
supply. Chrysanthemums, again, are sown by the acre.
At Worthing I saw in one nursery garden a collection of
190,000 chrysanthemums which had been transferred to
flowerpots, and were awaiting removal to the glass-
houses at the end of the fruit season ; and elsewhere
I have seen an acre of thickly-planted chrysanthemums,
in full bloom, all growing under cover, while they still
remained in the ground. Then, I have heard of fields
of 120,000 rose-trees, or of 10,000 clumps of lilies of the
valley ; of lo-acre lots of violets, 7-acre lots of dahlias,
5-acre lots of peonies, 4-acre lots of cornflowers, and so
on, almost ad infinitum.

The growing of flowers in the open has been very
largely supplemented of late years by the use of glass-
houses, either as an adjunct to the production of fruit
in the otherwise ' off season ' (as indicated above), or as
a distinctive branch of business. Still more remarkable
phases, however, of the revolutionary changes which

72 FLOWERS

have been brought about are those represented by the
processes of forcing, and also retarding, flowers, bulbs,
plants, and vegetables, so that their vital forces may be
either hastened or held in suspense, as it were, just as
may suit the convenience of the grower and the exigen-
cies of the market. The forcing is done, not merely by the
ordinary use of heat in glass-houses, but by the application
of anaesthetics. It was Dr. Johannsen, professor at the
Danish High School of Agriculture, who, as the result
of researches begun by him in 1890, first discovered the
service that ether might render in the forcing of plants.
I will not attempt to enter upon any scientific exposition
in regard to this curious process, but, in effect, the
theory, as I understand it, is : That plants require a
certain period of ' sleep '; that the application of anaes-
thetics enables them to get through that period sooner
than they would otherwise do ; and that, when it is
over, they develop and perfect their vital forces much
earlier, and at a greatly accelerated rate of progress.
Certain it is that in Germany lilacs which had been
first treated with ether were in full flower within
eighteen days of their removal to the greenhouse, and a
substantial business on these lines has been developed
in Hamburg, whence the forced lilacs are now sent all
over Germany. Under the alternative retarding pro-
cess the plants or bulbs are placed in cool chambers,
where the temperature is such as to keep them in an
absolutely passive condition so long as they remain
there, the further growth beginning again whenever, on
their removal, the period of suspended animation is
concluded. By one or the other process, therefore,
time and season are practically annihilated, and lilacs
or lilies can be put on the market any day of the year,
as they are wanted, without regard for that now anti-
quated work of reference — the almanac.

THE SCILLY ISLES 73

Looking at flower production from a strictly com-
mercial standpoint, I have seen it stated that the
growers along the Riviera send to Paris alone flowers of
the value of £400,000 the year, while their total output is
estimated to bring in from £800,000 to £1,000,000.
These figures are sufficiently suggestive of the possi-
bilities of flower-growing, and, happily, as indicated by
the facts already stated, our home growers are showing
an increasing enterprise in following up the business
here, instead of leaving the foreigner to have too much
of his own way on our markets. The Scilly Isles, with
their favourable climate, had the honour of first start-
ing that enterprise on an extensive scale ; and since
Mr. T. Algernon Dorrien-Smith sent his first experi-
mental consignment of spring flowers to Covent Garden,
in 1865, the quantities have greatly increased. In 1885
they represented a total of 65 tons, and about 150,000
separate blooms would go to the ton. In 1898 the total
was 296 tons ; in 1900 it stood at 575 tons ; and in 1902
it increased to 751 tons. Since then the amount of
traffic has been almost stationary, for the total in 1904
(leaving out of account a temporary decline in 1903)
was 767 tons, and that for 1905 was 763 tons. A
record for any one day in the history of the Scilly
flower traffic was attained on March n, 1902, when
7,830 boxes of flowers, weighing 47 tons 15 cwt.,
were brought over to the mainland in two steamers.
The largest number carried in one day during the
season of 1905 was on March 9, when 6,478 boxes,
weighing 32 tons 7 cwt., were handled.

The cultivation of flowers for the market enabled the
Scillonians to recover from the period of depression
which had come upon them. But they have shared the
usual fate of pioneers in meeting with active opposition
when they had once showed the way, and to-day the

74 FLOWERS

tendency in the Scilly Islands is to increase the output
of tomatoes (of which there were sent across 4,709
boxes, of about 14 pounds each, during 1905) rather
than that of flowers. Vigorous rivals have established
themselves on the mainland, and though the Scillies
still have an advantage in regard both to early season
and to quantities, the growers in Cornwall and Lincoln-
shire claim that they are producing better qualities, and
that their flowers reach the market in better condition,
because they undergo less handling. In Cornwall
spring flowers have long been cultivated, and, although
they are from ten to fourteen days later than those from
Scilly, their production on commercial lines is receiving
more and more attention. This is especially the case
on the cliffs lying between Penzance and Land's End,
where flower farms — with a certain amount of glass to
hasten the earliest specimens — have been set up in the
sheltered nooks and stretches on such a scale that one
grower alone sends off 50 boxes a day for a period
of three months. For six or seven weeks during the
height of the season the consignments of spring flowers
from Penzance amount to from 3 to 5 tons a day,
the quantities thus handled being double what they
were ten years ago. From Marazion Station during
this same period of six or seven weeks the total con-
signments range from i to 3 tons a day, smaller
quantities going throughout the summer and autumn
months.

In Lincolnshire the business in cut flowers has been
taken in hand very seriously indeed, and, though it is
not being carried on throughout the county to anything
like the same extent as the production of potatoes
and fruit, it has already been developed much more
extensively than is generally known. In and around
Spalding, for example, there are now fully 300 acres

SPALDING DISTRICT 75

of land devoted to flowers and bulbs. The area so
utilized in this one locality alone has doubled in five
years, and quadrupled in ten. The business may,
indeed, be regarded as the outcome of the last decade,
and it has already gone so far that the consignments
of flowers from Spalding during the season of 1905
represented a total of 400 tons. To-day the tendency
is for the local growers to put up more and still more
glass-houses, so that they may be better able to com-
pete with those in the Scilly Isles, in Cornwall, and
elsewhere. One grower in the Spalding district has
over 100 acres under flowers; smaller men have, mostly,
anything from J acre to 20 acres. But the acreage
is constantly increasing, and the small man who has
got brains, business instinct, and sufficient capital,
shows a remarkable talent in the way of enlarging
his holding in the course of a few years. Postmen,
artisans, farm labourers, allotment holders, and others,
all have their patches of flowers, and help to swell the
bulk of the total consignments.

The heaviest despatches of flowers from Spalding in
a single day — or, rather, in a single evening, for the
railway part of the work is all done between 5 and
8.30 p.m. — have amounted to 16 tons. An average
day in the busy season would yield 10 or n tons.
These figures are suggestive of good business for the
railways, but, in effect, they represent a good deal of
work for the railway servants. An analysis of the
business done in the way of flower traffic, on a day
when the total handled was 12 tons 7 cwt., shows
that this quantity was forwarded by 25 senders, in
1 20 different consignments, the number of 'packages'
included therein, and requiring separate handling, being
787. Three or four of the growers forward large con-
signments, but the majority come under the definition

76 FLOWERS

of ' small,' among them being individual cottagers
sending to market a single box of flowers. The con-
signments go by passenger train, and once or twice
in the season ' specials ' are run to facilitate the traffic.

The figures here given refer to Spalding only ; but
in the 22 miles of country between Spalding and
Terrington, 2 miles west of Lynn, there is, on the
Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, a group
of villages which practically exist on the cultivation of
flowers, combined with the production of fruit and
potatoes. These places, with their respective popula-
tions, are: Moulton (2,017), Holbeach (5,032), Fleet
(962), Gedney (1,925), Long Sutton (2,524), all situate
in Lincolnshire, and Walpole (1,767) and Terrington
(2,748) in Norfolk. In cut flowers alone, without
reckoning the large quantities of fruit and potatoes
handled, the traffic from this group of villages comes to
500 tons a year. Adding to this figure the 400 tons
a year sent away from Spalding, we get a total of 900 tons
of cut flowers a year now grown in just one section of
the Eastern counties, or 140 tons more than the whole
of the consignments from Scilly.

Colchester sends 100 tons of roses and lilies in a
year to London and the North, the roses being grown in
the open and the lilies under glass. Isleham, a Cam-
bridgeshire village of 1,600 inhabitants, distributes
75 tons of cut flowers per annum in the same way;
Cowbit, a Lincolnshire village of 571 inhabitants,
does a trade in cut flowers to the extent of 26 tons a
year, and smaller quantities go from Mildenhall,
Suffolk (3,353); Magdalen Road, Norfolk; Dereham,
Norfolk (5,545); March, Cambridge (7,565); Guy-
hirne, Cambridge (1,116) ; Wymondham, Norfolk
(4,721); Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk ; Smeeth Road, Nor-
folk, and other places in the Eastern counties.

OTHER PRODUCING CENTRES 77

At Biggleswade, and elsewhere in Bedfordshire, fields
of flowers alternate with fields of vegetables, the
varieties grown including narcissi, wall-flowers, corn-
flowers, asters, stocks, pinks, sweet peas, chrysanthe-
mums, and scores of others. From Biggleswade itself
the local growers will send away about 1,000 boxes
on exceptionally busy days in July, the average from
June to September being 500 boxes a day. Each box
contains about three dozen bunches, with twenty or
so blooms (according to variety) in a bunch.

Coupled with the demand for cut flowers — which, as
one authority has said, people to-day will buy ' almost
before purchasing their daily bread ' — there is the sub-
stantial trade in flowers in pots, though the tendency
on the part of the growers is to favour the former
rather than the latter, as involving less trouble. Count
must be taken, too, of the business done in the sale of
bedding-out plants for the gardens of those suburban
villas which, with the extensions of our large towns,
have increased so greatly in number of late years.
These same gardens have likewise given a decided
stimulus to the trade in seeds and also in foliage plants,
the latter especially being in ever-increasing demand,
independently altogether of the large market opened
out for palms, ferns, crotons, etc. — the result of hot-
house culture— for table or indoor decoration. Mr.
Assbee told, also, in his paper of the trade which has
sprung up in small boxes of mixed foliage plants in
' thumb ' pots, saying that one firm alone he knew of
sold 2,500,000 annually.

At Terrington I had the opportunity of seeing the
' bulb farm ' of Mr. Frank Law, who occupies altogether
116 acres, of which from 30 to 40 are devoted to
bulbous flowers, 20 to chrysanthemums, from 10 to 12
to herbaceous plants, roses, etc., 5 to peonies, and

78 FLOWERS

so on, his aim being to produce for market a succession
of flowers throughout the year, and not in the spring
only.

Growers of tomatoes and cucumbers under glass at
Norwich have their 5-acre fields of chrysanthemums,
moving in the latter when the former are done with,
and sending away such quantities that an average
annual output for the season would be about 270 tons
of flowers. Yarmouth and Gorleston produce about
180 tons of flowers a year. A considerable propor-
tion of the traffic from these centres goes to Edinburgh,
Glasgow, or towns in the North and the Midlands.

CHAPTER VII
BULBS

IN the minds of the vast majority of English people
bulbs are associated exclusively with Holland, for
when the word ' bulbs ' is heard or read one almost
naturally expects that it should be preceded by
' Dutch.'

True it is that bulb-culture has attained in Holland
to very substantial proportions indeed ; and it may be
of interest to my readers if I quote the following details
respecting the Dutch industry from a statement drawn
up by Dr. J. J. L. van Rijn (Agricultural Commis-
sioner in this country for the Province of Friesland)
on the occasion of a visit to Holland, in 1905, of repre-
sentatives of the English agricultural press, organized
by him. These details are the more noteworthy — from
the point of view of what I shall have to say later on
concerning agricultural organization — because of the
evidence they afford of how well the Dutch growers
work together for the promotion of their common
interests.

At the end of the sixteenth century the culture of hyacinths and
tulips was transferred from the Orient to West Europe, and soon
afterwards these bulbous plants were cultivated in Holland on a
large scale. . . . The number of cultivators gradually increased,
and the cultivation regularly extended itself in the whole district
between Haarlem and Leyden.

79

8o BULBS

About 1850 thirty export firms were~established in Haarlem and
environs. That number has now increased to 150. Besides these
there are in the bulb trade 2,000 independent bulb-growers, who do
not export, but regularly sell their bulbs to the exporting firms.
The latter also cultivate on a large scale. The area used for bulb
cultivation has, according to the last official statistics, a circumfer-
ence of 7,400 acres in the provinces of North and South Holland,
and is still extending annually.

In connection with the always growing demand for land of good
quality, the prices of bulb land have risen enormously on this
account. One acre of good bulb land in the centre of the bulb dis-
trict sold at .£300 or ^335. The exports amount at present to
nearly 10,700 tons annually, which means that the export has
doubled during the last seven years.

Bulbs are being exported into nearly all countries and parts of
the world. Almost 70 per cent, of the whole production is sent to
England ; the next best customers are America, Germany and
Russia.

The success of the bulb culture in our country is mainly due to
the extraordinary favourable condition of soil and climate.

The more the culture increased, the more the bulb - growers
joined together and arranged their business. In 1860 the general
society for the purpose of bulb cultivation was established, and has
at present thirty local sections, with 2,000 members. It has its
own newspaperman exchange at Haarlem, and regularly holds ex-
hibitions. Moreover, there are special societies for the purpose of
looking after the interests of the exporters and the bulb-growers.
The central exporters' society has a mutual cash and intelligence
office under the management of a lawyer. This office is in posses-
sion of information about more than 20,000 foreign consumers of
bulbs. There are also four chambers of labour in the bulb
district, which corporate bodies mainly attend to the interests of
labour.

Haarlem is the seat of all these societies, and that town can
still be looked upon as the centre of the whole bulb trade.

The supremacy of Holland as a producer of bulbs
is, however, being questioned by English growers, who
are not only putting large supplies on the home market,
but are even disposing of considerable quantities to the
Dutch bulb-growers themselves. The Scilly Isles have
worked up a substantial trade in bulbs to supplement
their business in spring flowers, and West Cornwall is
now doing the same. What proportion of the Scilly
bulbs goes to Holland I cannot say, but one grower in
West Cornwall told me he had himself executed orders

RIVALS OF HOLLAND 81

from Holland for 530,000 bulbs in the course of a
season. These bulbs would be of either first or
second size, and it is probable that a good many of
them, after being planted in Holland for another
season, would find their way back to England as
' Dutch bulbs.'

But the districts around Spalding and Wisbech are
also producing largely for both the home and the
Dutch markets. From Spalding, a few years ago,
something like 100 tons of bulbs were sent by motor-
waggon to Lynn, and thence by steamer to Holland.
Even this quantity has been surpassed by the 150 tons
consigned from Wisbech to Holland in a single season
over the lines of the Midland and Great Northern
Joint Railway — or 200 tons, if we add the 50 tons that
went in the same season from the group of stations
between Spalding and Lynn. From such figures as I
have been able to obtain I should estimate the total
consignments of bulbs from Wisbech alone to all
destinations at 300 tons in a season, and this figure, I
think, is more likely to be under than over the mark.

A Lincolnshire grower with whom I discussed the
prospects of this increasing and already considerable
industry in English-grown bulbs, expressed himself
thus:

If you compare Lincolnshire and Dutch bulbs, our own are
incomparably first. The soil in Lincolnshire is better adapted
than the soil in Holland to the growing of bulbous plants, espe-
cially daffodils and hyacinths. The bulk of the Dutch bulbs are
large in size, it is true, but they are soft and unripened. They are
what we call 'sappy.' Not being sufficiently ripened, they don't
flower so well as the smaller and harder varieties produced in
Lincolnshire. In Holland the bulbs are grown mostly in sand and
cow manure, and practically in water ; hence the softness of
which I spoke. In Lincolnshire we have got the proper soil with-
out an excess of water. The bulbs, growing in the autumn, winter,
and spring, ripen off here in the summer, when there is moisture
sufficient, but not too much. That is where the Lincolnshire bulbs
get the advantage over the Dutch.

6

82 BULBS

In fact, it comes to this : anything that Holland can grow
Lincolnshire can grow, not only as well, but better — under suitable
conditions. What I mean is that, while there are immense possi-
bilities in the Lincolnshire soil, yet, if we are to have dear land,
heavy rates and taxes, and labour which is not only dear but none
too skilful, we shall not gain much from the advantages we ought
to develop. England spends a large sum of money every year on
foreign bulbs. Given the suitable conditions, we could grow for
ourselves all we want, and the money kept at home would foster
British industries.

It is just the same with flowers. We import fresh flowers of
the value of a quarter of a million sterling each year. But it is a
fallacy to suppose that these flowers can be produced only in France,
in Jersey, or in the Scilly Isles. Here, again, the Lincolnshire
soil is better adapted for the growing of flowers than is the soil in
those other places. The advantage they have comes only from
their earlier season. We could nullify that advantage by putting
up glass-houses, which would place us on the same level in regard
to season, and leave us with our better soil. But, when we think
of erecting glass-houses, we have to bear in mind the existence of
local authorities. In their anxiety to raise money, they watch us
as a cat does a mouse, and the instant we make a move they are
down upon us. To meet competitors on our own markets, we
put up glass-houses which are merely shelters, protecting against
the climate ; but these houses are instantly taxed at such a figure
that the benefits we hope to secure are in danger of being swallowed
up, leaving us no better off than we were before.

While, therefore, the ' immense possibilities ' I have told you of
may still lie before us — and this notwithstanding the great progress
Lincolnshire has made of late years — you will understand how a
check is put at once upon any new development on which we
might propose to embark. It is not a question whether, as
patriotic Englishmen, we ought to pay heavy rates and taxes
willingly for this purpose or that ; but whether, from a purely com-
mercial standpoint, the commodities we grow will bear the addi-
tional cost of production thus put upon them, and be in a position
to hold their own on the market — by the time they get there— as
against the commodities grown at less expense in other countries.

Another Fenland grower, who has 20 acres under
bulb cultivation, said to me :

The Dutchmen have taken more trouble over bulb-growing in
the past than we have. That is the whole secret of their success.
In my opinion we can grow tulips and crocuses as well as they
grow them in Holland, and daffodils decidedly better.

Dutch supremacy in bulb-production is also being
challenged in Ireland. Some fifteen miles to the north-

BULB-PRODUCTION IN IRELAND 83

east of Dublin the little fishing village of Rush stands in
the midst of a wild and almost desolate sandy plateau,
across which the wind sometimes sweeps with terrible
violence, its force in no way checked by the few trees
that alone break the vista of the landscape. A hopeless
sort of spot it might appear to the casual observer to be,
and a spot where even fishing does not thrive, owing,
it is said, to the destructive influence of the steam
trawlers.

But in the year 1895 it occurred to Mr. James
Robertson, of the firm of Hogg and Robertson, seeds-
men, etc., of St. Mary Street, Dublin, that Rush would
be an especially suitable place in which to start some
experiments in bulb-growing. The sandy, limestone
soil that slopes down from the mountains to the sea-
shore is suitable for root crops, and, although the rain-
fall at Rush is exceptionally low, there is an abundance
of subsoil moisture, the water standing at only a few
inches below the surface during the late autumn and
winter. Early potatoes have, in fact, long been grown
at Rush, and the natural capabilities of the soil have
been increased by an abundant manuring, thanks to the
ample supplies of seaweed.

These conditions seemed to Mr. Robertson to favour
his proposed experiment, and he was the more disposed
to make it, apart from purely commercial reasons, partly
because he wanted to add, so far as he could, to the
minor industries of distressful Ireland, and partly
because he also was inspired by the wish to ' keep at
home money which would otherwise go to the
foreigner.' So, acquiring some of the most suitable
land, he started the enterprise, overcoming the strong-
wind difficulty by constructing earth embankments
and low mud walls, and also planting hedges of oval-
leaved privet and other hardy shrubs between the

6—2

84 BULBS

different beds. Since then about 40 acres have been
devoted to the production of daffodil, tulip, hyacinth,
and other bulbs, and the firm now report :

The result has surpassed our expectation. All bulbs grown in
Holland thrive splendidly at Rush, and in appearance and size are
equal to the best the Dutch produce. Our exhibits of the flowers
at the spring shows in London, Birmingham, Manchester and
elsewhere during the last three seasons have been awarded the
highest honours they could attain.

It might be not unfairly claimed that this industry presents an
opportunity to the growers of spring flowers who take an interest
in the future prosperity of this part of the kingdom — and their
number is legion — to help, it may be in a small way, in the re-
generation of Ireland.

We base our claim for recognition, however, on the sounder
commercial basis that our bulbs are equal, if not superior, to
those of the foreigners, and are sold at prices which are as low
as theirs.

The favourable report presented by the growers is
confirmed in other directions. A writer in the Garden,
for instance, says of the Rush enterprise :

Though I have seen tulips in Holland and in England, I never
saw them happier than upon this wind-swept shore. ... I never,
even in Holland, saw foliage so clean, strong, and healthy, nor
flowers so fresh and splendid in form and colour. Now that the
fact is accomplished, one wonders why bulb-culture was not tried
here long ago.

The commercial possibilities of bulb-production were
thus dealt with in an article on the Rush experiments
published in the Irish Times of October 7, 1901 :

The enormous quantities and the high values of choice bulbs
that may be grown on an acre of good and suitable land are
astonishing, and somewhat of a revelation to those not well versed
in intensive land-culture. Thus an imperial acre holds 250,906
roots or bulbs at 5 inches apart. In order to facilitate the
working, etc., paths or alleys are, of course, necessary, as well as
the bulbs, and so we will say 200,000 bulbs go to the acre. It is a
common — or rather let us say an abundant — flower root that is not
worth a penny, but many of the choicest kinds, as grown at Rush,
are worth from one shilling to as much as five pounds a root, and
if you want to grow some of the finest of Mr. Engleheart's new

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS 85

seedling daffodils much more must be paid. You can have, for
example, a bulb of a variety called Albatross, with its wing-spread
petals of snowy whiteness, for four pounds ; and Golden Bell, a
giant trumpet daffodil, for a guinea. A rich and stately golden
trumpet, sent out last year by Mr. Kendal, will cost you five or six
guineas a root ; and Monarch, another fine sort, is priced at twelve
guineas, as is also the rare and beautiful Eucharis lily-like flower
called Maggie May ; Una, an ivory white (without the lion), may
be had at two guineas, and a root of the big and beautiful Wear-
dale Perfection is worth nine guineas. Then, even if you purchase
all these, you are, so to speak, only in the second row, for there
are narcissi both rich and rare, such as Ellen Willmott, Peter
Barr, Robert Berkeley, Earl Russell, Countess Russell, Lady Mar-
garet Boscawen, and many others at present that no money can
buy, so proud of them are their raisers or owners. It is startling
to think what an acre, or even a pole or perch, of such kinds as
Maggie May, Ellen Willmott, or Peter Barr would be worth to a
successful cultivator. 'Ah, sure,' said a man of the sea to me one
fine day at Rush, 'these roots beat potato-growing; they beat
creation entirely ; and it's rowlin' in money you'd hev to be to touch
'em at all at all, they're so dear to buy.' Unconsciously, perhaps,
the nail had been struck on the head, and the reason there are not
more bulb-growers is twofold at least. Firstly, the best and most
suitable land is limited in area and difficult to secure, and then the
best and choicest stock bulbs are ' so dear to buy.' In a word,
although bulb-growing is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant
and profitable of all soil or land industries, it, at the same time,
demands capital, and a high order of systematic, industrial, and
commercial intelligence. It is not merely digging and planting, as
in the case of potatoes, for food.

As regards the closing remarks in this extract, I am
inclined to think further experience in Ireland will show
that, while the main industry must remain in the hands
of large growers possessed of capital, there will be good
openings for even very small growers in the production
of the less costly varieties, which they can sell to the
large men, instead of trying to market for themselves,
thus supplementing their earnings in other directions
without running any personal risk, and at the same
time enabling the large men to work up a bigger trade
by collecting supplies from a variety of other sources.
A certain amount of instruction might have to be given,
and guidance exercised, in the production of the right

86 BULBS

sorts, under proper conditions ; but this should present
no great difficulty. These are the lines that have been
acted upon with great success around Wisbech, and
there is no reason why the same plan could not be
followed in Ireland, to the benefit alike of the peasantry
and of the large growers themselves. The latter are
already finding employment for a greater number of
people in their bulb farms, but it would be an excellent
thing if, in addition, they could enlist the services of
cottagers as assistant-growers.

Should this be done, then the very successful experi-
ments at Rush might be only the beginning of a new,
important, and wide-spread industry in Ireland. As still
further showing the opportunities opening out to those
willing to take advantage of them, I would add the
following to the extract I have already given from the
article in the Irish Times :

The soils of Ireland are rich, light, moist and easily worked, and
all around the coast there are choice plots and sheltered valleys of
alluvium that are especially suitable to the healthy growth and
profitable increase of manyrare and valuable bulbous plants. The
climate, again, fights for us in the matter. It is moist and genial,
equable and mild, and especially so from December until July,
when bulbs are rooting and flowering and preparing their crowns
and off- sets for another year.

In Holland, bulb -culture has been an hereditary pursuit or
calling for the past three centuries at least, and it is a curious
historical coincidence that bulb-growing and printing should both
have been started in Holland at about the same time. The art or
craft of bulb - culture, with all its technical details, has been a
growth, and the bulb-growing son has succeeded the bulb-growing
father from generation to generation, and, like viticulture in
France, or the pruning of old olive-trees in Lombardy, the
mysteries and methods are, so to speak, deep-seated in both heart
and brain, or, as one might well say they are, 'in the blood.' Now,
as is the case with all new cultures or fresh experiments, it will
take some time to get bulb-growing ' into the blood' generally of
the average or ordinary Irish farmer or market-gardener ; still in
some favourable cases it is now in progress, and even in rare cases
is actually being done. We may safely assert that no finer
or better bulbs of narcissus, daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, crocus,

IRELAND'S OPPORTUNITIES 87

iris, or even of gladiolus, and Holland's own speciality, the
hyacinth, are produced anywhere than are the best of those grown
on Irish soil. So far we have not grown the quantities grown by
the Dutch in Holland, or even as many as are now being grown in
Surrey, in Cornwall, and the Scilly Islands, or in Lincolnshire,
where soil and climate resemble those of Holland in many ways.
Still, the quality and healthy character of the best of Irish-grown
bulbs is past all denial.

CHAPTER VIII

PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS

A RESORT to the growing of fruit, flowers, and early
vegetables under glass is one of the chief measures of
defence adopted by the British cultivator in meeting
foreign competition. It enables him (as stated by the
Lincolnshire grower referred to in the last chapter) to
overcome somewhat the disadvantages of his climate,
and place himself more on a level of equality with
producers in lands which have earlier seasons or more
genial skies, so that he himself can start sooner, or keep
on longer, and have opportunities which he could not
possibly hope for if he depended entirely on what he
could grow in the open.

So well has this position been understood that the
advance made in production under glass during the last
quarter of a century, and especially during the last
decade, has not been surpassed by the progress in any
other branch of industry connected with the land, and
already there is an outcry in various quarters of over-
production. Whether or not the fault, if any, lies less
in over-production than in want of better distribution is
a matter on which opinions might differ ; but the fact
remains that at present there is no evidence of a check
being given to the continued growth of a very big
business, thanks to which, combined with the changed

A REMARKABLE EXPANSION 89

economic conditions already dealt with, the average
housewife can now, for instance, supplement the Sunday
dessert with English hot-house grapes, at from 6d.
to a is. or is. 6d. a pound, which, not so many years
ago, would have cost from 53. to ios., and been found
only on the rich man's table.

It is in the south-east corner of Hertfordshire, on the
northern borders of the Metropolis, in the Valley of the
Thames, and along the Sussex coast, that the expansion
of culture under glass has been most in evidence in
England. Mr. Bear, in the Journal of the Royal
Agricultural Society, tells how thirty years ago only one
nurseryman at Cheshunt, Herts, had a hot-house,
whereas there are now at least 125 acres covered with
glass in that parish alone. At Ponders End, near to
Cheshunt, the increase in the same period has been
a thousandfold. At Finchley twenty - five years
ago there was ' no glass worth mentioning.' To-day
there is one nurseryman, without mentioning others,
who alone has 19^ acres, though this would make
quite a small show alongside the 130 acres of glass with
which a firm elsewhere are credited. In the Thames
Valley the comparatively few ventures of a quarter of a
century ago have expanded into a vast enterprise.
There has been a remarkable development also at
Mitcham, Swanley, Erith, Bexley Heath, Chelmsford,
and other parts of the country.

Passengers by the Great Eastern Railway to South-
end may have noticed that there is a station at Ray-
leigh, an Essex village of 1,773 inhabitants ; but very
few of them, probably, know that from this one village
there have been despatched in the course of a year
334 tons of cucumbers, 55 tons of tomatoes, and 78
tons of fruit, all grown under glass, in addition to a
small tonnage of cut flowers and mushrooms, grown in

go PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS

the open. Most of these consignments come to London.
Ashwellthorpe, a Norfolk village with a population of
just over 700, consigns in a year, to towns in the North
and the Midlands, 13 tons of tomatoes and cucumbers,
supplemented by smaller lots of fruit and cut flowers.

The general progress of the industry is well indi-
cated by the following extract from the ' Fruit-Growers'
Year-Book ' for 1905 :

At the present time there are some 1,500 acres in England
covered over with glass, which, if stretched in one straight line,
would form a glass hot-house a good deal longer than the length of
England, and about 10 feet in width. Fifty years ago the acreage
covered by glass-houses did not exceed much more than a couple
of hundred. From the 1,500 acres of glass-houses are produced
annually about 6,000 tons of tomatoes, 2,000 tons of peaches, and
1,500 tons of grapes.

The borough of Worthing offers the best opportunities
for a study of large-scale cultivation under glass, as
carried on in a particular district ; for there not only are
definite figures available in respect to the houses, but
the fact that all the produce is consigned by rail to the
London or other markets allows of a better idea being
formed of the actual proportions of the output than is
the case with those districts nearer London from which
so much would be sent to market by road.

Climatic conditions along the Sussex coast are
specially favourable to fruit, vegetable, and flower cul-
ture under glass, and since the pioneer effort in this
direction at Worthing a quarter of a century ago the
enterprise has stretched out in each direction, until it
now embraces a coast-line some ten miles in extent.
But Worthing remains the capital of the Sussex glass
industry. The number of glass-houses within the
limits of that borough is now 1,220. Placed end to
end these houses would give a total length of over
miles. The largest is 861 feet long and 20

WORTHING 91

feet wide. The total superficial area of the glass
used in roof construction for all the houses in the
borough is over 3,500,000 feet. The total length of
the piping used for heating purposes would exceed 136
miles. Some of the growers have artesian wells in their
own grounds, and small windmills or steam-engines to
pump the water they want in their business ; but the
majority are supplied by the Worthing Corporation (at
a sliding charge which varies from 6d. to is. per 1,000
gallons), and the quantity annually registered by the
water-meters thus used is 18,000,000 gallons. The
local authorities estimate the aggregate cost of erecting
the glass-houses (including sites), at £165,000, and they
put the gross estimated annual rental value at £13,727,
and the rateable value at £8,259.

The number of master growers in Worthing is eighty-
two. Numerically speaking, most of these are ' small '
men, of whom a considerable proportion were once
labourers, or little better, and have * worked their way
up,' more or less. The ' large ' growers do not exceed
a dozen, but of these one alone occupies an eighth of all
the glass in the borough. The question whether the
small or the large growers have the better chance at
Worthing, under the present conditions of low prices, is
one upon which opinions differ. The large men have
the advantage of capital and good business connections,
but a hard-working small man, with a few hundred
pounds and two or three sons as industrious as himself,
will often obtain better proportionate results, because he
and his family helpers will work for longer hours, and
do more in those hours than the large grower can hope
for from his hired workers. So the all-important item
of the cost of production is relatively less in the one
case than in the other.

As confirming this view — which I gained on the spot

92 PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS

— I see that Mr. W. Sams, a Worthing grower who
gave evidence before the Departmental Committee
on Fruit-Culture, said in his statement : 1 1 am a firm
believer that a working man by himself and his son,
perhaps, or one hand, will hold his own, when I and
others, who have larger premises, are out of it.' Asked
if that applied to glass-houses, Mr. Sams replied :
' Yes. ... A working man will be able to live and
place himself in a better position than if he was a day-
labourer or working for a master — he will not mind
what hours he puts in at the work ; but I do not believe
it will pay a man with capital, certainly at the present
moment, to go into the business,' — especially, as
Mr. Sams had previously explained, in face of ' free
imports.'

Such is the importance of the Sussex coast industry
in fruit, vegetables, and flowers, that the London,
Brighton, and South-Coast Railway Company now run
what is practically a special train in the interests of the
traffic (though passengers may travel by it as well)
every week-day, except Saturday, from various stations,
including Angmering, Goring, West Worthing, Worth-
ing, and Lancing, to London Bridge. Waggons loaded
up with the produce are coupled on at the various
stations, and on the busiest days — Mondays, Wednes-
days, and Fridays — in the summer months there may
be as many as ten or a dozen waggon-loads, represent-
ing from 2,500 to 4,000 or more packages (and one
package often consists of four boxes tied together), or
in actual weight from 25 to 40 tons of consignments.

The largest proportion goes from Worthing. Little
more than twenty years ago the consignments of fruit,
etc., from that station represented about 100 packages
on a busy day. It is now no unusual occurrence for
2,500 packages to be sent in one day from Worthing.

N

" 2

=

is

A SUBSTANTIAL OUTPUT 93

Cucumbers are despatched thence in considerable
quantities all the year round, but in the months of
March, April, and May they represent, on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays, a total weight of about
12 tons a day. One firm alone will send 6 tons and
another 2 tons three times a week. For grapes, which
are also going from Worthing more or less throughout
the year, the daily average of consignments works out
at about 2\ tons. Of tomatoes there would be an
average of ij tons each day. Early beans, peas, and
strawberries go in smaller quantities, and are of less
importance, though they may supplement somewhat
the earnings of the growers.

Some years ago, at Christmas-time, one Worthing
grower sold at no less a price than 33. 6d. an ounce, or
563. per pound, some strawberries he had forced in a
cucumber house, though the same number of plants, he
assured me, would have produced a better profit if they
had been allowed to yield their fruit in the open in the
normal course of the seasons. The purchasers of
flavourless Christmas strawberries at 563. per pound
are, it seems, wealthy residents of Brighton, who will
stop at no expense, provided they can put on their
tables something that no one else is likely to have.

The arrangements made by the London, Brighton,
and South Coast Railway Company for handling the
traffic in London afford an object-lesson in good
organization. The fruit train starts from Chichester at
10.48 a.m., couples on fruit waggons at Angmering at
11.45; Goring, 11.50; West Worthing, 12.15 p.m.;
Worthing, 12.35; and Lancing, 12.39; and is due to
reach London Bridge about 2.30. While the train is
performing this journey there will have been sent by
telegraph to London Bridge from each station forward-
ing fruit, etc., a list of the dealers to whom the consign-

94 PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS

ments are being forwarded, and the number of packages
each dealer is to receive from such station. These
telegrams are collated, and the railway officials learn
from them the exact number of packages the various
dealers at Covent Garden, Spitalfields, and the Borough
Market are to receive by the incoming train. The
railway company's servants can thus at once complete
the arrangements for delivery, which is included in the
rates charged. They know, approximately, how many
vans or carts (generally from fifteen to twenty-five) will
be required, and, if there should not be enough of the
company's own vehicles available, instructions are sent
over the telephone to a contractor to supply the addi-
tional number wanted. Arrangements are also made
with a view to having sufficient men on duty to unload
the railway-waggons, load up the delivery-vans, and
despatch these to their destination, within from forty
minutes to (at the outside) one hour of the arrival of
the train at London Bridge. This means that, in the
proportion of two men for each 300 packages, from
fifteen to thirty dock labourers are engaged by the rail-
way company each day, at a remuneration of sixpence
per hour (with a minimum of two hours' pay), to assist
in the work on this one train. Meanwhile, also, there
will have been hung on the tail-end of each van (drawn
up in position against the other side of the platform to
which the fruit train will come) a blackboard, giving,
written in chalk, the names of the particular dealers
whose consignments are to be loaded into the said van.
No sooner, therefore, has the ' fruit special ' pulled
up than the operation of unloading is begun at each end
of the train. The doors of a truck being opened, the
railway-men and the labourers assisting them lift out
the packages, and, reading the names thereon (for it is
an essential part of the scheme that each package

HOW THE TRAFFIC IS HANDLED 95

shall be separately labelled), take them to the delivery-
vans according to the names on the blackboards. The
sight of a sturdy dock labourer, capable of big things in
the way of heavy loads, gravely walking along the plat-
form carrying in each hand a round-handled basket of
' Grapes — with care,' that would hardly test the physical
powers of a child, is not without its humorous side. In
any case, one sees that the railway people do take the
desired ' care,' and the impression I myself got, as I
watched the whole operation, was confirmed by the
representative of one of the wholesale agents, who,
before it was placed in the delivery-van, opened and
examined each of the 600 or so packages of grapes con-
signed to his firm on that particular day, and assured
me that ' for weeks together he found no cause for com-
plaint as to the condition of the fruit on arrival.'

In order to economize time, the transfer from train to
van is begun at once, and continued without any delay
in checking the consignments by the way-bills. These
are taken direct to an adjoining office, where a staff of
clerks at once starts to make up the necessary papers
for the drivers, completing this part of the work by the
time the delivery- vans are ready. Well within an hour,
therefore, of the arrival of the ' fruit special,' on the
day of my visit to the Brighton Company's London
Bridge station, I saw the procession of vans leave to
deliver the contents of that * special ' to the agents in
the different markets. In this way, fruit, etc., gathered
fresh in the hot-houses along the Sussex coast in the
morning would be delivered to the London agents
between four and five o'clock the same afternoon, ready
for immediate sale, or for further consignment to
Dublin or Glasgow, where it should arrive the following
morning.

It is, therefore, essentially a good service which the

96 PRODUCTION UNDER GLASS

Sussex fruit-growers obtain in return for the rates they
pay. There is no combination among the fruit-growers
of Worthing and the neighbourhood, each of whom
consigns independently to the salesman he favours.
Although, therefore, the total weight of the produce
carried per train is considerable, the large number of
separate consignments, sent by different consigners to
thirty or forty individual consignees, involves much
handling and much clerical work, while the nature
both of the commodity and of the services rendered is
held to justify the scale of railway rates charged.
These rates certainly constitute a grievance with some
of the Worthing growers, who argue that, when market
prices fall (partly because of either excessive production
or defective marketing, but mainly because of heavy
foreign imports), the railway companies should reduce
their charges proportionately, without regard, as it
would seem, to the question whether or not they would
still get a reasonable return from the traffic carried on
under the exceptional conditions here indicated.

A more legitimate grievance is the burden of local
rates, the average assessment for which on glass-houses
in the borough of Worthing works out at £117 per acre.
Mr. Sams was especially forcible on this point in the
evidence he gave before the Departmental Committee-
' Every pound of fruit,' he said, * that I send into
market is weighted with a certain amount of rates and
taxes. Every pound I send to London bears a propor-
tion of rates and taxes. Of course, it is infinitesimal
on a pound, but there it is, and the foreigner sends his
produce here without any of those burdens.'

Fruit and vegetable production under glass is generally
supplemented at Worthing, as elsewhere, by the cultiva-
tion of chrysanthemums, which are first grown in the
open, and brought into the glass-houses when the grapes

THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

97

have been cut. There is, it seems, no great profit from
this branch of the business, but it helps both to keep the
staff employed during the winter and to cover current
expenses.

By way of further illustrating the proportions to
which cultivation under glass has attained of late
years, I append the following particulars respecting
the value of the importations into England from the
Channel Islands of grapes and tomatoes — mostly grown
under glass, and mostly coming from Guernsey, which
is rapidly being transformed into an island of glass-
houses, Jersey occupying herself mainly with new
potatoes :

Grapes

1900.

1901.

1902.

1903.

1904.

£

104,304

£

80,247

91,362

4

95,643

/
156,312

Tomatoes ...

287,147

266,198

214,379

297,216

350,717

Of fresh flowers from the Channel Islands, and again
mainly from Guernsey, the values for the same series of
years were: 1900, £68,743; 1901, £78,495; 1902,
£100,142 ; 1903, £81,886 ; 1904, £91,613. The total
value of the grapes, tomatoes, and fresh flowers sent to
England from the Channel Islands in 1904 (indepen-
dently of other commodities) thus amounted to over
£598,000.

It is estimated that nine-tenths of the population of
Guernsey are interested in glass culture, and that the
glass-houses on the island would, if they could all be
brought together, cover just about one square mile
of land.

CHAPTER IX
MARKET-GARDENING.

To give a really adequate idea of the extent to which
market-gardening is followed in the United Kingdom is
practically impossible. As already indicated, the returns
of * agricultural holdings ' take no notice of any that
are under one acre in size.* And the sum total of hold-
ings and diminutive market-gardens which are under
that limit, yet, nevertheless, contribute substantially—
in the aggregate — to the supplies put on the market,
must be very considerable. But even the most com-
plete of returns as to acreage, showing increase in one
period compared with another, would still be inadequate,
inasmuch as, although in certain districts the actual
area under market-gardens may not have increased,
the quantities produced, under the system of intensive
culture — and especially with the expansion of glass-
houses— will be very considerably greater, on the same
amount of land, contrasted with the conditions of ten
or twenty years ago.

If, again, one tries to get statistics as to production,
a fresh set of difficulties present themselves. In the
first place, the largest of market-gardeners do not care

* In effect, if 100 acres of farm-land be cut up into allotments of
less than one acre each, for the purposes of market-gardens, those
loo acres would appear in the official statistics as 'gone out of
cultivation.'

98

TYPICAL DISTRICTS 99

to fill up official returns specifying the exact amount of
each particular crop they grow. Then, the railway
returns as to traffic carried are only of service in
the case of market-garden areas which are more than
fifteen or twenty miles away from a large centre of
population, inasmuch as within that distance the
produce would generally be taken to market by road.
Nor would the market returns, as a rule, give even an
approximate idea of the quantities handled, no really
strict classification being observed in the case of those
on which tolls are taken, while there is no account at
all in the case of market-stands that are rented by
growers themselves ; and at Covent Garden, for ex-
ample, half the outer fringe is divided into stands of
this type.

In the circumstances, all that I can attempt to do in
the way of giving some idea, however incomplete, of
the importance attained by the market-gardening in-
dustry in this country is to offer a few examples of
typical districts, and to supplement them in the follow-
ing chapter by such information as I have been able to
collect with regard to the production of some of the
more important crops.

West Middlesex ranks as one of the most important
of the various market-gardening areas within a twenty-
mile radius of London. Beginning even as near to
the Metropolis as Chiswick and Kew, it extends
through Brentford and Isleworth to (among other
places) Hounslow, Witton, Feltham, Cranford, Hatton,
Heston, Southall, West Drayton and Yiewsley, Har-
lington, Hayes, Harmondsworth, and Longford. The
greater part of this very considerable area is practically
devoted to the growing of vegetables, fruit, and flowers,
for the London markets. The farms are mostly from
50 to 100 acres in size, but 30o-acre farms are not

7—2

ioo MARKET-GARDENING

uncommon, while there are some larger still in dimen-
sions, though not necessarily more productive in out-
put. The total acreage of cultivated land has probably
not increased, for, though it may have extended west-
ward, it has been curtailed on the east, owing to the
spreading out of the London suburbs. The combina-
tion, again, of increasing land-values in the neighbour-
hood of great cities, and of the facilities offered for rail
transport, leads to the expansion of market-gardening
in country rather than in suburban districts. But
what is happening in West Middlesex, as elsewhere, is
that considerable stretches of land formerly devoted to
the growing of corn have been transformed in recent
years into market-gardens ; while the remarks already
made as to increased production per acre, resulting
from intensive culture, apply with especial force to
West Middlesex, where this principle has been widely
acted upon, with striking results. With the greater
resort to glass the tendency, too, is still increasing.

The produce grown comprises ' top ' fruit — apples,
pears, plums, damsons ; ' soft ' fruit — strawberries, rasp-
berries, gooseberries, currants; root crops — potatoes,
beet, parsnips, carrots ; and every possible kind of
vegetables. Strawberries, for which urgent delivery
is naturally desired, may go by rail, but otherwise
practically all that is grown in West Middlesex within
twenty miles of Covent Garden is sent to London by
road, either by horse and van or by motor, four or five
growers having lately resorted to the latter mode of
conveyance. It is claimed for road transport that,
whether it costs the same as rail transport or not,
there is less handling involved than in the transfer to
and from the railway-waggons ; and this advantage in-
evitably turns the scale in favour of road transport
where — other things being equal — the growing area is

WEST MIDDLESEX: ROAD TRANSPORT 101

within cartage distance. From West Middlesex in-
dividual growers send off any number of loads, from
one to seventeen, each night.

So it is that residents on the highways and main
thoroughfares leading from West Middlesex into Lon-
don have to sleep as best they can to the constant
rumbling of long processions of market-garden carts,
which, leaving the farms in the evening, do their
twelve, fifteen, or twenty mile journey, and arrive at
the London markets with their loads any time between
midnight and three o'clock in the morning. The
drivers may sleep comfortably en route, but that is im-
material provided they do not fall off, for the horses
know every inch of the way, and require no guidance.

The attempt to substitute motor traction for horses
and vans is still in the experimental stage, and, un-
fortunately for the growers concerned, it is hampered
by the attitude of the local authorities. Water-troughs
have been provided at various points along the main
roads for the use of the horses ; but, though the growers
who employ steam-motors have offered to pay whatever
may be asked of them for water from the taps at those
troughs, for use in the motors, the local authorities
concerned have refused permission. Consequently the
motors have to start on the journey to London with
a ton of water, in addition to the load of vegetables.
It is also open to any aspiring young constable along
the line of route, anxious to secure the favourable notice
of his superiors, to stop the driver, take his name and
number, and cause him to be prosecuted, to lose a day
(his employer as well, it may be), and to pay a fine, for
some purely technical offence under motor-waggon law.
Drawbacks of this kind are locally regarded as ex-
amples of the sort of help that agriculture in Great
Britain can expect to get from the ' powers that be.'

102 MARKET-GARDENING

The amount of capital involved in this West Middlesex
market-garden enterprise is beyond my power of calcula-
tion ; but a competent authority estimates the amount
paid in wages in the district at no less than £100,000 a
year. One of the most striking factors in the situation
is, indeed, the much greater proportion of labour em-
ployed on a market-garden, worked on the principles of
intensive culture, than would be wanted on the same
amount of land when used for ordinary agricultural
crops. There are, for instance, vegetable farms in West
Middlesex employing from 60 to 120 hands, where,
under corn production, a score or so would suffice.
A West Middlesex grower with 300 acres may employ
thereon any number of men, women, and boys, up
to 150.

Here the great difficulty that arises is in respect to
housing. Not only does the cost of building become
unduly heavy, if all the requirements of local authorities
are to be met, but those same authorities seem to con-
sider that market-gardening is so highly prosperous
a business that it can stand anything in the way of local
taxation. Thus the cabbages and the cauliflowers
grown in West Middlesex will have to go to Covent
Garden handicapped with their proportionate share of
the cost of maintaining so many inmates in a local
Palace for Lunatics which is likely to involve an ex-
penditure of some half-million of money ; while, in the
matter of housing, the rent of a cottage which might other-
wise let in the district at 43. 6d. a week has to be raised
to 6s. a week on account of the rates. In the circum-
stances, cottages can hardly be built to pay, as a business
proposition ; and those that the growers are constructing
are ' tied ' houses, for the accommodation exclusively of
their own workpeople. Such rent as can be charged
for them only just covers expenses, and for this reason

ADVANTAGES OF FOREIGN IMPORTS 103

no more are built than are really required ; while, if a
man leaves a grower's employ, he has to quit the cottage
as well, to make way for the man who succeeds
him. It is a pernicious system, but the responsi-
bility for it should not be thrown on the market-
gardeners.

In visiting West Middlesex to see the district for
myself, I asked one of the growers I met — Mr. Robbins,
of the firm of Wild and Robbins, Sipson, West Drayton —
what his views were on the subject of foreign competi-
tion, and his remarks thereon struck me as so practical
that I venture to reproduce them. He said :

I do not think we should be able to dispose of anything like the
same quantity of produce we sell under present conditions if it
were not for the importations from other countries. We are depen-
dent for distribution on the retail dealers, but the retail dealers
require to have foreign produce to keep their shops going during
parts of the year when British growers are sending to market either
nothing at all or very little. Forty or fifty years ago these retail
dealers were comparatively few in number, and in the month of
March, for instance, they had very little to show in their windows.
To-day the number of retailers has enormously increased — as you
see, no matter into what town you go— and there is always plenty
of attractive produce for them in the way of stock. This is due in
no small degree to the foreigner, without whom, in fact, the retailer
could not live. Stop the imports of foreign fruit and vegetables, and
within twelve months 75 per cent, of the fruiterers and greengrocers
in the country would be bankrupt.

The foreign supplies have the further advantage of getting
people into the habit of eating fruit and vegetables all the year
round, and we have the benefit of this as soon as our own supplies
are ready. In the summer months, of course, when we are pro-
ducing in abundance, we feel that we would rather do without the
foreigner. But there, again, if the foreign imports were not forth-
coming, to keep prices at a reasonable level, there would be
attempts to corner the market, and the rise in prices might choke
the demand, in which case we should be no better off than we
were before.

In Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire there is a
stretch of country, about fifteen miles long and four
or five broad, with Biggleswade and Sandy as centre

104 MARKET-GARDENING

points, which is almost entirely devoted to market-
gardening. The area has greatly increased — the output
is said to have quadrupled — during the last twenty
years, owing in part, no doubt, to the fact that, as big
towns expand their areas, the market-gardening once
followed on their borders is pushed still further afield ;
but still more, probably, to the increased demand for
vegetables. Large farms have been cut up into small
ones, and entire villages converted into market-gardens,
ranging in size from 2 or 3 acres up to 200, the
majority, perhaps, being from 10 to 15 acres each.
Biggleswade has developed into a town with a popula-
tion of over 5,000, and Sandy has one of about 3,000 ;
but it is on market-gardening that the inhabitants of
each place are almost entirely dependent, the other
local industries being altogether insignificant. Nor has
the expansion come to an end, for within the last three
or four years about 1,500 acres of grazing land at
Wellington, near Bedford, formerly belonging to the
Duke of Bedford, have been taken over by a syndicate,
and transformed into small holdings for market-
gardeners. The London and North-Western Railway
Company built a station in order to open up the district,
and already the local traffic in vegetables, tomatoes,
etc., is so substantial that the station has had to be
enlarged.

From Biggleswade the produce is largely sent to
London, whereas that from Sandy goes principally
to Northern and Scottish markets. But in each case
the consignments represent very considerable quantities.
Included in those sent from Biggleswade are vegetable-
marrows, cucumbers, beet, brussels sprouts, carrots,
parsnips, onions, radishes, sea-kale, cauliflowers, cab-
bages, parsley, leeks, asparagus, red cabbage, potatoes,
spinach, savoys, broccoli, Scotch kale, ' ragged jack,'

DISADVANTAGES OF FOREIGN IMPORTS 105

turnips, lettuce, kidney-beans, and field rhubarb.
Of vegetable-marrows the quantity produced in the
summer of 1905 was so great that, as one grower
at Biggleswade assured me, ' thousands of tons were
left to rot on the fields because marrows had become a
glut on the market, and it did not pay to gather them.
I myself,' added my informant, 'had only two pickings,
and I left about 200 tons of marrows where they had
grown. Any number could have been bought for
2d. the dozen, or 55. the ton (representing fifty dozen),
even if they could not have been had for the asking.'
Carrots are grown around Biggleswade on hundreds of
acres, and brussels sprouts on thousands. There are
fields of kidney-beans, of red cabbage, of parsley, of
parsnips, and of other things besides. Onions, too, are
still grown in fields, though here there has been a great
falling off owing to foreign competition.

At one time about 2,000 acres in the district in
question were devoted to onions, and some of the
growers made at the rate of £100 per acre, while
employment was found for a large number of people
in peeling onions used for pickling. One firm alone
employed between 300 and 400 women at this work for
a period of three months in the year. But the English
growers can now hardly compete with their Dutch
rivals, who send to the Stratford market onions that are
sold at 35. 3d. per cwt., as against the los. or 155.
per cwt. which represented the old English rate. So
the onion-growing industry around Biggleswade has
declined to about one-tenth what it formerly was, and
most of the people to whom, directly or indirectly,
it gave employment have had to find something else
to do. Like conditions apply to red cabbage and
cauliflowers grown for pickling, for of these products
also foreign competition has reduced the output

106 MARKET-GARDENING

around Biggleswade to about one-tenth of its former
proportions.*

But other classes of vegetables have come more to
the front — the growing of brussels sprouts, for example,
has developed into a very large industry during the
last seven or eight years — and the average consign-
ments of market - garden produce from Biggleswade
alone represent a total of 50 railway-waggons a day,
taking all the year through. In the month of July as
many as 100 waggon -loads have been sent off in a
single day. In the busy season a special ' vegetable
train' is started from Biggleswade for London four
days in the week. According to season, there might
be forwarded on busy days from 20 to 24 tons of let-
tuce, 40 tons of brussels sprouts, 120 tons of potatoes,
40 tons of spring cabbage, 36 tons of cauliflowers,
60 tons of carrots, 45 tons of vegetable-marrows,
60 tons of parsnips, and so on.

Sandy is but three miles north of Biggleswade, but
it can make up train -loads of vegetables on its own
account, and its consignments to the Glasgow, Man-
chester, and other Northern markets, are especially
heavy. A ' record ' for this one station, in the height
of the season, was the despatch of nearly 200 tons of
vegetables in a single night. Of parsley — which the
average middle-class housewife is content to buy in

* The large imports of onions, whether from Holland or else-
where, affect another crop as well, that of leeks. On this point
Mr. John Gillies, of Northfield, Prestonpans, writes to me in reply
to a letter of inquiry : ' I grow a very large quantity of leek plants,
and about 20 acres of leeks for full crop. Like other market-
gardening crops, these at times command a fairly good price, while
at other times, owing to the influx of enormous consignments of
foreign onions, leeks have to be ploughed in in large quantities.
Frequently very many acres of this very costly crop have to be
thus disposed of, greatly to the detriment of the market-gardening
fraternity.'

BIG CONSIGNMENTS 107

pennyworths — the quantity grown at Sandy is such
that 16 tons have been sent to Glasgow from Sandy
during a single week. The average annual total of
parsley forwarded to that city alone (apart from liberal
supplies for Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds,
Halifax, Bradford, Newcastle, etc.) is over 600 tons.
Glasgow would seem to be still more partial to bunched
carrots than she is to parsley,* for of these she took
from Sandy in the month of July, 1905, no fewer than
261 tons, a quantity increased to 341 tons in the follow-
ing month. As many as 40 tons of bunched carrots
have been sent from Sandy to Glasgow in a single day ;
but, to show the amount of labour which such traffic as
this may involve, I may mention that this total weight
represented 57,600 bunches (of ten carrots each), and
that every bunch had to be counted as it was thrown
into the waggons. From Sandy to Glasgow the vege-
tables go express in a goods train originally started
from London. The number of growers at Sandy is
about 140, but only a dozen or so of these come under
the definition of ' large/ and a considerable proportion
would be individuals holding 2 or 3 acres each.

I am glad to be able to supplement the facts already
mentioned as to the traffic from Biggleswade and

* In regard to parsley production in Scotland, Mr. Gillies says,
further, in the letter he has been good enough to send me : ' This
year (1905) I grew fully 30 acres of parsley. Of course, the
output varies very much with the seasons, and the sale likewise
varies according to the time of year. Some seasons the plague of
plenty is very severe. In such seasons I have turned out from
10 to 15 tons in one week, but the price on such occasions does
little more than repay the cost of pulling the crop and placing
it on the market. Of course, it would not do if the crop was always
so abundant, and the price so low. My system of growing parsley
is quite different from that of the Biggleswade district men. I
should not like to grow parsley unless I could lift double the ton-
nage per acre which the Biggleswade men appear to do. -» On the
other hand, the Biggleswade growers, owing to climatic conditions,
can at times command a high figure per ton for their crops.'

io8

MARKET-GARDENING

ESTIMATE OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE TRAFFIC VIA" THE
MIDLAND RAILWAY FROM THE BEDFORDSHIRE DISTRICT.

Sending
Station and
Population.

Principal
Receiving
Station.

Fruit (Tons
per Season).

Vegetables,
including New
Potatoes (Tons
per Season).

|l*

III

•uHc/3
O^

Largest Quantity seat on any
One Day.

Fruit.

Vege- Old
tables. ; Potatoes.

Ampthill f
(2,177) \

Manchester
London

2
2

75

Tons Cwt.

Z i °_4

Tons Cwt.

5 10

Tons Cwt.

London

—

5

120 | —

o 18

6 o

Bedford j

Leicester

—

15

—

I 5

(35.144) 1

Nottingham

5

20

—

i 5

I 0

—

I

Isham

—

10

—

2 0

(

Manchester

30

2 O

Cardingtonl

Leeds

—

30

—

I O

'

(1,304) 1

Leicester

—

20

—

—

2 O

—

I

London

—

95

670

—

II 0

46 o

Chiltern ^
Green /

London

—

2O

—

5 o

Flitwick J
(1,029) 1

St. Albans
Leicester
London

—

100
IOO

9°

IOO

80

500

—

3 o
4 o
6 o

4 o
6 o
28 o

Harlington /

Cricklewood

2

2 0

(530) I.

London

—

—

12

—

—

6 o

Ancoats

—

40

—

—

2 0

—

Harpen-
den (4,725) '

Birmingham
Sheffield
Bristol

—

20
20

7

—

—

0 IO
0 IO
O IO

—

London

—

40

4°

—

2 0

6 o

Henlow
(905)

Walton- ]
on -the- l
Hill

60

406

825

13 o

I4 0

30 o

Leagrave J
(801) 1

Manches- j
ter and V
London J

—

IOO

So

—

3 o

4 o

St. Albans /

London

60

IO O

(16,019) \

Mill Hill

—

—

25

—

—

5 o

Shefford \
(874) )

London

—

2,700

2,400

12 0

28 o

Southill \
(1,054) J

London

—

1,500

1,500

15 o

50 o

Total

69

5,4*3

6,444

14 9

87 3

238 o

Sandy by a table showing approximately the quantities
of fruit and vegetables carried from various stations on

VARIOUS DISTRICTS 109

the Midland Company's system in the same district.
In this way a still better idea will be gained of the
total produce of the district as a whole. It is also
especially interesting to see how various of the smaller
country stations, which the ' through ' passenger
would scarcely deign to notice, or, noticing, would
regard as very insignificant places, may nevertheless
be centres of agricultural activity, bringing, one may
hope, a fair return to the local residents engaged
therein.

Martock (Somerset), which has a population of under
2,000, is still another centre of market - gardening
enterprise, combined with a certain amount of fruit-
growing. The quantities sent away from the district
in an average season may be put at 1,500 tons of
apples, 3,000 tons of parsnips and carrots, 100 tons of
cabbages, 200 tons of turnips and swedes, 50 tons of
peas, 15 tons of onions, and 250 tons of potatoes —
practically the whole being for human consumption.
Some of these crops are of a speculative character —
that is to say, they are grown on the chance that frost
in the Midlands and the North may curtail the sup-
plies there, and lead to an increased demand, with
good prices, for the Somerset produce. Should that
eventually come off, the Martock growers do well.
Otherwise they have to accept the situation, and use
up the crops in question locally for feeding live stock,
or in other ways.

Taking the district comprised within Suffolk, Cam-
bridgeshire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and those portions
of Essex that are beyond convenient cartage distance,
the quantities of market-garden produce — cabbages,
broccoli, onions, radishes, etc. — brought to London on
the Great Eastern Railway averages 26,000 tons a
year. This, of course, is exclusive of the very con-

no MARKET-GARDENING

siderable local consumption, and of the traffic on other
lines of railway.

In Northamptonshire there has been a large in-
crease in the acreage of market-gardening on what was
formerly arable or grass land. Currants, cut flowers,
tomatoes, etc., are extensively sent from Eaton Bray
(near Stanbridge Ford) all the year round to Glasgow,
Manchester, and other large towns, and asparagus and
various kinds of fruit are sent regularly from Lord's
Bridge, a good deal going as far North as Glasgow.

At Codsall (Staffordshire) an extensive nursery of
about 100 acres has been established, and large quan-
tities of flowers, tomatoes, etc., are now raised on
land previously used for purely agricultural purposes
— a development which is merely typical of a great
deal that is going on in other districts as well.

CHAPTER X
SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

IN the present chapter I propose to offer a few details
in regard to certain representative crops — potatoes,
broccoli, cabbages, celery, green -peas, and rhubarb —
which, though still grown extensively in connection
with miscellaneous market- gardening produce, are be-
coming more and more recognised as constituting
special industries, affording scope for development on a
large scale by growers who devote their attention either
wholly or mainly thereto.

The official statistics giving the acreage under potato
cultivation in Great Britain are certainly striking enough
as bearing evidence to the increasing importance of this
particular crop. In 1894 the number of acres planted
with potatoes was 504,454; in 1903 it was 564,286;
in 1904 it was 570,209 ; and in 1905 it stood at 608,474
—this last figure being an increase of 38,262 acres over
1904, of 44,185 acres over 1903, and of 104,017 acres
over 1894.

But, apart from the fact that allotments of less than
an acre would not be included in the return, and that a
good many potato fields of little more than an acre
might be omitted, we have the important considera-
tion that, concurrently with the increase in acreage,
there has been a substantial advance in the yield per

in

H2 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

acre ; for this rose from 5-53 tons in 1894 to 6-29 tons
in 1904, the total production being 2,788,983 tons in
the former year and 3,588,254 in the latter. What
this difference in yield means can be calculated from
the fact that an addition of i ton per acre to the
potato crop of Great Britain alone is equal in value
to a sum of £2,000,000. Including Ireland, the estimated
yield per acre increased from 3*82 in 1894 to 5'24 m
1904.

These figures, again, refer to yield only. There is
also to be considered the question of a decrease in
disease, owing to the introduction of new varieties and
the adoption of improved methods of culture. Bearing
all these factors in mind, I have the authority of Mr.
A. Findlay, of 'El Dorado' fame— whom I had the
pleasure of meeting on the new potato farm he has
set up at Haxey, Lincolnshire — for the estimate that,
during the last twenty years the production of ' saleable '
potatoes in this country has increased 50 per cent.
Mr. Findlay, I learned, was also of opinion that, with
the use of proper seed, potato disease might be extirpated
altogether; but this is a technical matter which I would
rather leave to the experts.

Taking holdings above I acre in extent, the total
estimated value of the potato crop of the United
Kingdom in 1904 was no less than £20,000,000.

Remarkable stories are told of the degree of success
attained by some of the individual growers concerned
in this great industry. Thus I have read in the Spalding
Free Press an interesting account of an interview with
Mr. William Dennis, of Kirton, Lincolnshire, who related
how he began life as a worker in the fields ; how he
remembered the time when there was only one grower
of potatoes in the district, and he had only 2 acres ;
how at the present time most of the land in the twenty

POTATOES 113

parishes between Mainfleet and Surfleet (a distance of
about twenty-five miles) is under potatoes; and how
he himself now farms 1,600 acres, of which 800 acres
are planted with potatoes, while he buys, by acre or
ton, the produce of another 800 acres in the district.
These figures will convey some idea to the reader of the
great expansion the industry has undergone.

Lincolnshire is, in fact, the premier county in Great
Britain in regard to potato production, which is carried
on to such an extent throughout the Eastern counties
that the Great Eastern Railway Company alone bring
to London on an average from 97,000 to 100,000 tons
of potatoes a year, a ' record ' for one especially favour-
able season being 123,000 tons. The potato traffic
handled by the Great Northern Railway Company —
who provide at the rear of King's Cross Station a
commodious and well-arranged potato market, which
represents a great convenience to the dealers— is
approximately the same.

Lincolnshire's acreage under potatoes was returned
in 1904 as 76,249, with an estimated total production
of 416,417 tons, the next largest county being Lancaster,
which had an acreage of 44,665, and an estimated total
production of 380,239 tons. But these particular figures
will hardly appeal to the public imagination so much
as the fact that from the aforesaid station at Kirton
there have been sent away by rail in a single day no
fewer than 95 waggon-loads of potatoes. Giving
an average loading of 3 tons per waggon, the 95
waggons would represent a total despatch of 285 tons
of potatoes in one day from one country station. This
was a * record ' rather than a normal condition, the
average for an ordinary busy day being 50 waggons, or
150 tons. Potatoes naturally move in truck-load lots ;
but, as showing the amount of work involved in handling

8

SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

the traffic, even in these conditions, I may mention the
fact that, on a certain day in July, a total of 52 waggon-
loads of potatoes sent from Kirton Station were con-
signed to no fewer than 28 different towns, situated
between Weymouth in the South and Newcastle-on-
Tyne in the North. King's Cross and Bradford took
between them 17 of the 52 waggons, so that 37 were
left to be despatched to 26 different destinations
throughout the country, the consignment to no fewer
than 18 separate towns being represented by a single
waggon-load each. Although, therefore, the traffic
is considerable in regard to total bulk, it involves a
good deal of clerical work, shunting, and so on.

During the season two special vegetable trains a day
are started from Boston — where consignments from a
district extending ten miles or so to the north will
have been received — and they pick up fresh loads of
potatoes, cabbages, or other produce at Kirton, Algar-
kirk, etc. The Kirton growers alone send away about
15,000 tons of vegetables in the course of a year, and
the output of those at Sibsey in vegetables (including
potatoes) and grain is probably 11,000 tons a year. A
Holbeach grower, again, is said to have sold for £7,000
a field of 370 acres of potatoes.

From the West Cornwall district the consignments
of potatoes for a series of years have been as follows :

1896
1897
1898
1899
1900

Tons.
3,685
5,159
5,978
5,082
5.I58

1901
1902
1903
1904
1905

Tons.

4,550
6, 1 08
6,276
5,156
4,633

The growing of new potatoes on the Ayrshire coast
is the more noteworthy because that industry has been
directly fostered by the Glasgow and South-Western

NEW POTATOES 115

Railway Company, who conceded specially low rates
alike for manure, seed, and potatoes, thus encouraging
the great expansion which has since taken place. From
Girvan alone the new potatoes despatched between the
middle of June and the end of August, 1905, amounted
to 13,700 tons, while from the Ayrshire coast as a
whole the quantities forwarded to all parts of the
United Kingdom during the same period amounted
to over 50,000 tons. In order to cope with this traffic
the Glasgow and South-Western Railway had to
supplement their ordinary service of goods trains by
running daily four new-potato ' specials,' occasionally
augmenting even this number with some * extra specials '
in the interests of the same traffic.

The growing of new potatoes in Ireland, many parts
of which country are especially well adapted to the
industry, has received much attention of late years.
An article on the subject by Mr. M. G. Wallace will be
found in the Journal of the Department of Agriculture and
Technical Instruction for Ireland for October, 1905.
Mr. Wallace says :

The progress of early potato growing in Ireland continues.
There has been no great or rapid extension, but wherever the
Department have tried experiments the people who conducted
them under the guidance of the Department have themselves
continued to grow early potatoes, and their neighbours have
followed their example. Already the industry has assumed such
proportions as to affect the English and Scotch markets, and this
year the fields of growing crops were visited by large numbers of
merchants from England and Scotland. Happily, the crops were
good enough and early enough to satisfy these merchants as to the
possibilities of the industry in Ireland, and accordingly, on their
return home, they handled with alacrity the consignments of new
potatoes sent to them from the growers they visited. Consequently,
the Irish early potato crop has now come to be reckoned as a
serious factor in the supply of new season potatoes for the British
markets. Though no extravagant prices have been received, the
season 1905 has been a satisfactory one. The crops have generally
been good and very early. They did not suffer from adverse
weather, and on the whole prices were remunerative.

8—2

n6 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

Mr. Wallace gives details as to what is being done in
various districts, including Clonakilty (Co. Cork),
Kilmore (Co. Wexford), Lissadel and Ballincar (Co.
Sligo), Murroughs (Co. Clare), Rush (Co. Dublin), and
various parts of Co. Down, and he concludes :

Marketing has been much better done this year, growers
no doubt profiting from the mistakes of previous years. The visits
of the Scotch and English merchants had also a good effect,
as they furnished much useful information. Thus it may be
expected that in another year growers will be prepared to meet any
marketing emergency.

In various parts of the United Kingdom potato-
growing has relieved, more or less, such agricultural
depression as may have previously been felt there, and
placed good opportunities in the way of those who
were alike in a position and shrewd and enterprising
enough to take advantage of them. On this point,
however, it should be added that potato-growing can
evidently be more profitably followed by producers on
a large scale, having all the advantages of labour-
saving appliances, than by market-gardeners, allotment-
holders, and other spade-workers on comparatively small
lines.

In the season of 1905 the Great Western Railway
Company brought from West Cornwall to various
points, for distribution thence throughout the United
Kingdom, the record total of 19,092 tons of broccoli.
Allowing thirteen crates to the ton, and an average
of five dozen heads to the crate, this would represent a
total of (in round figures) 14,900,000 head of broccoli
produced in a single corner of the country in a single
season.

The story of the conditions under which this sub-
stantial industry has been developed is an interesting

BROCCOLI 117

one. To begin at the beginning, I sought permission to
call on one of the pioneers, Mr. William Laity, a vener-
able Cornish worthy, who still carries on business at
Perranuthnoe, Marazion, under the title of ' Laity and
Son.' He replied to my request by himself calling
on me at my hotel in Penzance, and this is what he
had to say :

I am eighty-two years of age ; I have lived all my life in one
parish, and I have been growing broccoli for over fifty years. I
was the first to start it in my part of Cornwall, and the way I began
was this : I had heard that some people further west were growing
broccoli, and I begged a few plants from them, with no other idea
at first than that of getting some broccoli for use in the house.
But I grew more than we wanted, so I began sending a few to
Covent Garden Market. The first year I only sent about £i
worth ; the second year I sent more, the third year still more, and
the fourth year a fairly good number. Then the neighbours around
me begged some plants, and they began to grow as well. At that
time the railway had not come so far as Penzance, and we had to
cart the broccoli to Hayle, a distance of six or seven miles,, and
then put it on a steamer for Bristol. There the railway was joined,
and it was in that way the broccoli reached London until the time
came when the railway was extended to Penzance.

So the business increased, and already, forty years ago, there
were heavy consignments sent away. Twenty years later the
word went round that a certain dealer would give the growers £20
an acre for broccoli, and take all risk. That set things going faster
than ever. All the farmers took to broccoli, and the great expan-
sion has been since that time ; but it still goes on, for every year
scores more of acres are being put down.

Some of the growers have done remarkably well ; others have
done badly. Prices are down now, compared with what they used
to be. I remember the time when we used to get £1 a crate. To-
day, if we get 53. to 75. a crate we are satisfied, though it frequently
happens that the prices fall to 33. or 45. There are some men who
have received at times only is. a crate. It is a matter of season
and market price ; but, in addition to that, some growers get heavily
hit when they happen to send to an untrustworthy salesman. I
have known instances where they have not only received nothing
at all, but the man they have sent to has not even returned the
crates. Frost in the Midlands and the North will mean a better
time for Cornwall, for then our broccoli will be in greater demand,
and bring us a higher return.

How have I got on myself? Oh, well, my father left me a
bit of freehold, and I have added to it since, so that I now farm

n8 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

35 acres altogether. I have 8 acres under broccoli, 3 under
potatoes, and the rest general farming. Many growers in the
district would have from 15 to 20 acres under broccoli and potatoes
on their farms^ with other crops besides, and there is a large number
of small men with 4 or 5, and up to 10, acres each of broccoli.
The broccoli area goes, practically, from Lizard Point to Land's
End, a stretch of country something like thirty miles in extent.

How many acres within this area would be used for
broccoli production can only be told approximately ;
but, taking the total output for 1905 at the figure
already given — 19,092 tons — and allowing thirteen
crates to the ton, one gets a total of 248,196 crates.
At the average rate of 100 crates to the acre, it would
follow that the amount of land required to produce the
19,092 tons would be close on 2,500 acres.

Broccoli-growing, however, constitutes only one of
various crops for the West Cornwall grower, and this
fact is especially well shown in the case of Mr. Andrew
Lawrey, whose extensive farm, situate within a mile or
so of Marazion Station, I had the opportunity of visiting.
Mr. Lawrey has 40 acres under cauliflower, broccoli,
or potatoes, according to season ; he has 10 under
cabbage, and 15 under flowers. In addition to this,
he occupies a certain amount of pasture land, he grows
corn and mangolds, he has some good-sized glass-
houses for peaches, cucumbers, and tomatoes ; and
he cultivates sea-kale and asparagus. Altogether he
has about 250 acres, but this figure includes some
' marsh ' and ' downs ' not capable of cultivation. His
cauliflower season begins in October or November, and
lasts about a month. It is succeeded by an early
variety of broccoli, which, commencing in December,
lasts till the end of February. The land used for this
crop will then be cleared, and planted with new
potatoes, which should be ready for lifting early in
May, and continue to the end of June. Meanwhile the

FARMING IN CORNWALL 119

late variety of broccoli will have begun in February,
and lasted till the end of March. In February also
the flower season will have commenced, different
varieties of narcissi, daffodils, wallflowers, iris, gladioli,
etc., following one another in a continuous series,
lasting until August. Cabbage begins about the middle
of March in a good season, and lasts until the end
of April. In addition to all these things come the
peaches, the cucumbers, and the general farm produce
already indicated.

Mr. Lawrey calculated that it cost him £50 an acre
to plant the new potatoes, but the manure laid down
for that crop suffices for the subsequent crop of broccoli.
The two, therefore, must be taken together. The details
of this estimate of £50 per acre work out thus : 2^ tons
of potato seed, £5 IDS. ; i ton of guano, £ 10 ; 160 loads
of dung,* £32 ; ploughing, IDS. ; labour £2. The return
per acre from the potatoes lifted should be from £jo to
£80. The cost of the broccoli crop that follows is
limited to two items, plants and labour, and these come
to a total of about £2 105. per acre, while the broccoli
grown should be worth from £15 to £20 an acre. As
against these returns, however, must be set about £12
per acre for rent, tithes, rates and taxes.

Although the sale of broccoli at £i the crate has
become a memory of the past, and although some of
the growers have failed to make headway, the business
has expanded considerably. In the coast parishes of
Madron, Gulval, and Ludgvan, especially, there is
hardly a bit of available land that has not already been
utilized, and for miles to the east of Penzance the
railway passes alongside an almost continuous series of

* Large supplies of sea-weed are available for the purposes of
manure. The gathering of this sea-weed constitutes one of the
minor industries on the coast.

120 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

fields of broccoli or potatoes. The average rent in this
especially favoured district (there is a pool in close
proximity to Marazion Station, on which, so mild is the
climate, no skating has been possible for eleven years)
is about £5 per acre, though there are particular farms
for which £7 or £8, or even £10, per acre is paid. The
tendency, however, is for growers to go further afield,
where, though the climatic conditions are not so favour-
able, the rents are less, and a good deal of fresh land is
coming into cultivation for broccoli at Gwinear Road,
Nancegollan, and elsewhere. Downs which have been
covered with furze from time immemorial are being
cleared, and the rentals of land in the newer districts
are already steadily rising, the amounts thereof being
swollen in some places to uncommercial proportions
by the aspirations of Cornish miners who have returned
from abroad with substantial savings, and are not very
particular about rent, so long as they can ' get a bit of
land.' In the neighbourhood of Gwinear Road alone
about 120 acres of fresh land have been brought under
broccoli cultivation during the last four years, while the
consignments from this district increased from 330 tons
in 1902 to 572 tons in 1905, and are expected to
amount to close on 700 tons in 1906. From Nance-
gollan (a famous tin-mining district forty years ago, and
then employing 1,000 hands) the consignments in 1905
were 342 tons — nearly double the total for 1904.

The growth of the broccoli traffic in the West
Cornwall district in general during a period of ten years
is well shown by the following figures :

Tons. Tons.

1896 12,821

1897 11,112

1898 12,395

1899 12,452

1900 I4>770

1901 ...... 16896

1903 ...... 16,954

1904 ...... 14,373

1905 ...... 19.092

VEGETABLE TRAINS 121

The broccoli, potato, and cabbage traffic (according
to season) is carried in special vegetable trains, which
start from the Ponsandane siding (one mile east of
Penzance, and the same distance west of Marazion),
and pick up at Marazion or other stations as required.
At the Ponsandane siding there is accommodation for
loading forty trucks at one and the same time. Taking
the whole of West Cornwall, as many as 938 trucks
were loaded up and sent away during a single week —
namely, the week ending April 8 — in the season of 1905,
the totals for the weeks immediately succeeding, as the
quantities declined, being 878, 657, 429, 245, and so on.
It frequently happens that as many as ten special
vegetable trains, carrying broccoli principally, will be
sent off in a single day ; though it should be added that,
owing to the heavy gradients, not more than twenty-five
waggons would be hauled in one train by one locomo-
tive. The average loading of broccoli per waggon
(owing to the lightness of the commodities) does not
exceed about 2j tons. The consignments go in
large quantities, not alone to London, but, by transfer
to the lines of other companies, to practically all im-
portant towns in the Midlands and in the North as
far as Dundee. The Manchester Corporation markets
alone have received their 200 tons of broccoli from
West Cornwall on a single day.

We have here, therefore, an industry that well deserves
to be taken into account among the agricultural enter-
prises of the country. The question as to the precise
extent to which it ' pays ' seems to be a matter chiefly
of men and markets. There are growers who get into
debt at the beginning of the season, and do not get out
of it at the end. They sell their crop to some local
middleman, who naturally gives them a lower price
than the larger growers obtain by consigning direct

122 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

to a trustworthy man in a wholesale market ; or, if they
discard the local middleman, and themselves consign
to a London or provincial market, they may pack their
broccoli badly, and send either to some town where the
supply is over-abundant, or to some salesman who is not
honest, with the result that they may find their return
diminish to is. or so the crate, while other growers,
better business men, will make up to 75. or 8s. the crate.
In certain individual cases I heard of growers of the
latter type who are reputed to have made from £400 up to
£800 or ^1,000 on their broccoli crop in a single season.
I do not guarantee these figures, but two facts which
soon become obvious to an inquirer in the district are :

(1) That the personal equation counts for much ; and,

(2) that there are plenty of people who have confidence
in the industry, judging from the important dimensions
it has assumed, and the substantial expansion it is still
undergoing.

According to the returns of the Board of Agriculture,
the acreage under cabbage in Great Britain in 1905 was
67,758, as against 64,607 in 1904, showing an increase
of 3,151 acres planted in the one year, or an in-
crease of no fewer than 29,055 acres as compared with
1895. Of the average in 1904, Essex occupied the
premier position with 5,259 acres, followed by Kent
with 4,601 acres, six counties with over 2,000 acres
each, and seventeen with between 1,000 and 2,000
acres.

Inasmuch as, when properly grown, from 20 to 35
tons of cabbages per acre should be produced, the above
figures convey some idea of the magnitude of the cabbage
output in the United Kingdom. Taking the acreage for
1905, and allowing 20 tons of cabbages per acre, the
cabbage crop for the year should be 1,355,000 tons.

CABBAGES 123

But the official figures as to the acreage may be safely
regarded as considerably under the actual total for the
United Kingdom. There are many thousands of allot-
ment-holders growing cabbages who would not be asked
to make any return, and there is a very large number of
farmers planting an acre or so of cabbages who would
not trouble to make a separate return on so small an
item, although the aggregate of these numerous small
areas would substantially swell the total if only they
could be added thereto.

To tell the complete story even of cabbage-growing
in the United Kingdom would be too big a task ; but
by way of a concrete illustration of what is going on, I
might mention that one Scottish market-gardener, seed-
grower, and farmer — Mr. John Gillies, of Northfield,
Prestonpans — has often turned out 2,000,000 cabbage
plants a day, while 1,500,000 a day is a common
output for him during the season. He has special
trains to take plants from Prestonpans to Edinburgh
for despatch per passenger train ; but the traffic he pro-
vides for goods trains is still heavier. Fifteen or twenty
years ago Mr. Gillies had 4 or 5 acres under cabbage
plants. He has now 120 acres under that one crop
alone.

As for the quantities grown in particular districts,
I may mention that from Swineshead (Lincolnshire)
there are sent away some fifty or sixty railway waggon -
loads (each about 2 tons 5 cwt.) per day for a period of
three weeks or a month in the height of the cabbage
season ; that the total per day from Kirton (Lincoln-
shire) for six weeks would be thirty waggons ; that in
the season of 1905 there were consigned from Penzance
Station to different destinations in Great Britain 559
tons of cabbages, from Marazion 536 tons, and smaller
lots from other stations, increasing the total for West

124 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

Cornwall alone to 1,273 tons; and that in Essex very
large quantities of cabbages are grown in the district
lying south of a line drawn from Romford to the
Thames at Thames Haven, though, as almost the whole
of this traffic finds its way to London by road, the
distance between field and market being, as a rule,
under twelve miles, it is impossible in this case (as
also in the case of much that is grown in Kent, in
Middlesex, and in the Thames Valley) to give even an
approximate idea as to quantities.

Eaten either raw or as a cooked vegetable, celery has
received a greatly increased patronage of late years,
and in the season is almost ubiquitous on the tables
alike of rich and poor ; though in Great Britain we have
not yet reached the stage arrived at in the United
States, where a native celery of a particularly flavour-
less kind (' not worth eating,' a Lincolnshire man would
say) is put on the table at the beginning of the dinner,
and is nibbled by the guests between the courses, or at
any other odd moment throughout the meal, in order,
apparently, to fill up time.

The increased public patronage has naturally given a
great impetus to the cultivation of celery wherever the
soil in Great Britain is suitable thereto ; and in certain
districts of Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire es-
pecially there are very large areas devoted to celery.
There are a few growers who have up to 100 acres
of land — if not even more — under celery ; there are many
who have 20, 30, 40, or 50 acres ; there are still more
who have from 10 to 20 acres; and there is an indefinite
number of very small growers who produce celery on
allotments, and dispose of it as a means of supple-
menting their ordinary wages as farm helpers, or other-
wise. Haxey (Lincolnshire), the population of which is

CELERY 125

just over 2,000, is a great centre alike for potatoes, for
celery, and for other things besides, and I found there
on the occasion of my visit to the district that not only
does the local station-master take pride in what he can
produce from his i rood of land (he showed, for my
inspection, a bag containing forty potatoes he had dug
up from a single root, and a large collection of carrots
he had grown from a pennyworth of seed), but the goods-
yard foreman also told how he grew celery, and how
even his little boy of eight, who helped him with the
planting out, had a patch of his own, in which he grew
celery for sale, in order to raise a little pocket-money
for himself !

Some of the largest growers devote their land entirely
to celery. Others plant three rows of potatoes to one
of celery, the earth thrown up when the potatoes are
raised being available for banking the celery. In either
case there is scope for a good deal of employment,
especially in the bedding out of seedlings prior to the
final planting in the fields. This bedding out is done
mainly by women and boys, who are paid at the rate of
6d. or 7d. per 1,000. The work is done with such
rapidity that 10,000 plants a day represent a fair
average, while individuals who are especially skilful will
put in 17,000 plants in a day. The cost of planting celery
varies somewhat according to the district, but one large
grower with whom I conversed estimated the cost to
himself at about £20 per acre, exclusive of rent and
other expenses.

The great expansion in celery production in this
country has been brought about mainly during the last
twenty years, and although that expansion is still pro-
ceeding, the output of English-grown celery already
offers some very substantial figures. Six miles north
of Spalding (Lincolnshire) there is a place known as

126 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

Quadring Siding, which will be sought for in vain in
the railway time-tables. It is literally a siding con-
structed in the special interests of the local growers;
yet from that one spot an average of 10 waggon-loads
of celery, representing a total of about 40 tons, will be
despatched every working day in the week for a period
of at least two months. A ton of celery represents
100 bundles of 12 heads each, so that 1,200 heads of
celery will go to the ton, and 40 tons will comprise
48,000 heads. An acre of celery produces from 15,000
to 20,000 heads.

But Quadring Siding is merely one point of despatch
in a celery-growing district which extends from Boston
to Surfleet (ten miles) in one direction, and to Swines-
head (six miles) in another, one-half of the area com-
prised within these distances being devoted to celery.
The growers around Surfleet (population, 941) will
also send off their 40 tons of celery a day. Haxey
does even better than Quadring Siding or Surfleet, for
there, taking the season through — that is to say, from
the middle of September to the end of February — the
average consignments of celery for the district will be
equal to 20 trucks, or about 80 tons, a day. This is
exclusive of large quantities of potatoes, carrots, beet-
root, cauliflowers, turnips, mangolds, etc.

Another important centre for celery production is
the Ramsey and St. Mary's district in Huntingdon-
shire. At Ramsey (population, 4,823) there are about
400 acres planted with celery ; an average of 5 waggon-
loads, or 20 tons per day would be despatched during
the season, and the total output for the season is over
3,000 tons. The acreage at St. Mary's may be put at
about no, and there also the average daily loading during
the season would be 5 trucks (20 tons), with 10 trucks
in a day as a maximum, and the consignments for the

GREEN PEAS 127

season are approximately 1,400 tons. From still another
station in the same district, Warboys, there is des-
patched the product of about 150 acres of celery.

Nottinghamshire is another large producer of celery,
and increasing quantities are being grown around
Manchester. At Ashton Moss land to the extent of
about 1 20 acres, formerly used for wheat-growing, is
now devoted to celery, large quantities of which are
sent into the Manchester market and district. Sale,
Timperley, Irlam, and other places in the district, are
also producing heavily, and a considerable expansion
in celery -growing is expected on the Manchester
Corporation's estate at Carrington Moss.

In a ' record ' year the Great Eastern Railway Com-
pany have brought to London a total of no fewer than
14,000 tons of green peas for human consumption.
The average for a period of ten years was 11,000 tons,
and of this quantity between 9,000 and 10,000 tons would
come from that section of the county of Essex forming
the area between the towns of Braintree, Maldon,
and Kelvedon, and the coast. Commencing about the
second week in June, and continuing until towards the
end of July, according to the season, four ' green-pea
specials ' will run every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday to bring the peas to London. Each
special consists of about 30 waggons, and each waggon
will have from 2 tons to 2\ tons of green peas. The
consignments begin to arrive at Bishopsgate between
9 p.m. and 10 p.m., and the delivery to the markets
goes on up to 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., some 300 and 400 van-
loads being sent out between these hours. As many as
950 tons of green peas have thus been dealt with in the
course of Friday night and Saturday morning. The

128 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

traffic (which is handled mostly in large consignments)
has long been carried on, but during the last twenty
years it has increased 15 or 20 per cent.

From the London markets substantial quantities of
these green peas are afterwards sent to Manchester,
Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham, and other places.
Some years ago the Great Eastern Railway Company
sought to induce the growers to forward direct to the
markets in these various towns. The company arranged
a series of fast trains going there from the green-pea
district of Essex, and ran them for several seasons.
They made the fact well known among the people in
the district, they supplied the names of salesmen in the
different markets, and they put themselves into com-
munication with these salesmen as well. But their
efforts remained unsuccessful, the reason being that a
very large number of the green-pea crops are bought,
while still in the fields and before they are gathered,
by London salesmen, who prefer to have the peas
brought to London, and distributed thence to their
ultimate destination. This double journey, persisted in
notwithstanding all the efforts of the railway company,
would seem to suggest that the item of railway rates
for green peas has not much to do with the selling price.

The production of green peas forms an important
industry also in the stretch of country lying between
Goole, Selby, Church Fenton, and Wakefield, in South
Yorkshire. The amount of land so utilized is about
4,000 acres, but the acreage varies from year to year,
green peas being a rotation crop, resorted to the more
freely if other crops, and especially clover, should
fail. Goole is the chief centre of the industry. There
the green-pea area extends over a ten or twelve mile
radius, within which there are growers both large and
small. Some of the farms are very extensive. One

SOUTH YORKSHIRE DISTRICT 129

grower in the district has three or four farms which, in
the aggregate, comprise over 1,000 acres. Of these
about 200 acres will always be under green-pea crops.
The smaller farms consist mostly of a few acres, and the
majority might not have more than i acre at a time
under green peas.

On an average busy night during the 1905 season
70 tons of peas, or about 35 waggons, were sent from
Goole. The total quantity forwarded from Goole
during the season was 785 tons, this being the largest
tonnage of peas from any one station on the North-
Eastern Railway. Three-quarters of the green-pea
traffic from Goole will, however, be put on rail by
three large growers.

The green-pea areas around Church Fenton and
Selby do not extend for more than three miles from the
places named, but the production is such that on
an average busy night in a season 20 tons will be
forwarded from Church Fenton, and 40 tons (represent-
ing about 20 waggons) from Selby. Including the
traffic on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which
will handle 200 tons of peas on a busy night) and
the Great Central, the total consignments of green
peas from South Yorkshire in an average season may
be put at from 7,000 to 8,000 tons. The places to
which they go include London, Manchester, Liverpool,
Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol, Birmingham, Hull, Bradford,
and Blackburn.

Among other parts of the country where green peas
are produced on a considerable scale, I may mention
the Bridgwater district of Wiltshire, from which centre
an average of 6 railway trucks a night (representing
about 12 tons of peas) will be consigned either to
London or to South Wales during a period of six weeks.

130 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

Some five-and-twenty years ago, during one of
the worst phases of agricultural depression in this
country, a farmer from the outskirts of Leeds met two
friends, who, in the course of conversation, asked how
he was going on. ' Oh,' he replied, ' I shall have to
give up my farm ; I can't make it pay.' A year or so
later he met the same two friends again, and they asked
if he had carried out his intention of giving up his
farm. 'Yes,' he said, 'I am sorry to say I did, for
a man came along, took it up, planted it with rhubarb,
and is making a pot of money.'

Since those days, in fact, the production of rhubarb
has become a speciality in and around the city of Leeds,
and, although it is difficult to obtain reliable figures,
a moderate estimate of the business done shows that,
apart from the local consumption, the quantities
despatched from Leeds during the season will represent
a total of from 5,000 to 6,000 tons. Certain it is that
in a good year as much as 250 tons of rhubarb have
been sent from Leeds to London alone in the course of
a single week. Every night, except Saturday and
Sunday, for a period of about three and a half months,
beginning towards the end of January, a special
' rhubarb train ' runs from Leeds to King's Cross to
take supplies to the London markets. Rhubarb from
Leeds is also carried in large quantities to Manchester,
Liverpool, and Glasgow. It is much appreciated, too,
in the colliery districts of South Wales. It goes to
Plymouth and to the Channel Islands; and it goes even
to Hamburg, for distribution to various places on the
Continent.

The ' rhubarb special ' here referred to is an ' express
goods,' consisting of special vans fitted with the auto-
matic continuous brake (similar to that in use on
passenger trains), so that a speed of up to sixty miles

FORCED RHUBARB 131

an hour can be obtained, as against the thirty or forty
miles an hour which ordinary goods trains, having no
automatic continuous brake, may not exceed.

It is forced rhubarb that constitutes the Leeds district
speciality. Known there altogether for some forty
years, the growing of it on a substantial scale was first
resorted to more recently, not only because of the falling
prices of ordinary agricultural crops, but also because
of the increasing competition which market-gardeners
in the immediate neighbourhood of Leeds were meeting
with from others more favourably situated as regarded
the rental of their land. The Leeds growers found
it desirable, in the circumstances, to get a better-
paying crop, and there were various conditions that
favoured the growing of forced rhubarb, either by itself
or in combination with other produce.

The method adopted by the growers is to plant
the rhubarb roots in the open first of all, and leave
them there for two, if not for three, years, without any of
the leaves being plucked. Then when the leaves have
entirely died down the roots are either ploughed or dug
up and carried into sheds varying in size, but often
100 feet long and 30 feet wide. They are planted
thickly in these sheds; which are quite dark when the
doors are closed, and are artificially heated, while
the atmosphere is kept at the requisite degree of
moisture. At the end of five or six weeks, in an ordinary
course, the rhubarb is ready for plucking ; but within
certain limits the growth can be hastened or retarded —
by either increasing or decreasing the heat — to suit
market conditions.

The special advantages possessed by the Leeds
growers were found to be : (a) that the soil was par-
ticularly favourable to rhubarb cultivation ; (6) that the
neighbourhood of a large city allowed of the great

9—2

132 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS

quantity of stable manure required being obtained
at a comparatively low rate ; and (c) that very cheap
fuel, in the form of coke refuse, could be secured from
the local gasworks, which, indeed, at first regarded
the said refuse as of so little value that it was willingly
given away, though subsequently a small charge
was made. The rhubarb-growing area is within a
radius of eight or nine miles of Leeds, and is chiefly on
the south and south-east sides of the city, a good deal,
however, being also grown on the west. The holdings
devoted to rhubarb production within this area range
in dimensions from 3 to 100 acres.

Some of the growers make a fair living out of 15
acres — indeed, it was suggested to me by one influential
trader at Leeds that it was quite possible the small
growers might do better than large ones, who were
tempted to launch out too much, thus incurring un-
duly heavy expenses. It seems, also, that the public
demand for rhubarb varies according as the supply of
apples is large or small, while the forced variety is not
wanted much after Easter, whether that festival be
early or late. Many of the smaller growers, again,
supplement their production of early rhubarb by grow-
ing cabbages, supplies of which are sometimes sent
from Leeds to the London market.

Whether ' a pot of money ' can be made out of
rhubarb-growing to-day is somewhat doubtful, con-
sidering the greatly-increased production, and other
disadvantages of the situation ; but it is significant
that of late years the growth of forced rhubarb has
been resorted to more and more around London, which
is thus becoming less dependent on Leeds, to the dis-
advantage of the growers in and around that city.

CHAPTER XI
EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

ACCORDING to local historians, it is over a thousand
years since market - gardening was first introduced
into Evesham by the monks who founded the great
abbey, and the industry has been followed there con-
tinuously ever since.

Whether or not the local historians are warranted in
their statement, I will not stay to discuss ; but certain
it is that the great developments have all been brought
about within the last two decades, and, apart from the
important consideration of the fertility of the soil and
the exceptionally favourable climate in the famous Vale,
those developments may be attributed mainly to three
factors — railway facilities, agricultural depression, and
the telephone.

When Arthur Young visited the district, about the
year 1770, he found from 300 to 400 acres devoted to
market-gardening. In these days, however, the ques-
tion of distribution presented the most serious of diffi-
culties. Having grown their produce, the market-
gardeners had to take it by road to Birmingham, Wor-
cester, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Warwick, or elsewhere,
in order to find customers. By 1845 the area under
cultivation as garden land had increased to a little less
than 600 acres. This was only a comparatively slight

134 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

advance ; but, with the advent of the Midland and
Great Western Railways, giving improved access to
Oxford and London, to Birmingham and the North,
to Gloucester and Bristol, and other populous cities
besides, considerable expansion followed, so that by
1870 the gardening area had increased to about 1,000
acres.

As long as general farming was profitable the market-
gardening played only a secondary role. When, how-
ever, agricultural depression came, the big farms that
were no longer sufficiently remunerative under cereals
were cut up into small farms or small holdings for
fruit and vegetable cultivation, and this brought upon
the scene a large body of farmers' sons, labourers, rail-
way men, and others, who had been awaiting some
such opportunities for starting as market-gardeners on
their own account.

Prior to this development many young men, despair-
ing of getting land at Evesham, had migrated to
Canada, and settled there. Such migration now prac-
tically stopped, and scores of active, intelligent, and
sturdy workers, who might otherwise have been lost to
their country, settled down on holdings varying in size
from 2 to 10 or more acres. Evesham became, in fact,
a land mainly of small holders, and the gardening area
has spread out so far in the district that it may to-day
be put at from 20,000 to 25,000 acres.

Taking the market-gardeners of Evesham as a whole,
it may be said that 75 per cent, of them started life as
labourers. The crop to which many of them have been
mostly indebted for success is asparagus, and I have
heard it said that, ' until the blight came, no man who
had once got his asparagus bed in good order had been
known to fail.' Whatever the crop, the amount of
produce the growers secure from a comparatively small

SMALL HOLDERS 135

bit of ground is certainly remarkable. There is plenty
of hard work done, but there is no room for doubt as
to the general success. In one instance a grower re-
lated to me that he began as a farm-labourer, then got
an acre of land, and was now working 6 acres, with
asparagus as the principal crop. He did most of the
work himself, being on sometimes in the summer
from three in the morning till nine at night ; but he
got help in the asparagus season. In spite of the hard
work, he enjoyed the life, found himself much better
off than when he was working for someone else, and
had no doubt that, if he wanted to build his own house,
he could find the money to do it with.

This is really a typical illustration of what has been
going on at Evesham ; but in certain instances the
degree of success attained as the result of conspicuous
individual talents in the way of intelligence and busi-
ness aptitude is even more remarkable. Large and im-
portant concerns have been built up within a compara-
tively short time by men who began in quite a small
way, and one can hear at Evesham of ' examples ' as
striking as any that are told respecting successful settlers
in Canada or other new countries. The final result is
that, no matter in what direction one drives out from
Evesham, one sees for mile after mile a landscape that
consists almost entirely of market-gardens.

One of the main reasons for all this expansion is
undoubtedly to be found in the exceptionally good
railway facilities enjoyed by the district. 'We have,'
said one of the leading local growers and traders, Mr.
John Idiens, to a Market Growers' Gazette interviewer,
' an almost perfect train service to every point of the
kingdom. ... It has,' he added, ' been a unique ex-
perience for me to go around the district and see
different people, and to find that they have no com-

136 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

plaint to make against the railway companies.' Within
a radius of five miles of Evesham there are now fourteen
railway-stations. From Evesham itself special vegetable
trains are despatched on both the Great Western and
the Midland systems all the year round, becoming, of
course, especially numerous in the summer months.
Sent from Evesham at 12.30 mid-day, produce will
reach Edinburgh or Glasgow at 6 o'clock the next
morning, or, consigned to Leeds between seven and
eight in the evening, it should arrive there about 3 a.m.

While the railways were thus improving their services,
the growers and the traders were making an effort to
put marketing and distribution on a better footing. At
one time the growers sent their produce mainly to
salesmen in various large towns, and trusted to the
honesty of those salesmen and the condition of the
markets to get the best prices they could. But, what-
ever the degree of probity of the salesman, the stuff often
went to markets already congested, and the results from
a financial standpoint were then most unsatisfactory.

New conditions were at last established on the open-
ing of two local markets, at which the growers could
dispose of their produce to local dealers by auction.
Of these local dealers a goodly number established
themselves at Evesham, and they made a speciality of
working up a direct trade with a multitude of smaller
provincial towns which had hitherto looked to London
or some other leading city as their distributing centre.
Manchester, for instance, the ' Covent Garden of the
North,' is the point from which a large number of
towns throughout Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire
draw their supplies, by dealing with the wholesale
merchants in the markets there, and the aim of the
Evesham traders has been to send Evesham produce
direct to these smaller towns, instead of leaving them

IMPROVED MARKETING 137

to obtain it via Manchester, thus saving at least one
intermediate profit. The same principle has been ap-
plied to other parts of the United Kingdom as well.
Except in regard to the very best qualities of asparagus,
and one or two other articles, the great desire of the
Evesham traders was to keep off the London markets,
which were already receiving such prodigious quantities
from other sources of supply, and especially from the
market-gardens in the Metropolitan suburbs. ' If we
had to depend on London,' I was told, ' we should soon
be in the workhouse.'

In reorganizing the business on this footing, the
Evesham traders were greatly aided by the knowledge
they obtained of local markets, as the outcome of
frequent journeys ; but they were aided still more by
the telephone, the use of which has alike widened the
area of distribution and increased the prices realized
by something like 25 per cent. A very large propor-
tion, indeed, of Evesham's vegetable and fruit business
is now done over the telephone. A dealer ' rings up '
one town after another in England, Wales, or Scotland
— I have heard of one instance in which a list of forty
calls was gone through — and transactions involving
important deals are settled straight off. One trader
told me how, seated in his office in Evesham, he had
disposed, over the telephone, of 200 tons of plums to
a jam-maker in Scotland in less than three minutes.
There are some large traders in Evesham who consign
exclusively to ' order,' per telephone or otherwise, and
no longer send to salesmen, except on such order.
But, in any case, the use of the telephone enables
grower or trader to get into direct touch with a great
range of local markets, and in this way the whole
trading conditions at Evesham have been placed on
a better footing than was formerly the case.

138 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

Thanks to these various conditions, the expansion of
the market-gardening industry at Evesham has been
really enormous of late years, the quantities sent iway
from that one centre alone being such as few persons,
probably, not directly concerned in the business done,
have realized. Evesham is, also, in the favoured posi-
tion of having more or less output throughout the
entire year, instead of depending on a few crops at
certain seasons. She produces, in fact, some forty
different kinds of vegetables, fruit, and flowers for
distribution to places as far remote as Jersey and
Guernsey in the South and Belfast and Aberdeen in
the North ; the best markets of all, perhaps, being those
in South Wales, which has more especially been ' the
salvation of Evesham.'

The business is naturally at the lowest in the months
of January and February, yet even then there are
sufficient vegetables — chiefly savoys and sprouts — sent
away by train to fill up from 30 to 40 waggons
a day. In March cabbages, radishes, and lettuces
increase the bulk to from 50 or 60 trucks the day.
In April spring cabbages, spring onions, and a certain
amount of asparagus will be added to the list, and the
total consignments go up to 140 trucks a day. In
May large despatches of green gooseberries swell the
total to 250 trucks the day, and, though the green
gooseberries fall off in June, the larger supplies of
asparagus, and, towards the end of the month, the
earliest pickings of strawberries, keep up the number
of truck-loads to about the same as in May. But this
number increases to no fewer than between 300 and
400 trucks a day during the months of July, August,
and September, when plums, strawberries, currants,
apples, pears, green peas, kidney-beans, broad-beans,
vegetable-marrows, etc., will all be handled in sub-

TRAFFIC BY RAIL 139

stantial quantities. Of plums thousands of tons go
to the jam factories. Of strawberries a single train may
take up to 20 tons. In October the fruits will have
fallen off, but sprouts will have begun, and cauliflowers
are carried in bulk, so that the truck-loads still number
200 a day; in November a heavy business in sprouts
and savoys keeps the total up to 120, and throughout
December the consignments still require an average
of 100 trucks a day. The loading of the waggons
ranges from 23 cwt. to 4 or 5 tons, according to the
commodities carried.

It is quite a common occurrence in the height of the
season for a single railway company to send off six
special vegetable trains a day from Evesham. But,
although the quantities handled are so substantial in
the aggregate, the general average of the weight per
consignment is comparatively small, as may well be
the case considering that there are about 200 ' small '
senders in the district, in addition to the ' large ' ones,
and that the produce is sent off to so many different
consignees in so very many different towns throughout
the United Kingdom. Then, again, a single consign-
ment, forwarded by one trader to one customer, has
been known to consist of twenty-three different kinds
of vegetables. In this way if the number of consign-
ments handled by a single company on an ordinary
busy day were put at 500, the number of packages
comprised therein might be anything up to 10,000.
As these would nearly all be delivered at the station
between 4.30 and 6 p.m., the reader may, perhaps,
form some idea of the ' rush ' which takes place in
dealing with the traffic. A * census ' of the vehicles
entering the Great Western goods-yard at Evesham
during the course of a day in July showed a total
of 717.

140 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

Taking the entire production of fruit and vegetables
throughout the county of Worcester, I have good
authority for the statement that the quantities de-
spatched throughout the United Kingdom from this one
county alone, on an ordinary busy day in the height of
the season, would be equal to a total of 1,000 tons. On
the face of it, there might seem to be the danger of over-
production, and true it is that during 1905 there were
complaints in various quarters of falling prices and
diminishing profits. But one of the largest and most
experienced growers whom I consulted on this question
at Evesham scouted the idea of over-production, and
declared that, in spite of all the growers had done
hitherto, they were * still in the first quarter.'

His view, I found, was shared by others. What the
industry is suffering from — if it is really suffering at all
— is not over-production, but a still incomplete system
of distribution. The progress already made at Evesham
in opening up fresh markets throughout the British
Isles has been most substantial ; but there are possi-
bilities of considerable further improvements in market-
ing, and it is in this direction, rather than in that of a
restriction of output, that action needs to be taken.

The further question is being seriously discussed at
Evesham whether the ordinary markets of the country,
as an outlet for fresh fruit and vegetables, could not be
supplemented by the organization of a substantial
canning business, which would not only utilize any
possible surplus, but also substitute an important
British industry for a large proportion of those canned
fruits and vegetables now coming into the United
Kingdom in such large quantities from other countries.
It is especially pointed out that since the imposition
of a duty on tinned fruit, equal to about 2s. per dozen
3-pound tins, English fruit-growers have been placed in a

SUBSIDIARY INDUSTRIES 141

much better position in regard to the utilization of their
surplus produce, so much so that two years ago one
firm in this country turned out in the course of the
season no fewer than 1,000,000 cans of fruit. Other
firms have since taken up the enterprise, which the
Evesham growers expect will develop before long into a
business of considerable importance, with wide possi-
bilities of an export as well as of a home trade. In any
case, it should afford a better alternative, in times of
' glut,' than that of allowing plums or other fruit to rot
on the trees because, with the extreme lowness of
market prices, it will not pay to pluck them.

In the matter of vegetables, again, it is especially
pointed out that Evesham has paid great attention of
late years to the growing of asparagus, the market for
which has greatly increased during the last decade.
There was a difference of opinion among the authorities
I consulted as to the real extent of the area devoted to
asparagus in the Evesham district. Some thought
there would be fully 4,000 acres, while others considered
that 3,000 would be nearer the mark. But there was
unanimity in the view that the production could
be extended over thousands of acres more if the
surplus, after the ordinary markets had been supplied,
were tinned, and either sold at home — in place
of that coming in the same form from France and
Germany — or else exported to our colonies or foreign
countries.

Further encouragement in these directions is derived
at Evesham from the experiences of the United States.
There, it seems, no fewer than 20,000 fruit and vegetable
canning factories have been set up, giving direct em-
ployment to 1,000,000 persons, and indirect employment
(in the way of making tins, printing labels, etc.) to
4,000,000 others. The fruit and vegetables used in

142 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

these factories are produced on 30,000 farms, repre-
senting 1,500,000 acres of land, and the amount paid
to the growers gives a total of $25,000,000. The number
of cans turned out in the course of a season is 600,000,000,
the wholesale price of which is put at $48,000,000.
' Why,' it is asked at Evesham, ' should we not do
more of this kind of business at home, instead of either
leaving our fruit and vegetables in the gardens, in
prolific seasons, or getting non-remunerative prices from
glutted markets, and then actually importing canned
fruits and vegetables from other countries, simply
because, as it would seem, we have not sufficient enter-
prise to work up our surplus stock ourselves ?'

Nor do the Evesham growers look at the question
from an exclusively selfish point of view. The creation
here of a big canning industry would be good, they say,
not alone for the country districts, but also for the
towns, since, as the American statistics show, it would
mean a substantial increase in the volume of employ-
ment for can-makers, printers, and others working
mainly in the urban centres. Some degree of help
would thus be given to the solution of the problem of
unemployed artisans, in affording them work of a kind
for which they were better adapted than, as persons who
had spent all their lives in towns, they would be for
actual fruit-raising. That, at least, is the point of view
from which the matter is regarded at Evesham, where
the wide knowledge and the varied qualifications
requisite for successful fruit-growing and market-garden-
ing are too well appreciated for there to be much con-
fidence felt in proposals for the wholesale transfer of
town-workers — or non-wrorkers — to the country.

Whether or not developments are likely to be effected
on quite so broad a scale as this, the Evesham growers
think it a matter for regret that the average English

COMPETING WITH GUERNSEY 143

housewife does not more generally follow the example
of her Canadian sister in bottling fruit herself in the
time of plenty for use in her household during the
winter season. But perhaps the average English
housewife would be the more disposed so to do if the
Evesham growers were to prepare and issue broadcast
some practical leaflets giving clear and explicit direc-
tions as to the best way in which fruit could be bottled
for domestic use.

Then the growers at Evesham have been paying
considerable attention of late years to the production of
fruit and vegetables under glass. They have felt that
the introduction of glass-houses on the Guernsey prin-
ciple would be a great help to the general industry at
Evesham. It would allow of a more active competition
with other producing centres in respect to early varieties,
and it would also enable the Evesham market-gardeners
to supply their customers with all that they required,
instead of leaving them to obtain, say, tomatoes or
cucumbers from some other source at a comparatively
high rate for an odd lot. I have said already that a
single consignment of vegetables and fruits from
Evesham to one dealer has been known to consist of
twenty-three different varieties, and the reader will
understand that the dealer in question might well
prefer to obtain a twenty- fourth variety from the same
grower, to be delivered in the same consignment,
instead of looking for it elsewhere. Evesham has
thus resolved to become a rival of Guernsey, and
though the island may lay claim to a still more genial
climate, the inland town has the advantage of cheaper
coal. In view of this latter fact, combined with their
greater nearness to the consuming centres, the Evesham
growers are entering into the competition full of confi-
dence, so that, as one of them remarked to me, * We

144 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

shall soon have Guernsey in Evesham.' It was not
until 1904 that the said competition was started in real
earnest ; yet in the early days of December, 1905, I
was told that within the course of a single twelvemonth
Evesham had already spent on glass-houses no less a
sum than £10,000.

Still more interesting, however, is the attempt that
is being made at Evesham to grow those very early
lettuces, and other primeurs, for which hitherto English
consumers have been accustomed to look to France.
This experiment is the outcome of a visit paid to Paris
in January, 1905, by a number of market-gardeners
from Evesham, who went there for the purpose of seeing
for themselves the method of cultivation adopted in the
growing of these early lettuces. As I was permitted to
accompany the deputation, I may be excused, perhaps,
for reproducing the following account of the proceedings
which I contributed to The Times of January 20, 1905 :

ENGLISH MARKET-GARDENERS IN PARIS.

A visit which a party of some thirty market-gardeners and dealers
from the Evesham district of Worcestershire has just paid to the
environs of Paris is a noteworthy event in the history of British
horticulture. It has been generally assumed that there was no
chance for British producers to compete with those of France in
the supply of early lettuces, carrots, radishes, etc., for English
markets ; and the tendency in England has been for growers to
content themselves with making reflections against the railways in
respect to the large quantities of foreign produce carried by them
— mainly at a time when no English-grown supplies of that kind
are available. As it has been represented to certain influential
traders at Evesham that the Paris growers who send over their
4,000 or 5,000 crates of early lettuces and their 500 crates of early
carrots to England every day throughout the season had no real
advantages which could not be equally enjoyed at Evesham, the
visit was arranged with a view to an inquiry into the particular
conditions under which the French industry is carried on.

The facts ascertained were not only interesting, but most en-
couraging. An inspection of a number of market-gardens just
outside the fortifications on the south-east of Paris (where such
gardens extend for a total distance of eight miles) has shown that

LETTUCE-GROWING AROUND PARIS 145

the success of the French growers is due less to any climatic ad-
vantage than to a very practical system of cultivation under glass
on what are, in effect, forcing-beds, to which, however, no artificial
heat is applied. At first sight a Paris market-garden presents the
appearance of from i£ to 2 or more acres of land almost covered
by ranges of glass-frames standing about I foot above the soil,
while over each is a straw mat, which can readily be rolled up during
the day, when the temperature allows. These frames are supple-
mented by hundreds of bell-shaped glasses, known as cloches.
Under these the lettuces are grown, various transplantings taking
place, according to growth. Frames and cloches alike stand on
beds made up of rotten horse manure, with a certain proportion of
fresh manure, especially as a foundation, fresh manure being at the
same time piled up alongside the frames and around the cloches to
protect them from frost. Some of the gardens seem to consist
almost entirely of this rotten manure. In the case of lettuces there
are three successive sowings, beginning in August, the lettuces
being ready for the market in six weeks. The supplies continue
until April. The varieties grown are the ' cabbage ' and ' cos,' one
of the latter and three or four of the former being planted under
each cloche, with larger quantities in the frames. The early carrots
and turnips are grown under like conditions, and there is every
reason to believe that the business is a most lucrative one.

The opinion formed by the visitors was that, while not every
part of England would allow of the growing of early vegetables
according to the French method, yet there were no climatic con-
ditions which would prevent the adoption of that method in the
favoured district of Evesham, and especially on the warm banks on
Longden Hill and those facing the south. Evesham, with its
warm, moist climate and encircling hills, was, in fact, regarded as
still better adapted to such an enterprise than the exposed environs
of Paris ; and some of the growers asserted that the cabbages
which they had growing in the open were much more advanced
than those they saw in the open around Paris. The only difficulty
lay in the procurement of enough manure, at a sufficiently low
price, at Evesham. Assuming, however, that this difficulty could
be surmounted, the general conclusion was that early salad lettuce
for the English markets could very well be grown with equal success
and economy in the Vale of Evesham. It was admitted that Eve-
sham could not produce all the supplies likely to be required, and
that, whereas the French lettuces came to London, any that were
provided by Evesham would be more likely to go direct to the
markets of the Midlands, the North, and South Wales. There
should, however, be room for both French and British supplies ;
and it is hoped that salads in January, February, and March may
become an item of popular diet in England, instead of being, as at
present, mainly a luxury for the well-to-do.

Experiments will at once be started at Evesham on the French
lines.

10

146 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

Among those forming the deputation was Mr. John
Idiens, of the firm of John Idiens and Sons, Limited,
Evesham, and before leaving Paris that gentleman
engaged a French expert to come over to Evesham,
and there start on a portion of Messrs. Idiens' farm the
experiments referred to in the closing paragraph of my
communication to The Times. This arrangement was
duly carried out, and, on visiting Evesham early in
December, 1905, I had the opportunity of seeing, or
learning of, the results, so far as they had then been
attained.

I found that the experiments had been initiated with
such expedition that actual growing in the ' French
garden ' was commenced in March, 1905 ; though the
Frenchman in charge told me that it would take about
two years before the manure so abundantly employed
had rotted down into the same quality of light peaty
soil as that employed in Paris. Any possible difficulty
in the way of obtaining straw stable manure had been
surmounted with the help of the Great Western Rail-
way Company, who were providing it to the firm at the
rate of 53. lod. per ton, delivered at Evesham. Water
was obtained from the river Avon, being pumped by
a gasoline engine into a large tank, from which it is
distributed over the garden. Thus the firm had
secured the two primary essentials specified by the
French expert when he remarked to a visitor : ' Give
me plenty of stable manure and water, and I will grow
you anything.'

But that expert wanted also to grow in accord with
French principles down to the smallest details. Thus
the implements used have been imported from Paris,
the French varieties being regarded as better suited
than English to the particular requirements of a ' French
garden,' and the workers even use baskets strapped on

A FRENCH GARDEN AT EVESHAM 147

the back, a la Fran^aise, for the distribution of manure.
The English helpers have taken quite kindly to this
system. With the basket on their shoulders, they get
over the soft ground (where there are no paths) much
more readily when they have no wheelbarrow to push
before them ; they toss the manure out of the basket
with a minimum of trouble, and double the amount of
work is got through in a given time than would be
possible with barrows. The baskets have, therefore,
now been definitely adopted, though these will be made
locally, on the French model. The mats for covering
the frames and bell-glasses, as a protection against frost,
are also exactly like those used in Paris. They are
made by the hands employed on the French garden, a
large shed having been erected thereon in which this
work can be done on wet days. The rye straw used for
the purpose is grown by a large farmer in the district.

The amount of land on which growing had been
carried on since the beginning of the experiments in
March was 3,600 yards — a quarter of an acre ; but
preparations were in progress for the extension of the
French garden over an area of 5 acres. To this end
there were already, either in actual use or in the
grounds ready for use, 600 frames and 2,500 bell-glasses
(cloches). The complete success of the experiments
had, in fact, already been abundantly assured, eight
months' results having alone sufficed to bear remark-
able evidence of the degree of fertility and productive-
ness possible under the conditions stated. The actual
crops secured during that short period are shown by the
appended table (p. 148).

No attempt has thus far been made by the firm to
dispose of this ' French ' produce from Evesham other-
wise than through their own depots at Cheltenham,
Gloucester, Bristol, Bournemouth, and Blackpool ; but

10 — 2

148

EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

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REMARKABLE RESULTS 149

as regards distribution in general, this should be effected
more promptly in the case of the Evesham salads, etc.,
than of those coming from France. The former can be
despatched by goods train from Evesham at six in the
evening, to arrive in London by midnight; while as
regards leading provincial centres there should be the
saving of a day in the transport from Evesham, as com-
pared with the transport from the environs of Paris.
The saving in freight, also, is no less important than
the saving in time and the consequent gain in freshness,
the railway rates for French vegetables from Evesham
to London being 253. per ton, as against 953. per ton from
Paris to London.

It is still too early to speak definitely as to the financial
results of the Evesham experiment, for though the prices
realized on the produce grown in the French garden
there between April and November were substantially
higher than those secured for the corresponding English
produce grown under ordinary conditions, Messrs.
Idiens had not had the advantage of selling during the
earliest months of the year, when prices would naturally
be at their best. All the same, I asked Mr. John Idiens
if he could form any estimate as to the probable outcome
from a financial standpoint ; and, after taking time to
consider the matter further, he has favoured me with
the following communication :

Roughly, we should think that the gross annual value per acre of
the produce from the French garden will work out at from ^600 to
£700. This calculation is based on the actual results obtained from
| acre. Until we have had a full twelve months' trial we cannot say
what the expenses will be, but so far we are quite satisfied. The
conclusion at which we have arrived, as the outcome of our experi-
ment, is that this 'French produce' can be grown quite as well
in England as in Paris, provided fairly good aspects are selected.
This is the opinion also of the Frenchman in charge of the garden.
He considers that our climate is better for the early lettuces than
the climate around Paris, as nothing like the same proportion have

150 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY

been spoiled by the damp—' damped off,' as we say— compared
with what is experienced in France. When the deputation visited
Paris, it seemed to be the general opinion that, our climate being
damper, we should not be able to grow the lettuces with the same
degree of success. This was the only thing that I, personally, was
doubtful about, but I now feel convinced that we are on the safe
side, and it seems to me there is nothing whatever to stop the
extension of this system of gardening if the right sort of practical
man is obtained for the start. There should be no difficulty in the
way of getting plenty of such men from the Continent.

In face of all these various developments, actual or
prospective, the reader will understand what was
meant by the Evesham grower who, as already
mentioned, declared to me that they were ' still only in
the first quarter.' Instead of 'agricultural depression'
one finds at Evesham plenty of life and energy, and
plenty of confidence in future prospects — so much so,
indeed, that important schemes are in the air for
extending the growing area. But of these I will speak
in detail later on, in connection with the subject of
small holdings.

CHAPTER XII
THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

WE come next to the almost illimitable possibilities
of the egg and poultry business, in which further striking
evidence is afforded alike of the increased purchasing
power of the people and the expansion of their once
comparatively limited dietary, and the chances open
to those who will supply the commodities in question.
In 1864 the value of eggs imported into this country
was £834,028. In 1904 it was £6,730,574, an increase
of £5,896,546 in the course of forty years. Even allowing
for improvements in the home supply, it is evident
from these figures that the chief benefit from the greater
consumption has gone to the foreigner. The reason
is not far to seek. It is not because we have any lack
of good qualities of birds. On the contrary, English
fowls of the best breeds are sought for by the countries
alike of Western and Eastern Europe, and they have
recently been sent out to South Africa to establish
poultry-yards there. It is due, rather, to the twofold
reason : (i) that in the days when wheat production
was so profitable in the United Kingdom the British
farmer disdained to trouble himself about egg produc-
tion ; (2) that to-day, when agricultural conditions have
changed, the British farmer either too often retains his
old prejudices, or else fails to come into line with that

152 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

system of organization or collection which alone permits
of the consignment of large quantities of eggs from the
foreign countries now sending us the bulk of our imports.
For the farmer or the cottager to try to get a living
out of eggs alone would be a mistake. But, regarded
as a subsidiary industry, involving no large outlay and
no great amount of labour — especially where there is
land available over which the birds can run without
being cooped up — egg production should be looked at
as a source of additional profit not to be despised.

The crux of the question, however, is not the pro-
duction of eggs at home, but the marketing of them,
and here is where the need for combination comes in.
The almost helpless position of the British farmer as
an individual unit is especially noticeable when he
wants to dispose of the basket of eggs he has got from
the fowls he keeps. By the time he or his wife has
taken them to the market town, and there obtained
such price as the middleman dealer thinks fit to pay
for them, the business may well seem to be more
trouble than it is worth. In Denmark, on the other
hand, there are 400 egg societies, which not only
collect from their 30,000 members — saving them all
trouble in the way of marketing, and paying them
a fair market price — but also test and grade the eggs,
so that both the dealers and the consumers can depend
on the quality of what they buy.

With a similar organization on a widespread scale
in this country, not only would the present difficulties
of the British farmer in the way of disposing of his
eggs at a remunerative price disappear, but he would
find it worth his while to go in still more extensively
for a business which he has deliberately allowed to
drift so largely into the hands of foreigners. It may
be that with their cheaper land and larger areas the

POULTRY ORGANIZATION 153

peasantry of Hungary, Servia, Roumania, Siberia, and
other countries, will always be able to provide eggs of
the cheapest type at a lesser cost than could be done
at home. But when, in the case even of Dutch eggs
(of which large quantities are sent to England), there
is generally a delay of from six to ten days before they
reach the actual consumer, the advantages in favour of
the English farmer controlling the market for really
* new-laid ' eggs are obvious. All that is needed is that
he should avail himself of his opportunities, along the
excellent lines advocated by the National Poultry
Organization Society. This most useful body (with
whose secretary, Mr. Edward Brown, anyone interested in
the subject should communicate, at 12, Hanover Square,
London, W.) has now forty branches or depots, at
which 3,350,000 eggs were sold during 1904 — an in-
crease of nearly 700,000 over 1903. The value of the
produce disposed of in 1904 was £15,400, and the
average price obtained was a fraction over is. i-Jd. per
dozen.

Of poultry the total value of the importations (dead
or alive) into the United Kingdom during 1904 was
£1,089,044, distributed as follows : From Russia,
£343>761; Belgium, £248,552; France, £235,700;
United States of America, £219,787; other countries,
£41,244. In these figures we get further evidence of
the aforesaid possibilities, for poultry fully shares with
the other commodities here dealt with the honour of
increased patronage from all classes of the community
in Great Britain, and ' chickens ' at a modest price
would be still more popular with the average house-
wife, as an alternative to the eternal rotation of beef,
mutton, pork, and veal, if she could be always sure that
the birds she bought really were chickens, and worth
the money she was asked for them. But here, again,

154 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

the advantages ought to be in favour of the British
farmer or cottager as against, say, those producers in
Russia who have been getting their £300,000 a year
out of us for their notoriously poor qualities. As for
the financial aspects of poultry-rearing for the market,
these are well indicated in a letter by Mr. Edward
Brown to The Times, in which he says :

Experiments conducted in connection with the University
College, Reading, have shown that chickens can be raised to a
killing age (thirteen weeks) at a cost of 3d. to 3^d. per pound, or
a total cost per bird, inclusive of initial cost of egg, of working
incubators and brooders, and of food, of 7 7 id. to 8'66d. If this
can be accomplished upon a large scale, the margin is greater than
in any other class of stock.

In the winter of 1904-1905 Mr. Brown contributed
to Poultry an extremely interesting series of articles on
the egg and poultry business as carried on in the
Balkans, throwing much light on the way in which the
big quantities handled in Continental countries are got
together, for the purpose, mainly, of consignment else-
where. In connection with the Budapest Co-operative
Marketing Society — founded in 1897 in order to supply
farmers' produce to the Budapest markets, thus estab-
lishing direct dealing between producers and consumers
— Mr. Brown wrote that a very great amount of the
work done relates to the sale of eggs. There are, it
seems, 300 local societies connected with the central
organization, and close on I2| million eggs have been
handled in a single year, 75 per cent, of the sum total
being exported. Much has also been done in the sale
of poultry; but in this branch greater difficulties are
experienced, owing to the irregularity of supply and
the unevenness of quality.

At Szabadka, the 'capital' of Southern Hungary,
Mr. Brown visited one of the four establishments there
of Messrs. Hartmann and Conen, who are known as

A HUNGARIAN ENTERPRISE 155

extensive traders in the London egg and poultry trade.
In describing what he saw, Mr. Brown says :

One of the first things we did was to go into a huge building,
divided into two compartments, and here were nearly 300 women
and girls engaged at the same time in killing and plucking chickens.
The sight was overwhelming. I have previously seen forty to fifty
people, but I never came across a place where operations were
being carried out to the same extent. These chickens were handled
rapidly, and certainly the operators were marvellously expert. As
soon as one bird was finished it was taken over by a man whose
work was that of shaping, and the girl went off to get another bird
without loss of any time. In the yard was standing a great waggon,
which had just brought in a lot of fowls, and in that waggon were
no fewer than 1,500 chickens. The plucking was well done, al-
though somewhat rougher than we are accustomed to see in our
best trade. Altogether, there are 400 people employed in the
various establishments, and in order to keep them going this firm
employs more than 100 collectors in different parts of Southern
Hungary, and also buys largely from Servia. Most of the
chickens were somewhat lean.

At this first establishment the work is chiefly confined to hand-
ling chickens, and the preservation and packing of eggs. We
have small conception of the extent to which preservation is carried
out. Here are built underground in cement-lined cellars huge
cement tanks, each of which holds 160,000 eggs, and when we
mention that there are no fewer than thirty-eight of these tanks,
thus holding a total of 5,500,000 eggs, it will be seen that the
amount of money invested in this trade is very large indeed. The
tanks are filled in the spring and early summer, and the eggs sold
in November and December. The process is entirely that by
means of lime-water. The cellars are beautifully clean and sweet,
and scarcely a speck of dust can be seen anywhere. The tanks are
inspected almost daily, and such eggs as float to the top are imme-
diately removed, as they are bad. When the time arrives for the
sale of the eggs, they are taken out of the pickle, placed in wire
baskets, and carried to a warmer room, where these baskets are
stacked in tiers in front of a 'Blackman' fan, which, causing the
air to pass rapidly, dries the shells very quickly. They are then
tested for freshness, every egg passing through this process, and
when we mention that there were nearly twenty women engaged
in testing the eggs — for which purpose electric light is employed —
it will be realized that a vast number can be handled per diem. . . .
After the eggs are tested they are well rubbed, which gives them
a polish, and removes any surplus particles of lime. They are then
packed in the usual form in long cases, straw being almost entirely
employed. At the time of our visit, in each case of eggs, top and
bottom, were placed sheets of paper, as it is found that this is a

156 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

protection against cold. Of course, the eggs are graded, and we
cannot speak too highly of the beautiful way in which they are
packed.

The fattening of the birds is not undertaken at the establishment
referred to above, but at the other three places, one of which is on
the borders of the city, near the barracks, and this we visited in
company with Mr. Hartmann. It is a huge place of about 60 or
70 acres, a large part of which is covered with buildings and fatten-
ing sheds. Here we were taken into cool chambers of great
capacity, where both eggs and fowls are stored. Refrigerating
machines made by Nicholson are employed, and everything is of
the most modern character. There are mills of the best kind for
preparing the food, and the whole place is lighted by electricity,
which is generated upon the spot. Outside there are great ranges
of sheds for fattening. In one large house, at the time of our visit,
there were no fewer than 15,000 chickens undergoing the process
at the same time. These are placed in cages five tiers high, and
are fed entirely from troughs, crammers not being used. Outside
are great ranges of houses for ducks and geese. These have open
sides, and are practically covered yards. The ducks and geese are
fed for ten or eleven days, as are the chickens, before they are
killed. Turkeys are not fatted,, as they are slaughtered as received
from the farmers. Upon the day when we visited this establish-
ment there were 2,000 or 3,000 guinea-fowls, and I must confess
never before to have seen so many of these birds at one time.
Large buildings are employed for killing the ducks, geese, and
turkeys, all of which are slaughtered at this place, and the provision
for the carrying out of the operations is upon a most complete
scale. In fact, it is self-contained to the fullest degree, for not
only is the food prepared upon the place, but there is machinery
for cutting the wood for making the boxes. It is a huge manu-
factory for chicken flesh.

It would be impossible to describe, except at very great length,
this wonderful place, certainly the largest which I have ever seen.
A few figures, however, will indicate its magnitude. When in full
operation no less than 1,500 litres (1,312$- quarts) of milk are used
every day, and we may conceive what a large amount of grain is
necessary by the quantity of birds to be fed off. It may be ex-
plained that maize and barley are chiefly used for this purpose.
Upon the day of our visit 4,000 turkeys were killed, 5,000 geese,
and 5,000 chickens. There were on hand at that time 30,000 geese,
20,000 ducks, and 50,000 chickens, all of which would be dead within
the next week or ten days. As already explained, the turkeys are
not kept here, but nearly 50,000 of these birds would be ready for
despatch for the Christmas markets. So far as the quality of the
birds was concerned, the chickens were moderate and very well
fatted ; ducks were fairly good ; the geese very good ; and the
turkeys, on the whole, fair.

On leaving this place, we felt our brains almost reeling with the

WHAT BULGARIA IS DOING 157

extent of the operations, but there was uppermost in our minds
admiration for the business qualities of any man who can supervise
and control such a concern. During the twelve months the figures
in fowls alone must run into millions, and the organizing power
necessary to keep supplies coming forward must be very great
indeed. It will fitly complete the above story when we say that a
week before Christmas we saw a large number of these birds in
London, where they found an excellent market. In order that
they should arrive in proper time, a special train, consisting of
twenty-eight waggons, was despatched from Szabadka to Ostend,
and a specially chartered steamer brought the birds on the Sunday
previous to Christmas from Ostend to London. The carriage alone
for bringing these birds was in the neighbourhood of ,£5,000. It
is not proposed to suggest for a single moment the necessity of our
handling operations on anything like so great a scale as this,
because, being near to our markets, it is to our advantage to get the
produce much more rapidly into the hands of retailers. Still, it is
interesting to see what has been done by men of business capacity,
and with capital, for meeting the demands of our great population,
and bringing the produce of other countries almost to our own
doors.

Mr. Brown also deals with conditions in Servia. In
regard to the egg export business carried on in Bulgaria,
he quotes the following from the British Consular Report
for 1902 :

The export of eggs is now thoroughly organized, and the centre
of exportation for Bulgaria is at Sofia. The merchants at Rustchuk
land what comes from Silistria or Tutrucan, and send to Sofia by
rail in waggon-loads. The eggs are packed in boxes containing
24 shocks of 60 eggs (1,440 eggs) ; I waggon-load contains from
100 to 105 boxes, and the price of i box franco Sofia is 65 francs.
If the Sofia market will not give this price or what is demanded,
the goods go on in the same truck to Vienna, Passau, or Antwerp,
and thence to London or any intermediate station. The transport
delay is calculated thus : to Sofia, 3 days ; to Vienna, 8 days ; to
Antwerp, 13 days— always remaining in the same truck till the
goods are sold. The cost from Sofia to London is ,£52 to .£56 a
truck, but when the eggs get to London they will be entered as
Belgian produce.

These details are supplemented by Mr. Brown with
an account of his visit to the establishment of Messrs.
Laue, Furick and Co. at Sofia. A very substantial
trade is done by the company, from 50,000 to 60,000

158 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

cases, each case containing 1,440 eggs, being sent away
annually. The company have agents at all the nearer
railway-stations, to receive eggs from people bringing
them there; and supplies are also obtained from the
Adrianople district of Turkey, and even from places
nearer to Constantinople. The eggs are mostly small,
and the prices paid are low, three being bought for the
equivalent of 2d. in the winter, and five for 2d. in
the summer. They are sent mostly to Germany and
Austria, going in car-load lots to minimize carriage, and
a certain proportion are received in London in due
course; but, inasmuch as the eggs would be mostly
a fortnight old when received at Sofia, would take
another fortnight to reach London, would cost from
£52 to £56 per truck for transport, and would be found
(apart from quality) almost unsaleably small for the
English market, it would not seem that the British
farmer, with the opportunities open to him for disposing
of his new-laid eggs, need be afraid of such competition
as this. In fact, Mr. Brown says, in concluding his
series of articles (which those who are specially interested
in the subject should read for themselves in full) :

Looking at the matter from the point of view of the farmers of
our own land who are taking up poultry, I feel more strongly than
ever that they have nothing to fear from foreign competition, either
in connection with eggs or table poultry — at any rate for a long
time to come. The fact that prices are low in each of the countries
visited is more than compensated by the distance which supplies
have to travel. Eggs can never come upon our markets in first-
class condition, and they must always be the supplies which are
sold at low rates. If our own people, by lack of organization in
marketing, and by neglect of their opportunities, fail to take ad-
vantage of their nearness to the consuming centres, they have no
one to blame but themselves. I venture to think that the poultry
producers of the countries named would speedily adopt different
methods if they had the same opportunities as we have here. At
the present time, however, speed in marketing with respect to eggs
is not realized ; hence supplies are stale before they are even put
upon the railways. When it is remembered that it costs upwards

CHICKEN-FATTING IN SUSSEX 159

of £50 per truck-load for eggs from Sofia to London, it will be
realized that the advantages of cheapness are to a large extent
more than compensated. The point which strikes me as of supreme
importance to breeders on this side is that they should in some
way endeavour to open up communication with Hungary, Servia,
and Bulgaria, with a view to finding a market for stock birds.
There is no question that in all parts of the world the eyes of those
who are seeking to improve races of animals are always towards
the United Kingdom, as we have the reputation — I think deservedly
— of being among the most skilful breeders in the world, and it
should be our object to use this reputation to the fullest extent ; but
there is a strange apathy on the part of breeders to adopt new
methods.

By way of offering a concrete example as to the
opportunities that are open to poultry-producers in our
own country, I cannot do better than refer to what
is being done at Heathfield and Uckfield, headquarters
for many years of the Sussex chicken-fatting industry.

From these two stations on the London, Brighton,
and South Coast Railway there were consigned to the
London and provincial markets during 1904 no fewer
than 2,159 tons of dead poultry — that is to say, 1,715
tons from Heathfield and 444 tons from Uckfield.
Reckoning forty-five dozen to the ton, this means that
the chickens despatched from the two stations in ques-
tion during a single twelve months numbered 1,165, 860.
The largest consignments go to London for the Central
and Leadenhall markets. These, for instance, took
1,370 of the 1,715 tons sent (by goods train) from
Heathfield during 1904, the balance being forwarded
(by passenger train) to various local markets, such as
Brighton, which took 188 tons; Worthing, 16 tons;
Eastbourne, 17 tons; St. Leonards, n tons; Tunbridge
Wells, 35 tons, and so on. The despatches from Heath-
field on an ordinary busy night will range from 9 tons
(4,860 birds) to 13 tons (7,020 birds).

Such is the magnitude of the business that the local
supply of live chickens fails entirely to meet the require-

160 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

ments of the falters. They, or the ' higglers ' working
for them, on commission, go all over the counties of
Sussex and Kent, and over parts of Surrey as well,
buying up from farmers and cottagers such of their
chickens as may have arrived at sufficient maturity to
be ready for the final fatting off by the cramming
machine. Many of the farmers and cottagers lay them-
selves out to supply the demand thus made, and the
money they realize represents an acceptable addition to
other sources of income. The raising of the chickens
involves little or no trouble, while excellent prices are
secured, especially when there is a shortage of local
birds, and the breeders can get practically their own
terms. On these occasions, at least, the breeders
probably make more than the fatters. The two branches
of business are generally kept distinct, and the policy of
this arrangement will be appreciated by anyone who
visits a fatting establishment on a fairly large scale,
and sees the exacting nature of the substantial amount
of work involved. That work, I may remark in passing,
gives employment to a good number of hands, not only
directly, in the various processes of cramming, stubbing,
etc., but also indirectly, through the extensive demands
made on the millers for chicken-meal.

When the local supplies — which produce the best
birds — are exhausted, the fatters have to look further
afield, and they obtain other English chickens from
Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Wales, Carlisle, and elsewhere
in England. But one of the grievances of the Sussex
fatters is that even the whole of England cannot pro-
vide them with as many chickens, in such steady and
regular quantities, as they want, and that for the greater
part of their importations, to supplement the aforesaid
local supplies, they must look to Ireland. The live
chickens brought from Ireland to Heathfield alone

IRELAND TO THE RESCUE 161

(exclusive of Uckfield), during 1904 represented, in fact,
a total weight of 653 tons. Bred by the Irish peasantry,
the chickens are taken by them to the markets at Kilkenny,
Carlow, Baltinglass, Bagnalstown, Tullow, Carrick-on-
Suir, Athy, etc., and there the birds are bought up by
wholesale dealers, who despatch them at once to Heath-
field or Uckfield, by way of either Waterford, New
Milford, and the Great Western Railway, or Dublin
(North Wall), Holyhead, and the London and North-
Western Railway, which represent the ' quick ' routes ;
or, alternatively, by the weekly Clyde boat from Water-
ford to Newhaven, whence they travel over the London,
Brighton, and South Coast lines to their destination. Of
the live Irish chickens received in 1904, 527 tons came
by the quick routes, and 126 tons by the long sea route.
The rates from any Irish inland town by the quick
routes work out at £7 per ton ; and from Waterford by
boat to Newhaven, and thence by rail, £3 53. per ton.
Notwithstanding the difference in the rate, the majority
of the birds are sent by the dearer routes, partly because
they then arrive in better condition, and partly to suit
the local markets, as the detention of the chickens for
transport by the weekly boat would involve difficulties
in regard to feeding, etc.

The effect, therefore, of the totally inadequate sup-
plies of available chickens, not merely in the southern
counties, but also throughout England and Wales, is
that the Sussex industry is handicapped by the cost of
importing Irish birds — and these, also, of a less desirable
quality — to make up for both the local and the national
deficiency. Nothing, in fact, would suit the Sussex
fatters better than that farmers, small holders, cottagers,
and others in England should breed chickens of suit-
able qualities for them to purchase and fatten off for
the market.

ii

i6a THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

There is certainly an opening for an extension of the
fatting business itself. From what I saw in the Heath-
field district, I should say there is no reason why the
fatting industry should not be carried on as successfully
by competent men, and under suitable conditions, in
other parts of the country as it is in Sussex. I have
heard it suggested that the ' soil ' in the districts men-
tioned may be specially suitable ; but, inasmuch as the
birds pass direct from crate to pen, and from pen to
killing-shed, their feet never touch the soil from the
time they leave Ireland, to be fattened in Sussex, and
thence sent to the market for sale as ' best Surrey
chickens.' The fatting process, however, is obviously
an art which must be thoroughly understood, which
involves considerable labour, and for which, when con-
ducted as a business, a substantial amount of capital is
required. The average farmer, small holder, or cot-
tager would therefore do better to leave this branch
of the enterprise to specialists, and content himself with
simply raising the chickens.

Poultry production, on the lines here recommended,
might certainly be made to rank among the remunera-
tive subsidiary industries of agricultural life, while the
producers would probably find it more profitable — as it
would certainly be much less trouble — to sell their lean
birds to the fatter than to kill them off for sale while
still in that condition. Small men who are breeders,
but not fatters, and send little lots of poor-quality
chickens to market to compete with the plumper birds
from Heathfield or Uckfield, may well get discouraged,
and say that poultry-raising does not pay. But in the
production of chickens, for sale, not direct on the
market, but to the fatters or their agents who collect
them at the door, pay cash down, prepare them for the
market, and take all risk, there are excellent oppor-

POULTRY-RAISERS' OPPORTUNITIES 163

tunities for the ' small ' man in England, especially when
one thinks of those 650 tons of live birds which must be
brought over to Heathfield from Ireland every year,
not because Irish birds are preferred, but simply and
solely because England cannot, or will not, produce all
that are wanted.

What I have here said in regard to the Heathfield
and Uckfield industry refers, of course, to poultry
specially prepared for the market with the help of the
' cramming ' machine. But though these birds may
command the best market prices, especially as com-
pared with ill-fed chickens with which no pains at
all have been taken, there is a big market open for
an intermediate type of bird, superior to the poor
specimens, but less costly than those that have been
artificially fattened. Nor are the possibilities of such
a market being entirely neglected. On the contrary,
there are certain districts, at least, where poultry pro-
duction of this type has made considerable advance ;
and, as a case in point, I should like to place on record
what was said to me by a gentleman at Exeter as being
more or less significant of the awakening that is really
going on in the country, notwithstanding the difficulties
experienced by the Sussex fatters in getting the quantities
they want :

There is (said my authority) no comparison between the poultry
in Devonshire to-day and the poultry of twenty years ago. We
have a lecturer who goes through the county to explain the proper
breeding, rearing, and feeding of poultry, and the farmers them-
selves are taking a great deal of interest in the matter, and are no
longer leaving it entirely to their wives and servants. They see to
getting the right sort of stock, and, instead of allowing the fowls to
run about always in the immediate neighbourhood of the farm
buildings, they buy portable houses, which can be moved half a
mile off on to a stubble field or elsewhere, and then moved again,
as necessary, so that the fowls have a good healthy run. In the
result the birds get into excellent condition without any need for
resorting to artificial fatting ; indeed, in my opinion they are even

II— 2

164 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY

better eating than those that have undergone the cramming process.
The effect, again, on the supply is that for every ten birds put on
the market twenty years ago there are at least 100 to-day. But
the local demand is so great that a very large proportion of the
birds are not sent away at all. In fact, the demand seems to be
constantly increasing, as people find that, provided the price is not
too high, a plump young fowl is as economical as a small joint of
meat.

CHAPTER XIII
AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

*»--

THE second of the three phases of that transition in
agriculture with which I am here dealing is the
awakening that is taking place in regard to the value
of combined effort. The details already given show
clearly enough that there is a good deal of life still left
in British agriculture, in spite of all the bad times
suffered in the past, and of all the depressed conditions
that may still remain ; but prices — generally speaking —
have fallen so low, competition has become so keen,
and the margin of profit is often so narrow, that it
becomes a matter of serious importance for the pro-
ducer how he can get better returns (as the result either
of higher prices or of improved marketing conditions),
or, alternatively, how he can save on cost of production
or cost of transport, and thus still improve his balance-
sheet, even though the receipts remain the same as
before. What are really the chances of his being able
to secure these three results, or any one of them, by
means of the combination about which so much is
being talked ? Will that combination, in fact, improve
his chances of success in the directions, new or old,
still open to him ?

' The future of agriculture in this country,' it has
well been said, ' depends on its economies as well as

165

166 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

upon new developments.' What direction the new
developments are taking we have seen. When we
come to look at the possible economies, what we find
is that the British producer stands between two vast
armies, each of which expects not only to live upon
him, but to prosper at his expense. On the one hand
there is an army of manufacturers, agents, and traders,
who sell him the various things he requires for the
purposes of production, too often exploiting his
ignorance, his simplicity, or his isolation to their own
advantage ; on the other, there is an army of salesmen,
traders, andj middlemen of various ranks and grades,
through whose hands his produce will pass before it
reaches the consumer, each wanting to get out of it a
profit for himself, without much consideration for the
one on whom they seek to thrive. But so long as the
British farmer is an individual unit he must expect to
be thus exploited, and to have to buy retail while he sells
wholesale. Unfortunately, too, even when he buys
retail he does not always get good value for his money.
During a visit to some of the dairy districts in
Yorkshire, I met a farmer who had very strong views
on this particular question. ' The amount wasted by
British farmers in their purchase of feeding-stuffs,' he
said, ' would have sufficed to buy up all the land there
is in the country,' and he went on to tell me a story
that was full of significance. He had induced some
other farmers in his neighbourhood to join him in
forming a society, one of the main objects of which
was to enable them to purchase their feeding-stuffs in
large quantities, according to a guaranteed analysis
which they were careful to check. One day his society
refused acceptance from a manufacturer of 1,000 tons
of cake, not of the stipulated quality, and, as a matter
of curiosity, he asked the manufacturer : ' What shall

EXPLOITING THE FARMER 167

you do with it ?' ' Oh,' was the reply, ' I shall send
it to some place where they know nothing about
analysis.'

In this same district I found there were dairy-farmers,
not members of the society in question, who were
spending £300 or £400 a year on cake — more than they
paid for rent. They judged of the value of the cake by
the effect it had on the animals (never troubling to ask
for analyses, which they would not have understood),
and they bought through some neighbour, who knew
as little about analysis as they did themselves, but who
got a commission from the manufacturers on the orders
he secured.

In regard to manures, seeds, and other things besides,
the victimizing of the British agriculturist has been
carried on quite as relentlessly as in the case of feeding-
stuffs. But, even when the commodities supplied are
thoroughly honest, it stands to reason that a group
of farmers, giving one big order, should be able to make
better terms, especially if they can deal direct with a
manufacturer, than if each bought separately through an
agent or a shopkeeper.

It was considerations such as these, combined with
the lessons taught by what was being done in other
countries, that led to the formation, in April, 1901, of the
Agricultural Organization Society, the headquarters of
which are at Dacre House, Dacre Street, Westminster,
S.W. The society has since had a very sturdy fight in
endeavouring to overcome the prejudices of generations,
in seeking to convert to new ideas and new methods a
class of men notoriously averse to change, and in trying to
place British agriculture itself, so far as circumstances
permit, on a more thoroughly commercial and practical
basis. It required courage to attempt such things as
these, especially when others had failed before ; but the

1 68 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

society has had excellent leaders in its president,
Mr. R. A. Yerburgh ; its chairman of committee, the
Hon. T. A. Brassey ; and its members of committee,
including Lord Wenlock, Mr. C. Adeane, Mr. A. Brig-
stocke, Mr. N. Buxton, Mr. E. J. Cheney, the Rev. G.
F. Eyre, Mr. H. C. Fairfax - Cholmeley, Mr. W. Fitz-
herbert - Brockholes, Colonel C. W. Long, Mr. Rouse
Orlebar, and Mr. H. W. Wolff, with the most energetic
of secretaries in Mr. J. Nugent Harris.

The progress made in the short time which has
elapsed since the formation of this society is indicated
by the fact that the number of local organizations
affiliated with the central body in the autumn of 1905
was no, the total being made up as follows : Societies
established for the supply of requirements and sale of
produce, 76 ; dairy, bottled milk, and cheese-making, 9 ;
rural industries, 4 ; allotments and small holdings, 4 ;
village credit societies, n ; auction market, i ; fruit-
grading, i ; motor service societies, 2 ; County Pig
Insurance Association (which already includes forty-
four branches), i ; Agricultural Co-operative Federation,
Limited, I.*

There is, of course, still vast scope for the energies of
the society, if the entire country is to be covered with
a network of organization. The principle adopted,
however, has been that of ' slow but sure '; care has
been taken to make the foundations firm, solid, and
comprehensive, and the rate of actual progress has
been fully equal to the somewhat limited resources of a
society that, as one conferring a real benefit on the
agricultural interests of the country, is deserving of a

* In October, 1905, the formation of a Scottish Agricultural
Organization Society was decided on at a meeting held in Dowell's
Rooms, Edinburgh, under the presidency of Sir John Gilmour,
Bart., various guarantors having put down their names for a total
of ^93° for the next three years.

PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT 169

much greater measure of public support and encourage-
ment.

The Agricultural Organization Society itself is mainly
a propagandist body, but in 1904 it formed an ' Advisory
Business Department,' and in the autumn of 1905 this
department was developed into an 'Agricultural Co-
operative Federation,' the purpose of which is to group
the orders of the different societies in the same way as
the societies group the orders of their members. By
this time, in fact, the difficulties at first experienced in
regard to collective trading had been mainly sur-
mounted. Manufacturers who, at the outset, refused
to have any direct dealings with the societies are now
surrendering to the logic of exceptionally big orders —
as well they may, considering that the turnover of the
various local bodies affiliated with the Agricultural
Organization Society is already close on £250,000 a
year.

The Agricultural Co-operative Federation now, in
fact, gets wholesale merchants' prices and discounts,
representing much more favourable terms than those
on which the largest of individual farmers could pur-
chase— even if such individual farmers were in every
case able to deal with the manufacturers at all. On
this point I may relate a story told to me by a certain
' large ' farmer. He is a purchaser of feeding-stuffs to
the value of over £1,000 a year, and he had bought
for a long time through an agent. Becoming dissatis-
fied with that person, he applied to the manufacturers
to be allowed to buy direct from them. They agreed,
and fulfilled one order ; but there was delay with the
second. He then found that the agent had threatened
the manufacturers that he would withdraw all his
business from them if they persisted in direct dealings
with the farmer in question. In the result the manu-

i;o AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

facturers surrendered to the agent, through whom the
farmer had to send in his orders as before. Had the
farmer in question been a member of an agricultural
society for combined purchase, and had this society
formed part of a powerful combination, it is certain that
the agent would not have gained so easy a victory. In
any case, the incident is significant as showing the
position in which even a large farmer may be placed
when he stands alone. It also shows how a large firm
of manufacturers may be forced into a humiliating
position by the action of an agent to whom they find
themselves tied.

Under the new regime in agriculture a group of
societies — twenty, thirty, or more in number — will each
get to know from the members their individual require-
ments in respect, say, to fertilizers, and each will thus
announce to the federation the total quantity it needs.
Some will want as little as 10 tons, others will want
250 or 500 tons, so that a i,ooo-ton order can soon be
made up. On the strength of such an order as this,
the federation has no difficulty in finding a manufac-
turer who is ready to concede the most favourable
terms, delivering as may be required, for cash down.
In the result the manufacturer is saved a great amount
of trouble, and he avoids having to wait six or nine
months for his money. As for the societies, the one
that orders 10 tons buys at the same price as the one
that orders 500 ; while the smallest individual purchaser
in the group pays as little as the largest, and he further
pays less in proportion than the buyer, however ' large,'
who is not in the combination. The purchases, again,
are made on the basis of a guaranteed analysis, and are
subject to close supervision.

Not only have the leading British manufacturers
of artificial manures been won over to the side of the

ATTITUDE OF MANUFACTURERS 171

societies, but they recognise that the important
educational results of the co-operative movement must
lead to the agriculturists of the country having a keener
appreciation of the value of scientific farming, in which
case there will naturally be an increased demand for
fertilizers. In one instance a prominent manufacturer
has intimated his readiness to show practical sympathy
with what is being done by supplying, free of charge,
the manures necessary for the conduct of field experi-
ments carried out with a view to promoting the technical
knowledge of agriculturists. Such instances of sym-
pathy as this, on the part of manufacturers, are the
more remarkable because, under the influence of com-
bination among agriculturists, the era of high-priced
special manures is rapidly passing away, and one of
lower rates (for commodities equally as good) is taking
its place.

The federation is also able to obtain feeding-stuffs
in bulk on the most advantageous terms. It has
arranged with certain trustworthy firms to supply seeds
of guaranteed quality and germinating power at rates
substantially lower than those at which they could be
purchased before ; while in the purchase of agricultural
implements and machinery it secures discounts ranging
from 15 to 30 per cent. Everything, in fact, that a
farmer may want is now to be obtained through the
federation, and good results ought to follow from the
facilities thus offered for securing that decrease in ' cost
of production ' which, on a small margin of profit, may
make all the difference between a gain and a loss.
The federation, however, has been formed so recently
that at present certain of the societies are still buying
on their own account.

^ Of the various local societies affiliated with the Agri-
cultural Organization Society, the Eastern Counties

172 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Farmers' Co-operative Association is deserving of
special attention alike because of the rapidity of its
development, and because it constitutes a combination
especially of 'large' farmers, thus setting aside the
general assumption that, while combination may be
highly desirable from the point of view of small pro-
ducers, there is no need for it in the operations of those
who can already buy or sell in substantial quantities.

The association was registered so recently as
March 23, 1904. The headquarters are at Ipswich,
and on the occasion of my visit there, at the end of
November, 1905, I learned that the association had
then 300 members, who represented a total of 110,000
acres, and a total farming capital of from £700,000 to
£800,000, the individual holdings ranging from 50 to
4,000 acres. I learned also that the association started
with the hope of working up a turnover of £10,000 a
year ; that it secured one of £15,000 within the first
twelve months ; that a total of £50,000 or £60,000 was
confidently expected for the second year ; and that
during the aforesaid month of November the business
done was at the rate of £130,000 a year. Such had
been the immediate outcome of twenty months'
operations.

The objects of the association, as set forth in the
registered rules, are :

To carry on the industry or occupation of wholesale and retail
dealers in agricultural requirements and produce, in dairy produce,
eggs and poultry ; commission agents ; dealers in farm and garden
produce, with power to purchase or hire pedigree stock ; also
general dealers in any other class of goods the committee may
direct. The society may obtain and disseminate among its
members useful information in order to foster, develop, and
promote the agricultural organization movement in Great Britain
upon the same successful lines which have obtained in Ireland ;
and may make advances to members for reproductive or economic
purposes on security approved by the committee, and may do all
things necessary or expedient for the accomplishing of its object.

A 'LARGE' FARMERS' COMBINATION 173

The capital is raised by shares of the nominal value
of 53., and one share has to be taken for every 10 acres,
or part of 10 acres, in the occupation of a person
desirous of becoming a member. One-fourth of each
share (is. 3d.) is paid on application. The balance
may be called up, but the association does not expect
that any further call will be necessary ' for some time
to come, if at all.1 The business done, as indicated
above, has, indeed, been effected on a called-up capital
of only about £600, this sum having, it is said, ' proved
ample for requirements.' A member incurs no liability
beyond that of having to pay up, if called upon, the
shares for which he has subscribed, so that the financial
responsibilities of a member farming 100 acres do not
exceed £2 los. The first charge upon net profits is
payment of interest at 5 per cent, on the paid-up
capital, such interest being added to the share capital
until the nominal value thereof has been attained.
The average profit aimed at is 2 \ per cent., that amount
having been found sufficient to cover all working
expenses and interest on share capital, and to allow a
substantial sum to be placed to the reserve fund.

The association has a committee of management of
twenty-one, including some of the largest and most
advanced farmers of the district ; and, as showing the
practical interest they take in the work, I may mention
that the attendance at a committee meeting, out of the
total membership of twenty-one, is generally about
nineteen. Then there is a trading committee of ten,
whose members supervise the purchase of all require-
ments, and are careful to supply the highest quality of
goods at the lowest possible price. There is also a
finance committee of seven. The operations of the
trading committee are supplemented by the services
of two managers, one of whom takes charge of the

174 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Ipswich depot (conveniently situated in immediate
proximity to the cattle-market), while the other devotes
much of his time to attendance at various markets in
the Eastern Counties — Ipswich, Saxmundham, Wood-
bridge, Beccles, and Norwich — where he meets mem-
bers and transacts business with, or for, them, supple-
mented by visits to Mark Lane.

Although only a few examples are to be seen at the
Ipswich depot, the operations in regard to purchase
for members embrace every possible requisite likely to
be wanted either by an individual farmer or in the
management of an estate. Thus, while a farmer can
buy, through the association, agricultural machinery or
implements, feeding-stuffs, seeds of all kinds, manures,
coal, binder - twine, sacks, or anything else he wants
(the goods being consigned to him direct from the
makers, or, in the case of coal, from the collieries), the
estate agent can procure, in the same way, forest-trees,
glazed pipes, bricks, hardware, paint, and so on, in
almost endless variety. The association has become,
in fact, a sort of * universal provider ' of agricultural
requisites, and it claims that, by purchasing in bulk,
by knowing where and how to get the best terms, and
by always paying cash, and getting cash from members
within twenty-eight days, it can and does supply most
things at a substantially cheaper rate than even ' large '
farmers could purchase them for themselves, while
offering, also, a greater guarantee in regard to quality.

One of the chief advantages it secures is in dealing
direct with manufacturers. At first (as already indi-
cated in connection with the Agricultural Organization
Society) some difficulty was experienced in this respect,
but certain manufacturers who would not recognise
the Eastern Counties Association in 1904 were keen
enough to get its orders in 1905. As regards the

HOW FARMERS CAN SAVE 175

farmers, they effect a substantial saving by obtaining
their requirements through the association. Coal, for
instance, is naturally got at a lower price direct from
a colliery than through local dealers, and when the
association takes 15 tons of binder-twine from a manu-
facturer on a single order, it can well offer advantages
to members who have previously bought their 2, 3, or
5 cwt. at a time, according to requirements. There is
all the difference, in such instances as these, between
wholesale and retail, and no cause for surprise remains
that even the largest of farmers in the Eastern
Counties should have readily joined the association,
or that the most far-seeing of manufacturers should be
hastening to secure for themselves a business that
promises to become exceptionally important. Such
is the chairman's own conviction of the practical
utility of the organization, that, in the course of the
conversation I had with him at Ipswich, he said to me :
' I am convinced that if any working farmer in the
Eastern Counties, farming anything up to 100 acres,
were to do the whole of his business through the
association, both buying and selling, he would save
enough money to pay the larger proportion, if not the
whole, of his rent.'

Nor have the benefits been shared exclusively by the
members. The further effect of the competition repre-
sented by the association's proceedings has been to
reduce prices generally, and non-members have been
able to purchase goods from the ordinary traders at
lower rates than they have ever done before, although
in some instances they have not generally recognised
that it is combination which has brought this about.
Presumably, in the very unlikely event of the combi-
nation collapsing, the prices would at once be raised
again.

176 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

In addition to purchasing for its members, the asso-
ciation sells for them. It acts in the capacity of
commission agent ; and its experts, keeping in close
touch with the different markets, are cffen able to
make much better bargains for the members than
they could make for themselves. In this way the
association sells a good deal of corn for members, some
of whom, perhaps, are unable to go to market, or wish
to be saved the trouble of so doing. In one period of
seven weeks the association sold for its members 2,000
quarters of different kinds of corn. A good deal of
seed is disposed of for them in like manner. Here,
again, is an incident that offers food for reflection : A
certain farmer, who is not a member, asked one of the
managers to dispose of some blue peas for him, saying
he would take 363. a quarter for them. The manager
sold them in London at 425. a quarter. The farmer
was paid 2s. a quarter over and above the price at
which he had been willing to sell, and even then there
was left for the association a profit of £6 155., which
(less commission) would also have gone into the
farmer's pocket had he been a member. On still
another occasion a cargo of beans was sold direct
to a wholesale purchaser in Scotland, instead of to
a local middleman, a benefit of is. to 2s. a quarter
being thus secured for the members concerned.

Then, in the case of pigs, which are produced on
a very large scale in Suffolk, the breeders at one time
used to send their animals to the local markets in such
quantities that the supply exceeded the demand, and
prices would fall accordingly. The association avoids
this result by engaging the services of a pig expert, who
not only knows everything about pigs that is worth
knowing, but ke^ps acquainted with the condition of
all the leading pig-markets throughout the country, so

ADVANTAGES OF COMBINED SALE 177

that he is much better qualified than the average
member would be to say where any particular lot of
animals should be sent, with the prospect of securing
the best results. Such is the extension which this
particular branch of the association's business has
undergone that the turnover in pigs alone now exceeds
£3,000 a month.

In these various ways not only has much already
been done in the short time the association has been
in existence, but almost every day opens out to the
managers the possibility of new developments ; and
within the next few years the Eastern Counties Farmers'
Co-operative Association should assume proportions
of very considerable magnitude indeed. Meanwhile, it
constitutes a valuable object-lesson for 'large' farmers
in general. One theory I have seen propounded in
regard to the migration of labourers from the country
to the towns is that, owing to the present low prices,
the farmers are unable to pay higher wages. If, it is
said, the farmers could afford to give a higher wage, the
labourers would stop. Should this be really the case,
then all that the farmers require to do in order to solve
the problem is to form themselves into co-operative
associations on the lines of the one in the Eastern
Counties.

Concerning another important society affiliated with
the Agricultural Organization Society I shall speak in
the chapter that follows.

12

CHAPTER XIV
BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

IN the Yorkshire village of Brandsby, situate fourteen
miles from the city of York and five miles from Easing-
wold, there are being quietly worked out, in a most
practical and effective manner, a number of problems
closely connected with present-day conditions in British
agriculture, including (i) the labour question, (2) the
cottage question, (3) the possibility of promoting com-
bination among farmers of a well-to-do type engaged in
ordinary farming operations, and (4) the improvement of
rural transport facilities, so that a locality situate some
distance from a main line of railway can be assured
regular, efficient, and economical communication there-
with. How these various questions have been met by
the combined efforts of the Squire of Brandsby, the local
co-operative agricultural society, and the North-Eastern
Railway Company, is the more worth the telling inas-
much as Brandsby is rapidly becoming a sort of Mecca
for students of the ' forward ' policy of agricultural pro-
gressives.

Brandsby parish comprises about 3,000 acres, and is
practically owned by Mr. Hugh C. Fairfax- Cholmeley,
only from 100 to 200 acres, besides the glebe, belong-
ing to other persons. The population is some 300
in all. Generally speaking, the farms range from

178

FARMERS AND LABOURERS 179

100 to 300 acres, and several of these have been held
by the same family on ordinary twelve months' agree-
ments for generations. In one instance, at least, the
farm has been so held since the early part of the
eighteenth century. Some of the tenants on the estate
are evidently men possessed of considerable capital, and
there are signs of one or two among them having means
independent of their farms.

A tradition of good farming has prevailed at Brandsby
since the latter part of the eighteenth century. Early
in the nineteenth a noted breeder of shorthorns,
Mr. Samuel Wiley, lived on the estate, and the president
to-day of the Brandsby Agricultural Trading Society,
Mr. J. Maskill Strickland, is known as a very successful
breeder of pedigree stock, both shorthorn cattle and
Lincoln sheep.

The system of employment of farm-labour at Brandsby
is similar to that which prevails generally in the North
Riding of Yorkshire. The farmers engage men at
' hirings ' for the year, or for six months, as the case
may be, on the basis of so much wage in cash and
board and lodging in the farmhouse. Under this
system the land is cultivated mainly by a bachelor
population, which migrates annually. From a social
standpoint the system is distinctly bad. It offers no
future to the farm-labourer worth considering ; it leads,
among other causes, to a scarcity of cottages, so that
when a man wants to marry he has great difficulty in
finding a place in which to live ; and in most cases it
keeps the head man at the farm, even when he might
otherwise settle down in an establishment of his own.
In the circumstances it is not surprising to learn that
much trouble is now experienced in finding men who
are willing to ' hire ' as farm- labourers. They prefer to
go to the towns.

12—2

i8o BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

Mr. Fairfax-Cholmeley was much struck by the evils
of this system when, after succeeding to the estate in
1889, ne to°k up his residence at Brandsby, and he
began to think how they could best be met. In the
course of time circumstances favoured him in the in-
creasing difficulty in procuring farm-labour, and he then
built a few cottages near the farmhouses, as an experi-
ment in the way of settling married couples in their
own dwellings, instead of depending on ' farm lads,' as
they were called, living on the farm premises. He was
the more induced to adopt this course by the fact that
one or two existing cottages were occupied by men who
had worked on certain farms for over ten years without
changing places ; and he believed that by judicious
management it would be possible to get into cottages,
in course of time, a permanent resident population of
agricultural labourers.

The immediate outcome of this experiment has been
the construction on the estate of eight cottages, of
which one stands by itself, four are in pairs, and three
are in a row. In designing these cottages Mr. Fairfax-
Cholmeley paid particular regard to appearances and
appropriateness to the surrounding countryside — a con-
sideration, I may add, to which he has especially done full
justice in his own most picturesque dwelling at Brandsby.
In order, however, to secure economy as well, it was
necessary, in the case of the cottages, to adhere to great
simplicity — and even severity — of treatment. But here
Mr. Fairfax-Cholmeley had the advice and assistance
in architectural treatment of, at one time, Mr. Detmar
Blow, and, subsequently, of Mr. Alfred H. Powell, both
of whom are well known for their sympathetic applica-
tion of the best spirit and traditions of English rural
architecture tomodern estate buildings. Though certain
details which are too often considered to add to the

THE COTTAGE QUESTION 181

' artistic effect ' of cottages — and undoubtedly add to
the cost of construction — have been omitted, Mr. Fair-
fax-Cholmeley holds that his plans are aesthetically
sound ; and this I may say, on my own account, after
visiting some of the cottages in question, that they are
admirably arranged and are much appreciated by the
occupants, who naturally attach more importance to
internal comfort than to external decoration.

I may add, in this connection, that the success of
the experiment thus made at Brandsby has led Mr.
Fairfax- Cholmeley to devise a model plan for labourers'
cottages, which he can build for £"150 each. They
comprise a living-room, a good-sized scullery, and three
bedrooms, each with a fireplace ; but their designer
has now decided that in future he will add a ' parlour '
to the cottages. He is convinced, from his experience
with cottagers, that there is real use for such a room.
The labourer's wife takes pride in it as a place into
which, say, the vicar's wife or other visitors can be
taken ; and, among other purposes, she finds it very
convenient, when ironing, to put the white frocks there
temporarily, instead of leaving them about in the living-
room. The parlour is also of great service when the
kitchen is too hot in the summer ; when accommoda-
tion is wanted for an invalid, for a nurse, or for a
bedridden member of the family ; and also, in the
event of death occurring in the household, as a place
where the coffin may be placed pending the funeral.
For these and other reasons a parlour is appreciated
so much by the average labourer's wife that the Squire
of Brandsby has decided in favour of adding one to
any further cottages he may build, especially as he
finds that the extra room can be arranged for with but
a slight change in the plans and at only a slightly
enhanced cost.

i8a BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

The provision of comfortable cottages is undoubtedly
the first indispensable requisite in any well-considered
scheme for inducing the labourer to stop on the land.
It assures him home life. But there is the question of
village life as well. In this direction Mr. Fairfax-
Cholmeley established at Brandsby a reading-room,
or village club, which is now managed entirely by the
members. Any local resident is eligible for member-
ship on payment of a subscription of one shilling
per quarter. The club is located in one of a row of
cottages, and, though quite unpretending in appearance,
it fully answers the desired purpose as a centre for
social converse. It is affiliated to the Working Men's
Club and Institute Union, and is well supplied with
literature from the lending library of that institution.

There is also at Brandsby a public bath-house,
which was erected in commemoration of the Diamond
Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The internal fittings were
provided by public subscriptions after it had been
handed over by Mr. Fairfax- Cholmeley to the Parish
Council, which body now maintains it, at a very small
cost to the local rates. There are in the small building
two hot and cold water baths, available once a week
for men, and once a week for women and children.
No charge is made for their use, but the bathers have
to provide their own soap and towels.

In these various directions there were introduced
into the parish new conditions directly bearing on the
daily life of the farm-labourers whom it was desirable
to retain, and it was, indeed, these labourers who were
mostly concerned therein. Of small holders (as distinct
from the allotments held by the labourers themselves)
there are only seven or eight on the estate, and these
farm from 7 to 25 acres each, though all have some
other occupation besides. One is a carrier, one is

VILLAGE LIFE: ORGANIZATION 183

postmaster, one a quarryman, two are blacksmiths, and
two do carting and odd jobs for various employers.
It is, in fact, assumed that, where general farming is
followed, holdings of this size cannot be made to
support a man and his family in the district in ques-
tion unless they are supplemented by work in other
directions.

We come now to the question of organization ; and
here I would venture to repeat what Mr. Fairfax-
Cholmeley has been good enough to tell me in regard
to his own experiences :

When I first came to live at Brandsby, in 1890, it would have
been difficult to find a more conservative and unprogressive place
throughout England, or one where the circumstances were more
uncongenial to the establishment of a co-operative agricultural
society. The very fact of the comfortable circumstances of the
leading farmers was in itself a hindrance, for this only made them
the less ready to put themselves out by forsaking their old ways for
new, where others less well to do, and perhaps pinched by necessity,
might have been ready to clutch at any straw to save themselves
from ruin. Their long establishment in a remote parish also
tended to make them take unkindly to new ideas, and the size of
their farming operations was sufficiently large to make the
immediate advantages of combined purchase of comparatively
small value, unless it meant something more than being able to
buy a truckload at a time. Moreover, the competition of com-
mercial agents in the local market at Easingwold was keen. The
beginning of a new movement like agricultural co-operation in such
circumstances was, therefore, particularly difficult, and one might
fairly conclude that success here would warrant our expecting
success in any other place.

The first stepping-stone to the conspicuous success
that did finally reward persistent effort was the
establishment of a co-operative dairy by a body then
called 'The Brandsby Dairy Association, Limited.'
This was in the early nineties. At that time the only
other co-operative dairy in the country was the Skelldale
Dairy, near Ripon, and the idea of co-operation for
such purposes was practically unknown to the farmers
of the country. The Brandsby district, too, was not

184 BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

a dairy one, and it was, therefore, especially difficult to
get the farmers to take any interest in the movement.
The view of Mr. Fairfax-Cholmeley, however, was that,
if they could once be won over to feel interest in any
co-operative enterprise of their own, they would be
familiarized with general principles and methods, and
good results might be expected to follow.

When, subsequently, the Agricultural Organization
Society (with which the Brandsby movement became
affiliated) got into active operation, local societies began
to spring up in different parts of the country, and the
general advance then encouraged the Brandsby Dairy
Association to engage a manager from Ireland, and
undertake both the purchase of requirements for farmers
and the sale of their produce. Great difficulty was
experienced at first in persuading any traders in
agricultural requisites to give the association trade
terms. The idea of co-operation was still comparatively
new, and the members of the association were regarded
by the wholesale houses as mere amateurs. But, as
the movement spread more and more, and the local
trade in various commodities increased, it became
obvious that the association would have to be taken
seriously, and firms which had formerly declined to
accept orders now began to solicit them.

The principles on which the Brandsby society acted
in regard to co-operative purchase were thus explained
to me by Mr. Fairfax-Cholmeley:

When we began the purchase of farm requirements we con-
centrated our attention on the feeding-cake trade. Farmers in the
district had been in the habit of buying their linseed and cotton
cakes without very much knowledge of the way to test their value.
Linseed cake, sold as ' 95 per cent, pure,' with the name of the
merchant stamped on it, was taken very much on faith, with such
rough tests as appearance or taste. A definite guarantee of the
amount of oil and albuminoids contained was not considered, and
was rarely given by the vendor. Hence, the comparative value of

CO-OPERATIVE PURCHASE 185

different cakes was only arrived at in the most haphazard manner,
and there is very little doubt that the farmers, as a whole, were not
getting value for their money. Such a system, of course, was all
in favour of the vendors of inferior cake, which could be sold at
lower prices to cut out the better quality, though the lower price
might be very much dearer in reality than the higher price of the
better quality. I was very strong on this point, and worked hard
to get the necessary information, and impress its importance upon
the committee. In the result there is no doubt whatever that one
of the greatest benefits the society has conferred on the district has
been the general improvement of the quality of cake and other
commodities now purchased by those dealing with the society, and
even also by many others in the neighbourhood who have profited
by the general improvement of the outside market. I consider this
of far greater importance than any of the reductions in prices that
have occurred.

By 1904 the dairy, which, as I have said, was started
as a stepping-stone, had become the least important
phase of the society's work, though the cream chiefly
produced in the dairy was still sold in various towns.
Besides the dairy the society now had a general store
in Brandsby village, a warehouse rented from the
North-Eastern Railway at Gilling Station, four miles
distant, and a coal-cell at the same station. The
warehouse was used for cake and other goods which
might be taken on to Brandsby by carts conveying
consignments to the railway, and otherwise returning
empty.

In October, 1904, came the arrangement under which
the North-Eastern Railway Company provided a motor-
waggon service between their Tollerton station and
Brandsby, for the conveyance, in one direction, of
farmers' requirements from the railway, and, in the other
direction, of farmers' produce for consignment by rail.
But, as was explained at the time, the railway company
could make this arrangement only with an organized
body of farmers, and on the association undertaking, in
their turn, (i) to erect a depot at Brandsby, (2) to act as
agents for the district, and (3) to superintend and work

186 BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

up the traffic generally. The advantages, of course,
were mutual. The farmers gained by having their
cartage work done at substantially lower rates, and
without wear and tear of horseflesh, and the railway
company expected to gain an increase in traffic.

The business done by the motor-waggons (which
serve intermediate villages as well) has, indeed, been
substantial and most progressive. The increase in the
volume of traffic carried is shown by the fact that the
tonnage during the month of November, 1905, was
285, against 89 in the corresponding month of 1904.
The experiment made by the North-Eastern Railway
Company in putting on the road-motor service has thus
had most encouraging results, and it has further shown
that such services may serve an extremely useful pur-
pose in the case of villages off the beaten track of rail
communication, and not having sufficient traffic to
warrant the building of a branch line of railway. The
road-motor has now established itself as an economical
but effective substitute, and other railway companies
are adopting it in various parts of the country where
conditions analogous to those at Brandsby exist.*

On the general question as to the role that the road-
motor is likely to play in the future development of
rural districts, by acting as a connecting-link between
the railways and organized agricultural societies, I may
quote the following from an article on * The Motor in
the Villages : How it may Influence Co-operation,'

* The Great Western Railway Company run a similar motor
service in the Teme Valley (Worcestershire) in connection with a
co-operative agricultural association formed there in conjunction
with the Agricultural Organization Society, in order to work up and
supervise the traffic. The service runs between Henwick Station
and the association's depots at Ham Bridge, Stamford Bridge, New
Mill Bridge, Shelsley Walsh, and Clifton-on-Teme. The amount
of traffic carried has exceeded expectations, and the farmers are
greatly benefited by the arrangement.

MOTOR-WAGGON SERVICES 187

published in the Co-operative News of December 2,
1905:

There is good reason to think that the motor may yet prove a
potent agent in promoting that co-operative organization which is
believed by many to be essential to the development of small
holdings and the restoration of agricultural prosperity. We are
not now thinking of the fashionable car . . . but of the industrial
car, which is to solve some of our greatest transit problems, as
they concern both passengers and goods. ... In England many
of the sparsely-populated regions which are off the main route are
retarded in their development by their inaccessibility, and the
lack of facilities for the rapid and prompt transmission of
produce. . . . The chief hope of the producers of marketable
commodities in such districts as these is centred in the self-
propelled motor vehicle where there is no prospect of the construc-
tion of light railways. . . .

By its aid distances will be diminished and time will be saved ;
hamlets will be brought into touch with the villages, and the
villages will be linked up with the towns. The lives of the people
will be quickened, and new opportunities of usefulness opened out
to them, and rural activities will be stimulated in a way which has
not hitherto been possible. The countryside will be less isolated,
and better worth living in, and its industries will be assisted so
that its prosperity will increase. This is not a poetic dream, but
a practical forecast. Already the signs of its realization are on
every hand. . . .

But to reap the fullest advantage of the new means of transport,
it is necessary that the producers in a district should organize
themselves and co-operate to send their goods to market in the
most economical way. One example will suffice. The North-
Eastern Railway Company, which has shown itself very sympa-
thetic towards the efforts of traders to consign in bulk, started a
motor goods service between Tollerton Station and the village of
Brandsby. This was done at the wish of the Brandsby Dairy and
Trading Association, which receives the goods, organizes the
traffic, and acts as forwarding agent. Other examples of similar
working could be given, and many of the market-growers in the
home counties have co-operated to this extent for the rapid and
economical transport of their produce. Where the willingness is
shown to make use of it sagaciously, the heavy motor must come
as a boon and a blessing to agriculture and gardening, and to
every other rural employment which depends on quick marketing.
This may not be a complete cure for all the diseases of agriculture,
but it must be beneficial in its effects, and may do much to restore
rural activity. One of its immediate results will be to quicken the
interest of the rural people in that practical co-operation in dis-
tribution, as well as in some forms of production, which has placed
Holland and Denmark foremost among the producers of some of

i88 BRANDSBY SHOWS THE WAY

our most valuable foodstuffs. And when the motor has built up,
as it must build up in time, an interesting trade and expanded
production, whereby many of those now derelict in the towns may
be drawn back to industry and a wholesome life, its potentialities
as an agent of economic and social progress will be in some
measure realized.

A new department of the growing business of the
Brandsby Association was added in April, 1905, when
an old water-mill was rented for the grinding of corn
for farm use. A considerable trade is done in household
flour ; large farmers, small farmers, and farm-labourers
can alike purchase their coal at the society's depot at
lower rates than they ever paid before ; in fact, almost
everything a farmer requires, down to the beer for
his harvesters, can be obtained from the new and
commodious stores built at Brandsby in 1905, alongside
the depot already constructed for the accommodation
of the motor-waggons and as a warehouse for the
bulkier goods. The growth in the trade done in the
agricultural department is sufficiently indicated by the
following figures :

TRADE OF AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.

£ s. d.

October, 1904 ... 69 i n
November, 1904 ... 157 12 7

£ *• d.

October, 1905 ... 228 9 5
November, 1905 ... 245 i 5

So the long years of struggle at Brandsby to place
agricultural conditions there on a better footing, and
especially to secure due acceptance for the principles of
effective combination, have led to a degree of success
on which Mr. Fairfax-Cholmeley, and those who have
aided him in carrying on that struggle, may be warmly
congratulated. The scheme, in its various phases, was
well thought out from the first ; it has been developed
with much tact along essentially practical lines ; and
now that Brandsby has shown the way, other rural
districts, similarly situated, should have no hesitation
in following so excellent a lead.

CHAPTER XV
CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-GRADING

THERE is still another example I should like to offer
of the lines on which effective combination can be
developed.

One of the weakest points in the system — or, rather,
lack of system — generally followed by the British
producer in sending his commodities to market is the
absence of, as a rule, any attempt at effective grading.
This fault is especially to be found in regard to fruit.
Different qualities, of all shapes and sizes, and in all
conditions, down (in the case of apples) to bruised
windfalls, are often to be found mixed up together in
the most haphazard fashion in a single box, barrel, or
hamper. English fruit thus gets a bad name, and is
avoided by large purchasers. On the other hand,
foreign fruit — especially Canadian and American —
arrives in such condition that, as the manager of a large
hotel once said, * If I give an order for a particular
brand, I can depend on receiving as much as I want,
all of the same sort, practically all of the same size,
and all in good condition, without there being any need
for me to look at it first. I would much rather buy
English-grown fruit if I could,' added the gentleman in
question, ' but, under present conditions, I am bound to
prefer the supplies from abroad.'

189

igo CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-GRADING

In Canada so much importance is attached to the
grading of apples, and the branding of packages with
well-defined descriptive marks, that a Fruit Marks
Act has been passed, which makes this system com-
pulsory on all fruit exporters, severe penalties for
neglect of the law being enacted. Canada, in fact, is
even keener than the United States in her efforts to
supply our markets with apples, and English growers
will have to bestir themselves, and take prompt action
in their own interests, if they want to do anything more
than supply merely local markets.

Happily a very practical effort is being made to meet
the situation by the establishment of the Hereford
Co-operative Fruit-grading Society, Limited — a body
whose objects and operations deserve the consideration
of British fruit-growers in general. The formation of
this society, in the autumn of 1905, was the outcome
of two papers read by Mr. H. P. Bulmer and Mr. J.
Read, before the Hereford Fruit-growers' Association, of
which Mr. John Riley is president. In those papers
emphasis was laid on the importance of securing some
business organization which would enable the growers
to get a better return on their fruit, especially in view
of the fall in prices following on the glut of apples in
1904. The great object to be aimed at was the effect-
ing of a system of grading, under which foreign or
colonial competition could be met on its own lines ; and
in the result, the formation of a Co-operative Fruit-
grading Society, in affiliation with the Agricultural Or-
ganization Society, was decided upon, Mr. H. P. Bulmer
being elected to the position of chairman.

The special purposes which the society has in view
are thus expressed on the prospectus that was issued :

To enable any person, from the smallest cottager to the largest
fruit-grower, to dispose of his fruit at the minimum of expense and
the maximum of profit.

ACTION AT HEREFORD 191

To advertise and make known the excellence of Herefordshire
fruit, by offering it for sale in a reliable and attractive form.

To classify the leading varieties of apples and pears (which have
been proved to be best adapted for this county), and to grade these
varieties into standard brands, according to their season. To
recommend nurserymen and fruit-growers to propagate and grow
these varieties as their main crop.

To offer to the best advantage the many excellent but little
known, named and unnamed, varieties of cooking and dessert
apples of this county, by packing and marking them in distinct
grades of size and quality.

To bring the apples of different growers together, so as to make
up large consignments for market of uniform variety and grade.*

These aims, it will be seen, are essentially practical,
and they are being carried out on very practical lines.
The members send their apples to the society's depot
at Hereford, and the different kinds of fruit are there
divided into four classes for each variety — ' Ai,' which
represent the largest size ; ' ist,' medium size ; ' 2nd,'
small size ; and 'cullings,' the last-mentioned being those
that cannot be sent away as graded apples at all.
When the grading process has been completed, the
quantities which each member has supplied to each
class are credited to him in the books, and the fruit
received is then placed in felt-lined hampers, according
to variety and class, the identity of the individual lots
from different senders being no longer maintained.
From these hampers the apples are taken, and, after
being wrapped each one in a separate paper, they are
packed in 14, 28, or 56 pound boxes, in such a way
that, the contents of any one box being all of the same
size, they present a series of straight lines in either
direction. That, at least, was the case with various
boxes which the manager, Mr. Press, opened for my
inspection at the society's depot.

* The society has also undertaken the combined purchase of
necessaries, including fruit-trees, for members. Not only do the
members gain a further advantage, but employment is found
for the staff in the 'off' season, and the organization is thus kept
together better.

192 CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-GRADING

The sale of the fruit is undertaken by the society,
which disposes of it to salesmen, shopkeepers, or
private customers, and settles with the members accord-
ing to the average price realized each week on the
particular class and variety of fruit to which their
supplies have contributed. The members also have
the prospect of a bonus at the end of the season,
according to the value of the fruit sent in by them.
The year's profits, after payment of working expenses,
will also be divided among the members on the same
basis.

From a marketing point of view this system would
seem to offer all the advantages in respect to grading
that the Canadian and other over-seas growers have
secured for themselves. It should, besides, enable the
society to offer to wholesale purchasers larger and more
regular lots of a particular size and variety of fruit than
the average individual British grower could control,
so that in this way the home-grown fruit ought to
secure a much better position on the market. Then,
the smaller growers, and especially the cottagers,
should derive much benefit from the new arrangements.
However small the quantity of any particular variety
they may send in, it will be added to the collection in
one or other of the various classes for that variety, and
will share with the largest contributions of all in getting
the best market price. Hitherto the small growers and
cottagers (and practically everyone in the Hereford
district grows fruit) have been at the mercy of local
dealers, who buy up their little lots at the door, pay
cash down, and then, getting a profit for themselves,
dispose of the fruit to the same people (more or less) as
those to whom the Co-operative Grading Society would
sell.

Although absolutely in its infancy, and although

RAILWAYS AND TRADERS 193

various initial difficulties — including strong prejudices
on the part of some of the growers — have had to be
overcome, the society has made a very good start. Its
first consignment of fruit was not despatched until
September 17, 1905, yet by the end of the following
November the boxes sent away represented a total of
8,500, the weight of fruit sold being 170 tons. Much
more, I was told, could have been disposed of, if
larger supplies had been available.

The Great Western Railway Company have entered
cordially into the scheme, and have erected, at a cost
of £1,000, for the use of the society, a commodious
two-story depot immediately adjoining the goods siding
at Whitecross Bridge. For this depot the society will
pay a rental of £35 a year. The arrangement is one
that offers obvious advantages both to the society and
to the railway company; but the fact that it should
have been made is sufficiently suggestive of the com-
munity of interest between railways and traders.*

* As a further example of what can be done when the railways
and the traders act together in their mutual interests, I might refer
to the operations of the Newport and District Agricultural
Co-operative Trading Society, Limited. This society was formed
in the autumn of 1904 by farmers on the estate of the Duke of
Sutherland in and around Newport (Salop), with the main idea of
effecting economies alike by purchasing agricultural necessaries in
wholesale lots, and by having them carried on the railway at the
lower rates available for large as compared with small quantities.
The initial difficulty lay in the provision of a depot in which the
goods purchased by the society in bulk could be warehoused until
disposed of among the members ; but this difficulty was surmounted
by the London and North- Western Railway Company undertaking
to erect, at their own cost, a depot immediately adjoining their
Newport Station, and letting it to the society at a moderate rental.
The depot, a building about 25 feet by 18 feet, was duly constructed,
and the society, of which the Duke of Sutherland is president and
Mr. W. E. Stamer chairman of committee, has had a successful
start in the first year of its operations. At the end of 1905 it had
seventy-nine members, and the paid-up share capital was ^340 ; but
arrangements had been made with the bank for an overdraft. The
trading done during the year amounted to over ,£7,000, and the net

13

194 CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-GRADING

The future of this very promising society deserves
to be closely watched, inasmuch as the course adopted
is so obviously a step in the right direction, if the
fruit-growers of the country are to be placed in a better
position to compete with those colonial and foreign
experts in the art of marketing who are now threatening
to supplant them practically altogether.

profit thereon was ^163, allowing of a bonus equal to is. 6d. per
ton on their purchases being given to members, in addition to the
advantages they had already obtained in buying at the outset at
lower prices. Of the depot built for the society by the railway
company the annual report says that it ' more than proved its
utility and convenience, stock being always in hand to meet the
requirements of members.3 The building of similar depots at other
railway-stations in the district is now under consideration. Mean-
while the members of the society are so satisfied that they are
appointing a paid secretary, and taking larger and better offices
for their headquarters in the town.

CHAPTER XVI
MARKETING PROBLEMS

COULD any possible economics in the cost of production
be supplemented by increased returns from sales, even
assuming that the prices paid by the consumer remain
the same ?

One comes here to a whole range of complicated
problems in respect to marketing conditions — problems
that represent the greatest difficulties of the New
Agriculture movement. So much is this the case that
co-operative sale is now generally regarded as the goal,
rather than the starting-point, of that movement. It
is with co-operative purchase of agricultural neces-
saries that the commencement is invariably made, and
not until the lessons to be derived therefrom have been
well learned can the second and more difficult stage
be entered upon. Past conditions of British agricul-
ture and present conditions of our national food-supply
have combined to raise up merchants, agents, and
middlemen of all types, who do not produce, but who
import, buy, sell, and distribute, representing, it may
be, quite a number of profits that are gained between
those who grow and those who consume. This vast
army expects not only to live, but to prosper and grow
rich — if it can — on these intermediate profits, and it
has already lived so long and in many instances become

i95 13—2

ig6 MARKETING PROBLEMS

so powerful, and possessed itself of vested interests so
great, that the British agriculturists who would abolish
it amid cries of * Down with the middleman !' have got
a very stiff job before them.

The special problem as to the precise nature of the
r61e fulfilled by the Distributor, as an intermediary
between the Producer and the Consumer, is one that
may safely be left to the Professors of Economics.
Avoiding any formal disquisition on matters of theory,
and coming at once to the point, I would say that
what Producer and Consumer may well ask for is that
the Distributor element should be either abolished
altogether or, alternatively, kept to an irreducible
minimum. If it cannot be abolished, then at least
let ' Distributor ' be in the singular, rather than
allowed to develop into a word indicating * multitude '
or * number.'

It is obvious, however, that no hard-and-fast line
can be laid down. No general principle can be
established which will apply equally well to all the
different agricultural or kindred industries. Each must
be considered separately. I have shown how British
fruit-growers now deal direct with the British jam-
makers, cutting out the market people on whom the
jam-maker had to rely so long as the home fruit-
grower did not produce in sufficiently large quantities.
I have shown, also, how the milk-producers, by means
of an effective organization, are seeking to avoid the
wholesale man, and open up direct relations with the
retailer. Here it is a case of dispensing with one
Distributor — who is regarded as unnecessary — but
accepting the other, who fulfils a useful role which the
Producer does not care to undertake himself. I have
shown how at Evesham the aim is not only to avoid the
London markets, but to avoid even the large provincial

THE R6LE OF THE DISTRIBUTOR 197

markets, by selling at once to shopkeepers or others in
small towns which previously drew their supplies from
the large markets. Here the Distributor element is
certainly brought to the irreducible minimum — unless
the Evesham growers attempt the formidable task of
opening co-operative retail shops in every town in the
United Kingdom to which their produce is now con-
signed ! It is true that even the shopkeeper is cut
out by the system under which farm produce is for-
warded direct from farm to householder. But this
system must have only a qualified success, because it
is obvious that the householder cannot gauge the
household requirements with such exactitude that the
box from the country will always contain the precise
quantities desired ; and if the local shopkeeper is
abolished, how will the additional supplies that are
wanted be obtained on the spur of the moment ?

Whether or not, therefore, the Distributor should
be recognised, and if so, to what extent, are matters
that depend upon the circumstances of each particular
case. There are certain branches of agricultural pro-
duction in which the ' wholesale ' as well as the ' retail '
element will certainly have to be accepted as unavoid-
able, if not actually desirable ; and it is worth consider-
ing whether in some instances, at least, combination
might not be more effective if it aimed at putting large
supplies into the hands of a wholesale middleman, who
controls a big trade, and can dispose of large quantities
with a minimum of cost and trouble, instead of seeking
to abolish him in his capacity of Distributor-in-Chief.
Certain it is that while individual farmers are sending
off separate boxes to separate householders, wholesale
firms whose turnover may run into several millions a
year are importing butter, bacon, eggs, or other com-
modities by the shipload, and having it carried past

198 MARKETING PROBLEMS

the farmers' doors by the trainload. Obviously, if the
farmers want to meet foreign competition such as this,
the primary necessity is that they should be able to
supply the same produce in equal quantities, and not
content themselves with simply forwarding boxes to
householders.

To this end organization is essential. The produce
of a given number of farmers or others must be so
collected, graded, and packed, that the wholesale
dealer will know he can always get the quantities he
wants, the qualities he wants, and the style of packing
he wants. Accustomed to buying foreign produce
according to ' brands,' so that any possible amount he
receives will be all of identically the same character
and quality, he requires to be assured the same advan-
tages when he buys British produce, instead of having
to examine separately a score or fifty different lots
each time he gives a big order.

It is organization of this kind which has succeeded
so well in foreign countries, and especially on the
Continent. It may be represented either by a co-
operative society or by some firm which undertakes to
do the work on its own account. In either case there
is effective organization, with this difference : where
there is a co-operative society the farmers are their
own collector-distributor, and save an intermediate
profit ; where there is a private firm, those who
constitute it naturally expect a good return for them-
selves, though affording possibly an outlet for the pro-
ducers which the latter might not, individually, and left
to their own resources, be able to secure. But there
is this further important difference between the two
systems : if the producers form a society, and act as
their own middlemen, they have a better chance of
controlling the market, whereas if they sell to the

A DUTCH GROWERS' COMBINE 199

collecting firm they may have to take, in effect, what is
offered them.

It is this possibility of the producer securing a greater
control of the market that is really at the root of the
whole matter. Compared with this essentially practical
question, much of what is said concerning the role of
the Distributor is of purely academical interest.

For an example of what I mean in this connection, I
would refer to what has been done by the colony of
Dutch market-gardeners settled in the Westland district
of the province of South Holland. This colony con-
sists of about 1,400 growers, who occupy between
them some 5,200 acres, of which close on 125 acres
are covered with glass. Ten years ago the wholesale
dealers of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, and other
towns, used to send their agents to Westland, to buy
up the produce from the growers, who, not being well
acquainted with the condition of the markets, or want-
ing to save themselves further trouble, would often let
their stuff go for a much lower price than they should
have had. Alternatively, they contracted in advance to
sell their entire stock at a very low figure to a dealer
who tempted them with a sum down as an instalment,
at a time, perhaps, when they were in want of money.
So, in one way or the other, the growers were in the
hands of the middlemen, while, to make their position
worse, many of them were in the habit either of not
grading their fruit or vegetables properly, or of putting
poor qualities at the bottom of a hamper and good
qualities only on the top.

To remedy this state of things the growers formed
themselves into an association, known as ' Westland,'
and set up local co-operative auction marts, to which
they pledged themselves to send the whole of their pro-
duce. They then gave notice to the wholesale dealers

200 MARKETING PROBLEMS

that in future nothing would be sold to them direct by
the growers, and anything they wanted would have to
be bought at the auction marts. The position of
auctioneer at these marts was generally conferred on
the grower in the district who was held in the greatest
esteem. It brought no fee or commission of any sort,
but was regarded as a post of much honour.

The wholesale dealers were left with no alternative
but to purchase at these marts, and they accepted a
situation which had its advantages even for them, in
the way of bringing supplies to one recognised spot,
although they were now not always able to make such
good bargains as of old. For the growers the impor-
tant result was that the control of the market passed
from the hands of the middlemen into their own. This
fact alone was sufficient to secure for them better prices
than they had had before. Those prices rose still
higher when the combination organized a rigid system
of inspection with a view to guaranteeing that the pro-
duce offered for sale at the marts was of good quality,
properly graded, and of the stated weight, penalties
being imposed on any of the members who offended in
any one of these directions. So, concurrently with the
better prices, the produce got a better name, and at the
international exhibition of food and vegetables held
at Dusseldorf in 1904 nearly all the first prizes for
grapes, other fruits, and vegetables, were secured by
Westlandia in fair and open competition with some
of the best growers of Germany, France, Belgium, and
other countries.

Now the essence of this story is that the Producers
did not seek to abolish the Middleman-distributor :
they controlled him, and with that they have been well
satisfied. They secured better prices, under improved
conditions, for a better class of produce ; and though

THE POSITION IN DEVONSHIRE 201

they still left the middleman to get a profit as well, the
final arrangement was one that suited them better than
if they had sought to carry on the trade themselves
in the different towns where the eventual consumers
dwelt.

Let us compare this story of progress in Holland
with the conditions that exist in Devonshire to-day.
A ' moor ' farmer from the Exmoor district will drive
ten or twelve miles to a market town, such as Exeter,
Honiton, Okehampton, or Newton Abbot, taking with
him, say, four or five fowls, two dozen rabbits,* three
dozen eggs, six or eight pounds of butter, and so on, to
dispose of to some local dealer who is either a shop-
keeper or will be found in the market. The local
dealer makes a mental calculation of what is the least
amount the farmer will be likely to let the things go for,
and he puts down the money, which the farmer pockets
—perhaps, if the dealer is a shopkeeper, spending a
certain proportion of it with him in buying supplies.
The dealer sells the produce again to his own local
customers, if he can, otherwise sending it off in bulk
to the London or other markets.

So profitable, apparently, is this particular kind of
business for the middleman that an active competition
for the moor farmers' supplies has sprung up between
the Devonshire and the London dealers. The latter
find it worth their while to make special journeys to
Devonshire on market-days in order to effect their
purchases, and, to this end, they will even go a short

* Rabbits constitute a noteworthy item in the produce from
Devonshire. During the season commencing September, 1904,
and ending April, 1905, no fewer than 1,724 tons of rabbits were
consigned by the Great Western Railway from the Plymouth and
Exeter districts. On the other hand, the imports of dead rabbits
into the United Kingdom during 1904 represented a total weight
of 26,684 tons, and a value of over .£780,000.

202 MARKETING PROBLEMS

distance beyond the boundaries of such a town as
Honiton, and wait about on the main roads to intercept
the farmers as they drive in, bargaining with them for
their whole stock before they have time to go to the
resident traders.

This practice on the part of the men from London
somewhat interferes with the business of the local shop-
keepers, who are developing an important ' hamper '
trade with householders in various parts of the country.
But the moor farmer himself does not seem to have
realized that the local shopkeeper and the London
trader are alike exploiting him to their personal advan-
tage, and that a little effective combination on the part
of himself and his fellow-producers would enable them
to organize their marketing on better lines, and obtain
better prices for their commodities. They keep to their
present system because it is the one followed by their
fathers, and the one that they themselves were born
into, while the average Devonshire farmer has as great
a dread of letting his neighbour know what he is doing,
in the way of business, as any agriculturist in the
country. Grumble, no doubt, they do at the ' hard
times ' and the ' hard life ' and the conditions of British
agriculture in general ; but the effort they would require
to make in order to change their conditions, and get a
fairer share of profits now absorbed by middlemen
dealers, would take them too far beyond the range of
their habits and ways of thought. It doubtless seems
much easier to follow the lines of least resistance, and
content themselves with grumbling, while the shrewd
traders who live upon them grow rich — more or less —
at their expense.

The superiority of the Westland system over the
Devonshire practice is obvious, though I must admit
that an expedient adopted so successfully in Holland

DUTCH VERSUS ENGLISH CONDITIONS 203

would not necessarily be suited to the whole of our
English conditions. Market-gardening at Evesham,
for instance, offers many contrasts to market-gardening
in Westland. The fact of forty varieties of vegetables,
fruit, and flowers being grown ; the widely different
qualities of each variety produced by individual growers
according to the variations in soil and cultivation ; the
practical impossibility of bringing to one common
centre the enormous quantities of perishables handled,
instead of dealing with them in many different places
at the same time ; the extremely wide-spread distri-
bution that takes place ; and the hopelessness of
expecting that every dealer now getting produce from
Evesham would send his agent there to buy, are
conditions that, combined with the mutual jealousies of
the producers, offer much greater difficulties in the way
of co-operative sale at Evesham than is the case in
Westland, where the varieties are fewer in number,
the qualities more even, and the whole business more
concentrated. The setting up, also, of the two auction
marts at Evesham, private though they be, leaves the
growers much less at the mercy of agents, salesmen,
and buyers than they were before.

All the same, it might be possible to adapt the main
principle of the Westland system to local conditions in
some of the other market-gardening districts in Eng-
land, especially where the growers form convenient
groups, cultivate mainly a few special crops, and
produce on a smaller scale than is the case at Evesham.
Even if the organized body did not actually handle,
grade, and sell the produce grown, it might perform a
most useful function in helping to put the producers
into more direct touch with the retailers, instead of
leaving those retailers to go to the wholesale market to
buy produce that may already have passed through or

204 MARKETING PROBLEMS

near their suburbs, and, further, not only undergone
more handling thereby (thus losing in freshness), but
accumulated a collection of charges in the form of
market tolls, salesmen's commission, and cost of extra
transport, which the eventual purchaser must make good.
The relations of the producers to the salesmen repre-
sent a phase of the general question which an inquirer
into agricultural conditions will find constantly being
raised, wherever he may go. It is almost as much a
stock subject with British fruit and vegetable growers
as the weather itself. Opinions certainly vary. I
have heard much that is complimentary said concern-
ing salesmen, but I have heard much more that
indicated dissatisfaction. It may be that undeserved
reflections are too often made on the general body be-
cause of the faults and shortcomings of the black sheep
who are, or have been, among them ; it may be, also,
that the salesmen get the blame for low prices due to
market conditions entirely beyond their own control.
But one cannot resist the force of the bitter experiences
of growers who have had the misfortune of dealing
with unscrupulous men, and been ' heavily hit ' in con-
sequence ; nor can it be denied that, under existing
conditions, it is very much a matter of chance whether
a grower gets into touch with an honest or a dishonest
salesman. ' I consign all my stuff,' a Lincolnshire
grower once said to me, ' to a salesman who is
thoroughly trustworthy. But I lost thousands of
pounds before I found him.' Another grower told me
that, having reason to suspect he was not getting a
proper return from the salesman to whom he had been
consigning, he accompanied his next lot, on the follow-
ing day, disposed of it himself, and, under precisely the
same market conditions, got over 30 per cent, above
the amount previously remitted to him.

PRODUCERS AND SALESMEN 205

There is no need, however, for me to adduce all the
specific instances that have been brought to my know-
ledge in different parts of the country, because the
proposition that effective organization on the part of
the producers should, among other things, lead to their
being far less ' at the mercy ' of salesmen and commis-
sion agents than is possible under existing conditions
needs no arguments for its establishment. Combina-
tion would, in fact, where it is really practicable, not
only enable them to group and to grade their consign-
ments— this being the first step towards better market
prices — but would decrease the risk of having dealings
with untrustworthy men, and increase the probability
of their getting the prices to which they were entitled
In any case, what is wanted is that the producer him-
self should gain more control over the market, reduce
the middleman element to the lowest practicable propor-
tions, and secure alike a reasonable guarantee of honest
trading, better returns, and less risk of falling into the
hands of individuals who may be financially unsound,
if not a good deal worse. There is certainly no more
effective way of realizing these conditions than by
combined effort.

Speaking generally, co-operative sale, and the greater
control of the market following thereon, are secured
much more readily when applied to commodities of a
particular kind produced in large quantities, and mainly
of uniform quality, allowing of the different lots being
mixed together without material loss of character.
Corn, factory-made butter, milk, eggs, bacon, apples,
plums and other fruits, for example, lend themselves
more to grouping, grading, or collective sale than
miscellaneous lots of garden produce, for which urgency
of despatch is essential. But, where the system can be
adopted, the benefits are undeniable, alike for ' small '

206 MARKETING PROBLEMS

men and ' large.' In regard to the selling of corn, for
instance, if a body of small growers formed themselves
into a co-operative society, and entrusted their business
to a joint representative, they would save the great loss
of time and money involved in going to market them-
selves, and they would avoid the risk of a fall of prices
when a collection of individuals, forced by their own
financial position to sell, surrounded a buyer only too
ready to take advantage of them and keep down the
price ; whereas, if they remained away, and left the
business to be done by a joint representative, the buyers
would have to go to that one man, and better terms
would be got. As for the large growers, their special
interest in such a combination would lie in the fact
that the ' market price,' according to which they sell,
would have been practically fixed by the rates already
accepted by the * small ' men forced to take such terms
as they could get. In other words, a combination of
producers would be able at least to control the local
market — even if they did not make still better terms by
doing a substantial deal direct elsewhere — and the
' large ' men would benefit equally, in proportion, with
the ' small.' The actual ' consumer ' would pay no
more, but the intermediate profits would be reduced,
and the better returns from the sales (especially when
they could be added to a reduced cost of production)
should effect a material improvement in the position of
the producer.

CHAPTER XVII
TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

CAN the economies of which I have spoken be further
secured in connection with the cost of transport of
agricultural commodities ?

The obvious reply to this inquiry is, ' Yes, if the
British producers would bulk their consignments in the
same way as the foreigners do.' But I wish to be
perfectly fair to our own agriculturists, and I think it
only right to point out that the general conditions in
this country differ somewhat from those in Continental
lands whence we obtain our big imports, and that any
comparison made is not necessarily a comparison of
like with like.

Those said big imports have two essential charac-
teristics : (i) Collected from over a wide area, they
come through in trainload and shipload lots to one
chief centre of distribution ; and (2) they consist mainly
(though not exclusively) of commodities in regard to
which extreme ' urgency ' — from the point of view of
maintaining their freshness— is not absolutely essential.
Bearing these factors in mind and applying them to
our own normal conditions, various considerations arise.

In the first place, any collecting area for agricultural
produce in this country would necessarily be much
smaller than is the case on the Continent, and it would

207

208 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

hardly be possible to make up here the very consider-
able quantities that are handled there, even if it were
thought desirable to keep back the home produce so that
substantial consignments could be gathered together,
instead of sending to market in smaller and more fre-
quent lots.

In the next place, it does not follow that so large
a proportion of the British produce would go to one
great centre — London, Manchester, or Glasgow — for
distribution, as is necessarily the case with the imported
produce. In the United Kingdom, as I have already
shown, the tendency is more and more to consign home-
grown produce direct from the point of production to
the town where the commodity will be consumed. The
Southern and Western counties may still consign
mainly to London, and, as I have also said, large
quantities will more especially be received there by
road from places within the fifteen or twenty mile
radius, so that here transport by rail is not resorted
to at all. But Midland, Eastern, and Northern centres
prefer, mainly, to be their own distributors, instead of
leaving that part of the business to be done entirely
by London.

This point was well brought out by Mr. O. R. H.
Bury, General Manager of the Great Northern Railway
Company, in the evidence he gave before the Depart-
mental Committee on the carriage of agricultural
produce. Replying to a complaint made by Mr. Dennis
that he could not get any lower rates for very large
quantities of potatoes, Mr. Bury said :

Mr. Dennis has a large potato traffic from Kirton Station ; but
I find that, although he sent, during the year 1904, 1,993 waggons
of traffic, containing 6,657 tons — an average of 3 tons 6 cwts. 3 qrs.
on a waggon — he consigned to 250 different stations. Obviously,
there is no advantage in that. If he is to come and talk about his
very big loads, they must go to the same place.

DISTRIBUTION OF HOME PRODUCE 209

With such widespread distribution from the actual
producing centre as that which is here indicated, we
get evidence of conditions very different from those
under which, say, trainloads of foreign produce are
made up for one great distributing centre in England
or Scotland ; and what is done at Kirton is going
on also in Cornwall, at Evesham, at Wisbech, and
many other places. But, the higher scale of payment
on small, or comparatively small, lots to the consuming
centre direct, as compared with the smaller rates avail-
able for big combined loads to what would be merely a
point for intermediary distribution, is probably made
up for by the better returns the producers or traders
should secure under the system they have found it to
their advantage to adopt.

While, therefore, on the one hand, this difference
in conditions is not always borne in mind, I would
venture to say, even by railway managers in their
criticisms of the British farmer and his ways, on the
other hand the farmer himself has obviously no reason
for complaint if, operating on wholly different lines, he
is charged retail rates on a practically retail business,
while the foreigner gets wholesale rates on what, until
the main distributing centre here is reached, is essentially
a wholesale business.*

Then, the bacon that Denmark sends to London via
Parkeston at the rate of 50,000 tons a year ; the foreign
butter that goes from Leith Docks to Glasgow in 5o-ton

* Replying to certain complaints made before the Departmental
Committee on alleged preferential railway rates, as to the difference
in the rates for English and foreign grain respectively, Sir George
Gibb, then General Manager of the North-Eastern Railway Com-
pany, said in his evidence on July 5, 1905, that while in 1904 the
company carried 269,222 tons of foreign grain from two points —
the ports of Hull and Newcastle— the 265.893 tons of English grain
which they carried in the same year were collected by them at no
fewer than 467 separate points on the system.

14

210 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

lots each day ; or the many waggon-loads of chilled
beef arriving from America via Southampton, could
be kept back, if necessary, for the purpose of grouping
into large consignments, much better than the new
milk, the soft fruit, the green vegetables, the new-laid
eggs, or the fresh-killed meat for which the British
producer wants the quickest and best service the rail-
ways can give him. So his desire both to avoid any
possible glut at a great distributing centre and to
secure the best possible returns is supplemented by the
need of getting his produce to market with the utmost
despatch ; and, in these circumstances, it may be
confessed that the British farmer cannot be expected
to do all that the foreigner does in the way of supplying
the railway companies with really big loads and secur-
ing the lower scales of rates chargeable thereon.

But, while all this is perfectly true, the fact remains
that the British farmer might still do a great deal more
than he does, even within the comparatively restricted
range of his national possibilities and the exigencies of
his special marketing conditions. The railways have
an arrangement under which (i) a group of senders may
bulk their lots to a certain town in the name of one
consignor, delivery being effected as desired ; or (2)
they may all forward to one consignee, the one con-
signor settling with the railway company in the former
case, and the one consignee in the other. The most
favourable rates for a large consignment would thus
be secured, and a considerable saving effected in many
instances.

I happened to mention this subject to the chief clerk
at a country station one evening, and he at once took
down his books, turned to a certain page, and said :

You see that on this one day in June six senders all forwarded
consignments by the same train to the same salesman at Man-

RESTRICTIONS: POSSIBILITIES 211

Chester. You will see from the figures the amounts they paid on
those consignments. Had they grouped their separate lots into
one, they would have saved just £7 IDS., and a saving such as that
might make all the difference in their returns. Though it may not
have been my place to speak, I have told them plainly what they
might do if they would. But the growers here are so jealous of
one another that there seems to be no possible chance of their
acting together.

In point of fact, very little advantage indeed has
been taken by farmers and producers of the concession
referred to above, though it may very well happen that
a salesman will advise a number of senders in one
district to leave him to pay the carriage at his end,
in which case he constitutes the one consignee,
and pays on a lower scale for the sum total of the
consignments received. Whether or not the growers
are likely to gain any advantage, or whether or not it is
more likely that the salesman charges against each
sender the amount that person would have paid had
he settled with the railway company at once for his
own particular lot (the salesman thus having a further
profit), I leave my readers to say for themselves.

What can be done in the way of securing greater
economy in rail transport is very well shown in reference
to that dead-poultry business at Heathfield and Uckfield,
of which I have already spoken in an earlier chapter.
All that seems to be needed is just a little effective
organization on the part either of a co-operative body
or of private enterprise. In these particular instances
it is private enterprise to which the results attained
are due.

At Heathfield there are two firms of carriers, each
of which collects consignments of dead poultry from
the chicken-fatters within a radius of ten miles of the
railway-station, grouping those, say, for London into a
single consignment in order to get the advantage of the
lowest rates. In this way the 10 or 12 tons despatched

14—2

212 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

on a busy night would represent two consignments
only, one for each firm. In actual practice, as soon as
the collectors employed by the carriers arrive at Heath-
field station with the crates they have obtained from
the farms, or picked up from the wayside where they
have been left for them, the various lots are sorted out
according to the names of the dealers in London to
whom they are consigned, and are so loaded into the
vans as to facilitate the work of delivery on arrival in
London. While requiring the various lots grouped
by one firm to be consigned in the name of that firm,
the railway company will deliver to as many separate
addresses as may be desired. When the London agents
have disposed of the chickens sent to them they deduct
from the proceeds, not only their own commission, but
also about one penny a bird for carriage, this sum being
remitted by them to the carrying firms, to cover both
cost of collection and the railway charges. The balance
is forwarded to the fatter, who generally receives his
cheque in the course of three or four days.

One result of this arrangement is that the chicken-
fatters save from 50 to 75 per cent, in railway rates,
while the railway company, in turn, benefit from having
the traffic more concentrated, and being enabled to
handle it with less trouble and to greater advantage. The
rates charged for carriage from Heathfield to London,
including delivery, range from 2s. for a single cwt. to
is. per cwt. for i-ton lots, so that if a fatter consigns
even a single cwt. through the carriers as part of a big
load, instead of sending in his own name, he still gets
the benefit of the lowest rates, and is on the same level
in respect to railway charges as the fatter who might
be able to despatch a i-ton consignment independently
of the carriers. Then, the individual fatter is enabled
to distribute his crates of chickens among the different

COMBINATION AND RAILWAY RATES 213

agents in London just as he pleases, without any need
to consider what the railway charge would be for a
particular lot. Whether he sends a day's supplies all
to one agent, or distributes them in varying proportions
among half a dozen or a dozen, the cost of transport
is just the same when they all form part of a grouped
consignment. He can vary the quantities to certain
agents from day to day according to the returns he
gets ; but, however great the variations, or however
small the lots, he will still have his chickens taken
from Heathfield and delivered in London at the rate
of is. per cwt., which works out, as regards railway
rate alone, at just about one halfpenny per bird.

How the system operates can be further shown by
the fact that, on a single night taken for the purposes
of illustration, the grouped consignment of one of the
two firms operating at Heathfield represented a total
weight of 8 tons 6 cwt., and comprised 224 crates
addressed to 23 different consignees in London, one
of whom, for instance, was to receive 29 crates — weigh-
ing i ton i cwt. 12 Ibs. — collected, probably, from a
dozen different fatters.

Similar arrangements exist at Uckfield, with this
difference — that there the work of collection is done
by a single carrier.

Obviously, if only the agricultural interests of the
country in general would combine on these lines, where
they could, in order to secure the full benefit of the
low rates already available for large consignments,
they would often effect a considerable saving, and make
proportionately higher profits on their produce.

Apart from any question as to what might, or might
not, be done in the way of obtaining lower railway
rates for agricultural produce by means of organization,
it is important to ask whether the rates now generally

214 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

in operation, and applying to actual existing conditions,
are unduly high, and calculated to impede the further
development of the particular industries dealt with in
the earlier chapters of the present work.

Taking, first, the carriage of new milk, the rates
per imperial gallon for rail transport are as follows :
Up to 20 miles, Jd. ; above 20 and up to 40 miles, f d, ;
above 40 miles and up to 100 miles, id. ; above 100
miles and up to 150 miles, i£d. ; above 150 miles, I Jd.
The average distance that milk is carried on both the
Great Western and the London and North-Western
Railways is, as already mentioned, 80 miles; so that,
taking those two lines for the purposes of illustration,
the average rate paid on the milk brought, say, into
London is one penny per imperial gallon.

In return for that one penny per gallon, the railway
companies provide, where necessary, special milk trains
running express between certain points (some of the
companies also provide special milk waggons) in order
to bring in the milk ; and they run special trains to
take the empty milk-churns back, no charge for empties
being made. At the principal London termini special
milk platforms are provided, and I may here say that
both in London and at large stations in the provinces
the railway-station has become the recognised ' milk
market.' The wholesale dealers get in more milk than
they have actual orders for, and the supplementary
churns, received any time during the morning, may
remain on the railway-station platform until noon (the
dealers or their representatives being in attendance),
on the off-chance of some retailer running short and
wanting a further supply. The provision of this con-
venience is regarded as included in the one penny per
gallon, though I need hardly say that if the farmers
or dealers were to build a milk depot of their own in

RATES ON MILK TRAFFIC 215

the neighbourhood of the railway-station they would
find it a rather costly procedure.

The handling of the full milk-churns means a good
deal of labour for the railway servants, especially at
country stations where 14 or 16 gallon cans are de-
livered on the down-side, and have to be carried on
the men's backs across the lines to the other side.
The wear and tear also of the railway property, as the
direct result of the milk traffic, is considerable. It is
not only that the churns themselves are heavy, but the
sharp edge of the bottom rim cuts into the floor of
the waggons and into the station platforms — worse,
perhaps, than any other form of traffic with which a
railway company have to deal. To obtain some
definite figures on this point, I inquired from the
London and North- Western Railway Company what
was the cost of renewals and repairs at the ' milk-
landing ' at Euston, and I learn that it amounts to
about £140 per annum, made up as follows :

Timber portion : £

Repairs ... ... ... ... 34 per annum.

Renewals 14 „ „

Asphalte portion :

Repairs 48 „ „

Renewals 44 ,, „

Total ... 140 „ „

The life of the timber landing is estimated at only
about sixteen years, and the cost of renewal is £224.
The average life of the asphalte landing is estimated at
about fifteen years, and the cost of renewal is £660.

Another incidental expense involved by this traffic is
that the hose has to be turned on to the Euston milk-
landing every day to wash off the spilled milk, this
being the only part of the station, I believe, where such
an operation day by day is found necessary. The

2l6

TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

cleansing of the asphalte offers no difficulty, and is
mainly a question of extra labour ; but on the timber
portion (which the dealers prefer to the asphalte) the
spilled milk soaks into ths wood, turns sour, and in
course of time gives rise to an odour that is far from
pleasant.

There is, I find, a general impression among milk-
producers and milk-dealers that the railway companies
make a considerable profit out of the milk traffic, simply
because it has assumed such substantial dimensions
since the days when it represented nothing more than
the putting of a milk-can into the guard's van of a
train at a country station. It is interesting in this
connection to compare the receipts for an average
truckload of milk, conveyed by passenger train or
special train, with the receipts from a truck of coal, as
shown approximately by the following examples :

Distance.

Receipts
per Truck for
Milk.

Distance.

Receipts
per Truck for
Coal.

Miles.

£ s- d-

Miles.

£> s- d-

8

0 15 2

8

0 IO 10

24

I 2 9

25

o 19 10

36

I 2 9

36

5 8

40

I 2 9

39

6 10

47

i 10 4

48

10 II

54

i 10 4

54

14 5

60

i 10 4

60

16 9

Setting against the receipts (i) the cost of running
special milk trains, (2) the interest on capital expendi-
ture in respect to the accommodation set apart for the
traffic, (3) the extra wear and tear, and (4) the amount
of the working expenses generally, the conclusion
arrived at by several railway officers who have gone

'• I :'/'':'

DOES MILK TRAFFIC PAY ? 217

very carefully into the matter is that the milk traffic
does not pay. This is the view taken by, amongst
others, Mr. Alfred Malby, Goods Manager of the
London and South-Western Railway, from whose
evidence before the Departmental Committee on agri-
cultural railway rates I take the following :

As regards the milk traffic, I say without hesitation that a large
portion of this traffic is carried at rates which do not cover fully
the cost of working. . . . Some years ago statistics were got out,
not for the purpose of this case or any other case, but for our own
satisfaction. We took the expenses of working the traffic over
certain periods, and we also took the revenue from it, and from
those statistics we arrived at the conclusion that it was un-
remunerative.

This conclusion (and it is fully borne out, I am told,
by a like investigation made by another company)
would seem to refute the idea that the railways are
getting much profit out of their one penny per gallon ;
and it is pretty obvious that if the milk industry is to
be put on a better commercial footing than at present,
the efforts made should be in the direction, not of
worrying the railways into granting further con-
cessions, but of effecting generally in the trade itself
that better organization by means of which alone the
members of the Staffordshire Farmers' Association
have secured their clear financial gain of from £30,000
to £40,000 per annum.

Whether or not the present decidedly primitive
method of handling such large quantities of milk by
means of so many different churns could be improved
upon — as the further result of combined effort — by the
adoption, in London at least, of the system resorted to
by the Union of Berlin Milk Dealers, is a question
which those concerned must decide for themselves.
But it is worth considering. What the Berlin Union
of Milk Dealers have arranged is a daily service of

2i8 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

milk-tank waggons between Denmark and Berlin, the
waggons being taken across from Laaland to the coast
of Germany on the steam ferry, and thence going
express to Berlin. Each waggon conveys two large
tanks lined with tin, and each tank holds 1,100 gallons
of milk. The service started on October I, 1905, when
it was expected that about 13,500 gallons a day would
be carried by means of these tanks.

Concerning fruit traffic, Mr. Vincent W. Hill, general
manager of the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway
Company, who bring very large quantities of fruit from
Kent, showed in the evidence he gave before the
Departmental Committee on Railway Rates for Agricul-
tural Produce that the carriage of fruit over the entire
system of his company works out at one-tenth of
a penny per pound for passenger-train traffic, and one-
twelfth of a penny per pound for goods-train traffic.
These figures would represent a comparatively short
mileage; but another witness before the same com-
mittee, Mr. J. E. Hennell, assistant goods manager of
the Great Western Railway, stated that on his com-
pany's system the cost of a parcel of twenty-four
pounds of fruit sent by passenger train — the dearest
form of transit — a distance of 200 miles came to
one halfpenny per pound. If 5 cwt. were sent the
same distance, and also by passenger train, the cost
per pound would be one-third of a penny, and if
10 cwt. were sent the cost would be three-tenths of a
penny per pound.

' I think,' Mr. Thomas Russell, a Glasgow fruit
merchant, told this same committee, ' the railways
cannot do the thing much cheaper than they are doing
it now.' ' Taking one season with another,' said Mr.
John Idiens, who represented the National Fruit
Growers' Federation before the Departmental Com-

RAILWAY RATES ON FRUIT 219

mittee on Fruit Industry, ' I do not think the railway
rates are excessive, and I do not think fruit is being
spoiled by excessive rates.' ' Taking them through and
through,' said Mr. Boscawen, M.P., at a conference on
fruit culture held in London in October, 1905, ' and
having regard to the nature of the services, the rates
are not unduly high. By passenger train fruit sent
200 miles works out at three-tenths of a penny per
pound. Where plums are sent 200 miles, the rate works
out at one-eighth of a penny per pound. Such rates
cannot be said to be too high.'

What should strike an unprejudiced observer most,
indeed, is the amount, not of the rates charged in
respect to either fruit or vegetables, but of the labour
which the handling of the commodities and the working
of the traffic involve on a railway company. I have
shown the nature of the services rendered in connection
with the fruit traffic from Worthing, and I have spoken
of the multiplicity of consignments and packages at
Evesham and Wisbech, in proportion to the quantities
handled. I might, however, here give still another
illustration. At Sandy (Bedfordshire) I learned that
on an ordinary night a total of 90 tons of vegetables
sent away to all parts comprised 172 separate con-
signments, averaging loj cwt. per consignment, and
representing a total of no fewer than 6,826 packages,
or an average of 40 packages per consignment.

Not only would each package require separate
handling, but each would have to be counted into and
(at the other end) out of the waggon, so that the railway
people could be certain none had gone astray. To
make matters worse, market-gardeners are so suspicious
of one another that, as a rule (to which, however, there
are exceptions), they put no address at all on their
consignments, lest a neighbour and competitor should

220 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

get to know to whom they are sending. Baskets or
boxes bear certain initials, and the railway people are
left to discover alike from these initials (often almost
undecipherable) and from the consignment notes sent in
where the packages are to go. One station-master in
Lincolnshire, commenting on this practice, said to me :
4 There are only about two men on the station who can
manage the business at all, and the wonder is how even
they can do it.' The wonder also, when the staff of a
country station may handle 6,826 packages a night
under these conditions, is that still more do not go
astray than is actually the case — causing, it may be, an
endless amount of correspondence. The conclusion
I myself arrived at in the matter was that by the time
the railway company got their rate — and, I might add,
the railway men their wages — they have well earned it !

To take still another branch of agricultural industry,
there is a little story I should here like to tell, because
it illustrates, in itself, a number of interesting points,
including (a) changes in agricultural production ; (b)
differences in ' loading '; and (c) the railway attitude
towards the traders.

At one time the farmers in the * Cheddar district ' of
Somerset used to make a standard Cheddar cheese,
of about 50 pounds weight, in such large quantities
that 100 tons have been dispatched from Highbridge
(Somerset) on a market day to different parts of the
country. The railways would not now carry 100 cwts.
a day, the reason being that the farmers have taken to
making, instead of Cheddar cheese, a variety known as
' Caerphilly,' which goes almost entirely to South
Wales, and is in great favour in the colliery districts
there. The total quantity of cheese carried by rail
is still about the same, and at first sight it would appear
to be a mere matter of detail for the railway whether

CONCERNING CHEESE 221

the qualities made in the district are ' Cheddar ' or
' Caerphilly,' provided they get the same bulk and
(which is also the case) the same rate. But, in the first
place, the Caerphilly cheeses weigh only about 5 pounds
each, against the 50 pounds of the Cheddars, so that
a ton of the former represents a good deal more
handling than a ton of the latter. Then, whereas the
Cheddar cheeses can be piled up on top of one another
without detriment — being so hard that one could (as it
was put to me) ' walk on them ' — the Caerphilly cheese
is essentially a ' soft ' variety. Made, say, on a Friday,
it can be sent to market on the following Tuesday — an
arrangement which suits the farmers better than the
prolonged storing and the special care necessary in the
case of Cheddar cheeses. But the Caerphilly cheeses
offer such bad loading that if, in the summer, four of
them (sent loose) are placed on top of one another in
the railway waggon, the one at the bottom will be
crushed out of shape before the end of the journey is
reached. The result is that not more than about
25 cwt. of these Caerphilly cheeses can be loaded into
a railway truck having a nominal carrying capacity of
8 tons. In other words, whereas one railway waggon
would suffice for 2 tons 10 cwt. of Cheddar cheese, two
railway waggons are necessary for the conveyance of
the same quantity of Caerphilly. Whether or not the
farmers are getting more advantage out of the latter
cheese than they did out of the former — especially con-
sidering the substantial saving in time and trouble — is
a matter of detail on which I have no evidence before
me ; but, in any case, they have not been asked to pay
any higher railway rate, although their change in
method has so substantially increased the amount of
rolling-stock required for the transport of their consign-
ments.

222 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

I do not think there is any need for me to go into
further details on this particular question. The idea
that the railways are ' strangling ' agriculture by the
rates they charge is one calculated to keep people back
from embarking further on agricultural industries, and
for that reason I have felt bound to take some notice
of it here. But the idea is one that will not stand the
test of investigation. As regards ' undue preferential
rates ' to the foreigner, that phase of the question has
been thoroughly exploded before the Departmental
Committee specially appointed to inquire into the sub-
ject. Great difficulty was found in getting witnesses
to come before the committee to support by specific
instances the accusations so freely made in the press
and elsewhere, while such cases as were brought
forward were shown by the railway witnesses to be due,
in almost every instance, either to a misstatement of
the facts or to a misapprehension of their bearing.
There is much that could be said on this point, but I
must here content myself with stating that the opinion
I have formed on a close study of the evidence given
before the Departmental Committee is (i) that there is
absolutely no reason for competent people to refrain
from embarking on agriculture or agricultural industries
because of any fear of ' undue preference ' being shown
by British railway companies to the foreigner ; (2) that>
from the market standpoint, the real question at issue
is, not what it has cost to bring foreign produce from
an English port, but what the cost has amounted to
from the place of origin; and (3) that, other things
being equal, British railway companies are vastly more
interested in the development of agricultural districts
at home than they are in helping to put money into the
pockets of producers and traders in other countries.

The impression, indeed, which I gather alike from

COMPLAINTS AND GRIEVANCES 223

the evidence given before the two Departmental Com-
mittees and from the altered tone of public opinion
in general — especially during the last year or two — is
that the bogey of ' excessive ' railway rates on agri-
cultural produce is dead, and that the bogey of ' undue
preference ' is dying. But two other grievances I
have found still flourishing with a certain amount of
vigour.

i. In the opinion of various growers, both of fruit
and of vegetables, railway companies ought to reduce
their rates (however reasonable these may be thought,
under normal conditions) whenever there is a serious
reduction in market prices — the result either of a home
glut or of foreign competition — so that the waste that
occurs when the produce has to be left on the ground
may be avoided.

Everybody must sympathize with the growers who
find themselves in the position here indicated ; but are
they sure that the remedy suggested is alike desirable,
reasonable, and workable ?

To reduce the rates because of a glut on the market
would lead to that glut becoming still greater. The
growers might get rid of their stuff, at a price, but what
would the dealers say ?

To reduce the rates, perhaps to a non -remunerative
quantity, because of foreign competition, would be to
throw upon the railway companies the responsibility
of overcoming the commercial drawbacks of free
imports.

To reduce the rates temporarily, in order to meet a
particular situation, would, in itself, be an easy matter ;
but what would happen when that situation had passed
away, and the railway companies wished to restore the
rates to their original level ?

Such restoration would count as an ' increase ' of

224 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

rates, and what does, or may, then happen is this :
Under Section 33, Sub-section 6, of the Railway and
Canal Traffic Act, 1888, a railway company which pro-
poses to increase a rate ' shall give, by publication in
such manner as the Board of Trade may prescribe, at
least fourteen days' notice of such intended increase,
stating in such notice the date on which the altered
rate or charge is to take effect '; while under the Rail-
way and Canal Traffic Act, 1894, it is provided that the
Railway and Canal Commissioners shall have jurisdic-
tion to prevent any increase at all, unless they are
satisfied by the railway company that the increase of
rate is reasonable. Accepting, for the sake of argu-
ment, the certainly impracticable theory that there
should be a sliding scale for railway rates based on
market prices, the companies are free agents only as
regards reductions. Hence they must be especially
careful in the changes they make, however willing they
might be to grant concessions intended to be ' tem-
porary ' only ; and hence, also, it happens that an
enactment intended to protect the trader may actually
operate to his disadvantage.

2. The question of ' owner's risk ' is, undoubtedly,
regarded by many of the growers and traders as a
serious grievance, and one hears far more about this
matter than one does concerning the amount of the
rates themselves. Here, again, it is impossible not to
sympathize with the trader who has lost his market, or
suffered other disadvantage, from one cause or another,
and finds he can get no redress. But the question is
one on which there is something to be said on both sides.
The position was thus summed up by Mr. Hennell in
the evidence he gave on behalf of the Clearing House
Committee before the Departmental Committee on
Fruit Industry : ' They [the traders] get a lower rate

WHAT TRADERS CAN DO 225

in consideration of taking the risk, and no sooner have
they got that than they want to be paid the claims
exactly as if the fruit was carried at company's risk,
and it means continual friction.'

It would be foreign to my present purpose to enter
here upon any discussion of this vexed and complicated
question. My immediate object is to see whether or
not there is anything in the attitude of the railways
towards the traders that would prejudice the prospects
of a forward movement in agriculture ; and the evidence
forthcoming shows that, though there may not be perfect
agreement on all points — and especially on ' owner's
risk ' — and though the railways, from regard for what
they consider their own legitimate interests, may occa-
sionally have to adopt a policy of self-defence that
does not always meet with approval, the railways have,
nevertheless, a direct and practical concern in the
further development and increased welfare of Rural
England.

Before leaving these various ' Transport Questions,'
I should like to quote the following from the ' Guide '
issued by the Newcastle-on-Tyne and District Fruit
and Potato Merchants' Association, Limited, to which
reference has already been made in the chapter on the
Fruit Industry :

The railway is a great aid to the trade of both growers and
merchants. Reasonable rates and quick transit are needed, and
we can now be sure of getting them. This has been realized by
the Wisbech fruit-growers, and in the past four years they have
more than doubled their trade.

What they have done others can do, and what they have done
in the past they can multiply time and again in the future. Rail-
ways will help us, but their help is most useful to those who help
themselves, as they also work for a profit. . . .

It is obviously to the advantage of growers to unite in sending,
say 4-ton lots of apples and pears at i6s. 8d. per ton to New-

15

226 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

castle or Sunderland, rather than pay 315. 6d. per ton (nearly
double the truck rate) for smaller lots weighing a few cwts. each,
when by arranging through the secretary of their Fruit-Growers'
Association, or joining with neighbours for that mutual benefit,
they can not only gain the lower rate, but secure quicker despatch
by avoiding transhipments, and at the same time raise the reputa-
tion of their produce in desired markets.

The difficulty experienced by railway companies in dealing with
small consignments of fruit and vegetables from country stations
to numerous towns is immensely greater than the handling of the
simpler parcels traffic regularly exchanged between large towns
to and from which large waggon-loads are daily passing. Those
waggons of parcels are easily worked by regular trains from the
sending to the receiving station, and systematically carted from
the latter, but the small consignments to or from country stations
necessitate repeated transhipments, and no railway company could
stand the extravagance of sending trucks with light loads direct
from every station to the destinations to which the various con-
signments are sent.

It is difficult for growers without experience in railway working
to realize the above fact, yet it has to be faced. The extra cost of
moving vast numbers of light-loaded waggons would necessitate
the charging of higher rates, and thus further handicap the British
growers in competition with foreign producers, who collectively
send their produce in larger quantities which the railway com-
panies book in full truck-loads, and can therefore carry more
cheaply and far more quickly.

For instance, Dutch, Belgian, and French produce in large
quantities leaving the near ports of those countries any week-day
evening, can be delivered in the London market the following
morning almost as soon as English growers can get their produce
on the market. But in the case of small lots of traffic for such
towns as Northampton and Middlesbrough, requiring transhipment
at junctions, so much time is lost in unloading, reloading, and
waiting for connecting trains, that the produce cannot reach its
destination promptly, consequently the bloom of the fruit or the
freshness of the vegetables fades to such an extent that lower prices
are realized.

From the foregoing it is evident that by sending in large quan-
tities direct, the foreign growers are now able to send their produce
into London almost as cheaply and quickly as English growers
in the counties around that great city. Foreign growers can at
present successfully compete in London, Dover, Folkestone, and
Southampton ; but in view of the fact that they not only have to
pay higher rates to our provincial towns, but are handicapped by
the delay which transhipment of their smaller lots to interior places
involves, it seems clear that English growers have a decided
advantage in serving our provincial markets and gradually
strengthening their position, till ultimately they will be able to

CAUSES OF DELAY 227

regain the London trade and oust the foreign growers' produce
almost everywhere if they will wisely combine to send large regular
lots as foreign producers have done.

Dealing with the complaints made by traders of the
delays in the delivery of fruit, causing serious loss
owing to the consignments arriving too late for the
early morning markets, the ' Guide ' says :

This late arrival is sometimes the fault of the railway or the
weather, but very often it results from the growing desire to keep
fruit in the packing-sheds till the last possible moment. That
causes some growers to delay till too late for the connecting trains.

If a wet morning comes, later picking results in later delivery to
the station. A wet day results in excessive quantities being rushed
to the station during the following fine days, when the extra
waggons suddenly needed cannot always be available, as nearly all
stations in the fruit districts are simultaneously placed under that
strain.

If it is a very hot day, growers delay despatch to the station as
long as possible, and congestion results.

During the 1904 season it became quite a common thing for
about loo horse-loads of fruit to arrive at one station when the
gates should have been closed for the night. The station agents
being anxious to oblige and encourage trade, strove their utmost to
accomplish the then impossible task of getting all the fruit loaded
in time to get the trains away punctually. This was the case not
only at the particular station, but all along the line, with the
inevitable result that the trains frequently arrived hours too late at
the junction, and missed connecting trains for the North. . . .

The obvious remedy in the interest of the growers generally is
for the railway companies to insist upon their gates being closed in
sufficient time for the fruit to be efficiently loaded and the waggons
ready for the punctual despatch of the trains. Then only can
regular running to destinations be insured. . . .

Laggards who were shut out would be immediately faced with
the fact that they had lost their market, and learn a wholesome
lesson, whilst they would be prevented from inflicting injury upon
their more punctual, considerate, and deserving competitors.

The fruit-growers' associations could not confer a greater
benefit upon their members than by thus wisely co-operating with
the railway companies to insure fruit being loaded in time for
prompt despatch by each train.

In this connection I may say that in London another
serious cause of delay is the detention of the delivery

*— 2

228 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS

vans — often for several hours — outside the markets, and
especially Covent Garden, owing either to the congested
conditions of the street traffic there, or to the reluct-
ance of salesmen to accept delivery of fresh consign-
ments until they have disposed of what has arrived
earlier.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAND QUESTION: PEASANT
PROPRIETARY ABROAD

THE facts, figures, and arguments already adduced
have, I trust, established my earlier propositions as
to the changes in agricultural production, and the need
for supplementing those changes by agricultural com-
bination. My next proposition, stated in full, would
run thus : That the aforesaid subsidiary agricultural
or kindred industries offer, on the whole, special oppor-
tunities, in suitable circumstances, for the energies of
small holders capable of adapting themselves thereto,
with fair prospects of success ; and that it is desirable,
in the interests of our deserted villages, of our over-
crowded towns, of the nation, and of our fellow country-
men individually, to increase the number of such holdings
with a view to (a) taking advantage of the aforesaid
changes and developments ; (b) checking the rural
exodus ; (c) placing more people on the land ; and
(d) decreasing our dependence on the foreigner for
such, at least, of our food - supplies as, even under
existing fiscal and economic conditions, we could just
as well provide for ourselves.

In this further proposition I have the materials for
several more chapters, if not for another book. But, if
I were to adduce all the arguments by which it could

229

230 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

be maintained, I should simply be repeating much that
has been said already, and in laying those arguments
afresh before my readers I should feel that I was — as
regards the majority of them — merely preaching to the
converted.

I will, therefore, venture to assume that this general
thesis is formally accepted, and will pass on at once to
the essentially practical matter of detail as to the
principle on which small holdings — or the allotments
which often rank as small holdings and may at least
be preliminaries thereto — should be established.

It may well be that in the past sufficient recognition
has not been given to all that land-owners, individually,
have done in the way of providing small holdings and
allotments. But there are obviously special grounds
for further action, and the problem of immediate con-
cern is the particular line that such action should take.
No great progress, however, is likely to be made until
a decision has been arrived at on the disputed question
as to whether small holdings should be owned, or only
rented, by their occupiers ; and it is this particular
point, in the first instance, to which I would direct
public attention, my own view of the situation being
that some of the greatest difficulties which have arisen
in the way of creating an adequate system of small
holdings, on a well-organized basis, in this country — to
supplement such large farming as may still be practic-
able and profitable — have been due to the attempt to
make small holders the actual owners of the land they
cultivate with a view to the creation on British soil of
a large body of ' peasant proprietors.'

Theoretically, and looking at the matter from a
purely sentimental point of view, the idea of ownership
in regard to land appeals far more strongly to the vast
majority of people than the idea of tenancy. Earth-

CONDITIONS IN FRANCE 231

hunger is a complaint that attacks individuals of every
rank in life, in every country in the world ; and, next
to the accumulation of money, there is probably no
one form of ambition more acute, and more widespread
than that of becoming, as it were, part-proprietor of the
universe. But the experiences of foreign countries
should be studied before any further attempt is made
to establish peasant proprietorship on any general basis
here, and the result of such study should, I would
submit, lead to the conclusion that, even from the
Continental standpoint, it would be preferable in Great
Britain to set up some more practical and more de-
sirable alternative.

France has often been pointed to as an example for
England to follow in the matter of peasant proprietary,
and certain it is that, if the system can show satis-
factory results anywhere, such results ought to be
found in a country where peasant proprietary has had,
perhaps, its greatest opportunities. But on this particu-
lar question one must not be led astray by mere figures
as to national wealth, or by the familiar stories con-
cerning the petits sous which the French peasant hoards
in old stockings, and may lend to his own Government
— or to Russia — at interest, in preference to devoting
them to the better development of the land from which
they have been derived. One needs to look into the
question much more closely than this. It is not the
wealth of the nation as such, but the condition of the
peasantry themselves with which we are here mostly
concerned.

The first fact that strikes one forcibly in connection
with peasant proprietary in France is the excessive
degree to which the subdivision of small properties
has been carried. As one generation has succeeded
another, and the individual plots of land have been

232 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

still further divided, the morcellement has already gone
so far that some of the holdings are of the most di-
minutive proportions, and the fear of what may follow
from still further subdivision is one of the reasons for
those ' two-children families ' which have led in so
marked a degree to the decline in the native population
of France.

Even, again, a property of 20 or 25 acres may be
represented by 30, 40, or 50 small patches and parcels
of land scattered over an entire commune. Members
of a family and also neighbouring proprietors ought,
of course, to arrange an exchange of such patches, in
order to concentrate the individual properties, reduce
the amount of labour and the cost of working, and
facilitate the use of agricultural machines. But the
greed for land is so great among the peasantry, the
jealousy and the mistrust of neighbours are so intense,
and the hatreds that arise are so bitter, that amicable
arrangements are often far less likely than constant
disputes and bickerings, if not interminable lawsuits
as well.

In the cultivation of these scattered fragments of
land the practice followed by successive generations of
peasant proprietors of France has been to produce a
little of everything — vines, vegetables, corn, oats, barley,
hemp, etc. — on the same soil irrespective of its suita-
bility for such crops, the great idea of the cultivator
being that he should avoid spending any money on
the supply of his domestic wants. When purchase
becomes unavoidable, he hopes to effect it by a system
of barter, so that the sows in the stocking may remain
intact. But the work of cultivating, mainly by hand,
so many separate morsels of land, for the production of
so many different crops, represents a degree of toil that
has often been only slavery under another name.

WHITE SLAVERY 233

Abundance of evidence on this point, from competent
authorities, is forthcoming.

In his * Relevement de 1'Agriculture,' Lafargue wrote :

The condition of agriculture brought about by our subdivision
of land, and the distance from each other of the morsels belonging
to one owner, condemn a man to work such as animals and machines
ought to execute, and not only reduce him to the level of a beast,
but curse the soil with sterility.

Le*once de Lavergne says in * L'Economie rurale
de 1'Angleterre, d'Ecosse et de 1'Irlande ':

Although the French labourer is frequently proprietor of the
land, and thus adds a little profit to his wages, he does not live as
well as the English farm-labourer. He is not so well fed, not so
well clothed, and is less comfortably lodged. He eats more bread,
but it is generally made of rye with the addition of maize, buck-
wheat, and even chestnuts. . . . He rarely eats meat. I am
acquainted with parts of France where people live on 70 centimes
(/d.) a day.

Michelet, in describing the life of the French peasant,
says:

Follow him before daylight, you will find your man at work,
with his children and his wife, who has recently been confined,
who drags herself along on the wet earth. At mid-day, when the
heat is sufficient to split the very rocks, when the slave-owner would
permit his slave to rest, the voluntary slave must keep on working.
Look at the food he eats, and compare it with that of the artisan.
Why, the artisan fares better every day than the peasant does on
Sundays. Do you wonder, now, if this Frenchman, this laugher,
this former singer, laughs no more ? Is it surprising that, when
you meet him on the land that devours him, he appears so gloomy ?
. . . Isolating himself as he does, and becoming more and still
more bitter, there is too much sadness in his heart for him to open
it to any sentiment of benevolence. Alone on this miserable
property, as on a desert island, he becomes a savage. His un-
sociability, born of the feeling of his misery, prevents him from
being on good terms with those who should be his colleagues and
friends — the other peasants. He hates the rich, he hates his
neighbour, and he hates the world.

Of Balzac's ' Les Paysans ' Lady Verney writes in

234 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

' How the Peasant Owner lives in Parts of France,
Germany, Italy, Russia ' :

The pictures of the mean, sordid lives of the main part of the
peasant population — the dogged way in which they pursue the
wretched objects of their existence, i.e., the earning and hoarding
des petits sous dans de vieux bas, the lying, cheating, picking, and
stealing which are considered lawful as against a ' richard' [well-
to-do person], the way in which all means, the most vile and repul-
sive, are condoned for the sovereign end, the obtaining of a little
bit of land — form a repulsive picture indeed.

Nor have the results of peasant proprietorship in
France been more satisfactory from a financial stand-
point. * Proprietors ' they may be in name, but few
of the peasants hold their land free of mortgage, and
many of them are heavily indebted besides. They not
only cultivate the soil under the most laborious of
conditions, but they must meet, as best they can, the
demands of the State, the usury of the money-lender,
and also the fees of the lawyer who fattens alike on
the land transfers and on the quarrels and lawsuits.
' Of the 8,000,000 proprietors in France,' wrote M.
Lecouteux, when Professor of Rural Economy at the
Institute, * 3,000,000 are on the pauper roll, exempt,
that is, from personal taxation '; while of the remainder,
at the period of which this authority speaks, 600,000
proprietors paid contributions to the State amounting
to only five centimes each. ' Getting rid of one order
of landlords and their rents,' adds M. Lecouteux, 'they
have subjected themselves to another, though invisible,
order — the mortgagees, and to their heavier and more
rigid rents.'

Another French writer on economics, in dealing
with * Peasant Proprietary in France,' says :

Capital is the sinews of high farming, and poverty is the con-
stitutional disease of peasant proprietary. And not money alone
is it that the French peasant lacks. He lacks also the brains to

CONDITIONS IN HOLLAND 235

apply the new processes of agriculture. Full of cunning as he is,
and able, as Balzac says, on any disputed point to out-Talleyrand
all the Talleyrands of diplomacy, the French peasant is, for all
that, narrow-minded, obtuse, and routinier. Moreover, he instinc-
tively feels that to meddle with the established order of things is
indirectly to attack his right of property. As a necessary conse-
quence, he opposes to the uttermost all new methods of culture,
his natural distrust of which has been aggravated by his own
experience of failure where such methods have been imperfectly
applied. And when, in spite of himself, he has been driven to
make use of foreign seeds, guano, and chemical manures, his igno-
rance has caused him to fall so easy a prey to the fraud and
quackery imposed upon him by the trade that his dislike of inno-
vations has become inveterate.

In these latter respects a great improvement has
been effected in recent years through the agricultural
syndicates and the various other phases of that practical
organization which has done so much to advance the
general condition of agriculturists in France. But the
fundamental disadvantages, both moral and material,
inherent to the system of peasant proprietary still
remain.

In Holland the position brought about by peasant
proprietary is, in some respects, still more acute than
in France. The supply of available land is, of course,
very much smaller, and, partly on this account, and
partly because so much of it is polder land, which
has been rescued at great cost from the waters, values
and rentals may be somewhat higher than in other
Continental countries ; and they would be higher still
but for the fact that Dutch land-owners are generally
satisfied with a return of 2\ to 3 per cent. Most of
the farmers and cultivators aspire to become owners,
and, in effect, of the total amount of land in the country
devoted to agriculture and horticulture, 99,290 hectares
are in the hands of proprietors, and 83,276 hectares
are occupied by tenants. The relative proportions,
and also the size of the individual holdings, in the case

236 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

of land used for horticultural purposes, are indicated
by the following tables, in which I have reduced hectares
to acres (i hectare = 2 J acres) :

Market Gardeners —

Fruit or Seed

Florists.

Growers.

Acres.

Total.

Total.

Owners.

Tenants.

Owners.

Tenants.

fto ij

1,035

1,118

2,153

22O

167

387

ij tO 2\

1,331

1,479

2,810

73

40

H3

2* to 5

1,227

1,710

2,937

33

23

56

5 to 7£

545

729

1,274

6

7

13

7\ to 10

292

362

654

3

o

3

10 to 12!

156

184

340

i

0

i

Over 12!

166

137

303

2

I

3

Total

4,752

5,719

10,471

338

238 576

Nurserymen.

Bulb-growers.

Acres*

Total

TVital

Owners.

Tenants.

JL (_H<t i.

Owners.

Tenants.

1 Ulcil,

fto li

135

530

665

I58

319

477

l| tO 2£

192

164

356

105

176

281

2i to 5

132

60

192

1 08

138

246

5 to 73-

60

23

83

83

8l

164

7\ to 10

35

9

44

44

37

81

IO tO 12^

23

2

25

29

15

44

I2j tO 24f

25

8

33

43

38

81

24! to 49j

8

4

12

22

8

30

49^ to 123!

2

4

6

II

3

14

Over 123!

0

i

i

2

0

2

Total

612

805

1,417 605

815

1,420

I

EXCESSIVE SUBDIVISION 237

These tables throw an interesting light on the size
of the average holdings in Holland, but they convey
no really adequate idea of the lengths to which the
excessive subdivision of land has been carried in that
country. Small as the holdings are, one has to re-
member that a large proportion of them would not be
represented by one piece of land, but would comprise
many different strips or parcels.

What has been happening in different parts of
Holland under the system of peasant proprietary in
vogue there can be easily realized by the reader. Let
him assume that a Dutch farmer is the proprietor of
a square patch of land representing not more than
10 acres, and having access to a road along only one
side. He has, say, four sons, and on his death he
leaves the land to be divided equally between them.
Should the land then be cut up simply into four smaller
squares, the effect must be that only two of the sons
will have access to the roadway, the two others being
isolated therefrom. To avoid this the land is divided
lengthwise, so that each of the four gets a fourth of
the frontage. But in course of time the four sons die,
each of them, as we will again assume, leaving four
sons in turn to succeed him. Further divisions follow,
and the square piece of land originally held by one
man is now to be owned by sixteen. But each of those
sixteen will want his frontage to the road, so that again
the division takes place lengthwise. Repeated sub-
division for a series of generations would be bad enough
in any possible circumstances, but it becomes still
worse when that question of access to the road arises
in addition.

A good deal of what was once common land has been
divided and subdivided on the same principle. In
either case the strips of land may become just the

238 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

counterpart of so many pieces of tape laid side by side,
the length being out of all proportion to the breadth.
The general effect, as regards many parts of Holland,
may be judged from a reproduction, given in the
appendix to the present work, of a plan of the commune
of Vledder (Drenthe). The average dimensions of one
of the strips in the group at the top of this plan would
be 380 yards by 14 yards. In one instance there is a
length of 428 yards to a breadth of 4 yards. At the
bottom of the plan I have marked one especially long
and narrow strip with ' x '. Here the dimensions give
a length of 1,275 yards, and a breadth of 22 yards.

Each farmer or cultivator naturally requires a number
of such patches as these in order to obtain land enough
for the support of himself and family, and, as the most
enterprising and successful advance, they try to secure
still more. But it rarely happens that they can buy or
rent fresh land immediately adjoining their own, and
they have to be content with such other pieces as may
be available wherever they can be got. Here, again,
the plan I give will show how the * holding ' of an
individual farmer in Holland may really be made up of
isolated scraps and strips of land all over the commune.
Nor does the plan in any way exaggerate the situation,
for in a leading Dutch paper, which has recently
published a series of articles on the subject, reference is
made to a farmer whose holding of close on 90 acres
consists of no fewer than seventy-eight parcels of land
in different parts of the commune in which he lives !

The results of such a system as this are bad for the
people, bad for agriculture, and bad for a country where
land is so scarce. There is much loss of time in going
from one strip of land to another ; there is an enormous
increase in the toil involved in cultivation; there is little
or no chance of using labour-saving appliances ; there is

SCATTERED PARCELS 239

no adequate opportunity for developing the best agri-
cultural methods ; and there is a great waste of land in
paths and boundary water-courses.

So serious, in fact, are these results that the whole
matter has been made the subject of earnest investiga-
tion by the Niederlandsch Landbouw-Comite" (Dutch
Agricultural Committee), a body which, subsidized by the
State, represents all the leading agricultural interests in
Holland. The evils are readily recognised. The diffi-
culty is in finding an effective remedy. There can, in
fact, be no hope of securing that remedy until some
such system of redistribution is arranged as will give
each proprietor practically the same amount of acreage
in one piece, or, at least, in considerably fewer pieces
than at present.

Attempts have been made from time to time to effect
arrangements on this basis by voluntary effort. But
experience shows that, although the majority of the
members of a family, or of the proprietors in a certain
district, may be willing, and even anxious, for such a
redistribution, there is generally a minority which, from
sheer obstinacy, or from complete indifference to the
general welfare, refuses its assent, and so nullifies the
proposal. The question now being discussed in Holland
is whether or not a law should be passed laying down
that, where such a majority shall be in favour of a
redistribution scheme, and where the scheme itself is
in accord with public interest, the minority shall be
obliged to surrender ; but in what manner the problem
will eventually be solved the future must be left to
show.

Meanwhile the Dutch farmers and cultivators find
economic salvation in excessive toil, scrupulous thrift,
and plain living, combined with a most comprehensive
system of organization which enables them to effect

24o PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

substantial economies in their purchases, to produce
under better conditions, to market their supplies to
greater advantage, and to secure profits on a higher
scale than would otherwise be possible. So they
manage to make a living, and they even prosper, more
or less, under conditions in which the British farmer,
as an individualist, would hopelessly fail ; but this they
do in spite of, rather than because of, a system of
peasant proprietary which I, for one, would certainly
not care to see reproduced here.

I will not attempt to deal with all the other countries
of Europe where the widespread ownership of small
properties has led to minute subdivision, burdensome
mortgages, chronic indebtedness (now relieved some-
what by agricultural credit banks), and lives of grinding
toil. But the case of Denmark is one which claims
special notice, inasmuch as that enterprising little
country has attracted so much attention of late years.
In regard to agricultural education and organization,
she has certainly secured remarkable results ; but when
one comes to look more closely at her much-boasted
system of land tenure, one finds some of the darker lines
of an otherwise pleasing picture.

Nominally, the peasant proprietors who constitute so
important a section of the Danish people are ' free-
holders ' ; practically, they are saddled with a mortgage
debt estimated at about £60,000,000, and representing
55 per cent, of the value of their farms, with buildings,
stock, and improvements. This debt is largely, though
not entirely, due to certain Credit Associations which
were formed in Germany in the fifties to enable the
Danish agriculturists to purchase their farms or hold-
ings, mortgages up to 50 or 60 per cent, of the purchase
price being granted, with repayment extending over
periods of from 50 to TOO years. So the Danish farmers

CONDITIONS IN DENMARK 241

became ' peasant proprietors,' but it is doubtful if they
have derived much benefit from the change of system.
Interest and repayment of principal still constitute
a heavy burden, and many a Danish farmer is, with
all his family, working for long hours, and looking
to England for the profits he makes on his produce, not
so much for his own gain as to satisfy the demands of
his German creditors.

One of the main reasons for the magnitude of the
mortgage debt in Denmark is to be found in the sub-
stantial increase in the price of land, from time to time,
as the farmers became more anxious to buy. This was
especially the case on the resort, in the eighties, to
that system of co-operation by which the Danish
agriculturists hoped to avert the agricultural crisis that
then overtook them.

When wheat-growing no longer paid, they turned
their attention to the production of dairy supplies on
the now well-known lines. Greatly increased possibilities
were thus opened out to small farmers, and the desire
to purchase small holdings was so general that it
became extremely difficult to obtain them at a reason-
able price. To assist in meeting this difficulty, Acts
were passed by the Danish Parliament in 1899 and
1904, setting aside substantial sums from which loans
could be granted to any agricultural labourer who,
having already a small amount of capital, wanted to
raise the remainder so that he could purchase a holding
of his own. The loans are granted under easy condi-
tions, and they have been taken so much advantage
of that since 1899 there has been a large increase in
the number of peasant proprietors. But this further
demand, coupled with the fact of State aid now being
available for would-be purchasers, caused the price of
land for small holdings to go up higher than ever.

16

242 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD

The position to-day is that, while large estates can
be bought in Denmark at (in English currency) £27
per i^ acres, and medium-sized farms at £43 per i-|
acres, small holdings cost £55 per i|- acres, or double
the amount charged for a large estate. Thus, apart
from any other considerations, the Danish small holder
who becomes a peasant proprietor starts by having to
pay an altogether artificial price for the land he
purchases; he sinks in the ownership of that land
present capital which would otherwise be available
for the purchase of stock and for other expenses ; and
he incurs, in place of rent, a rigid mortgage debt unduly
swollen by the excessive price he has agreed to pay for
his farm. If, in addition, he borrows money in other
directions to work the land he has thus acquired, he
still further increases the weight of the millstone of
debt he has hung round his neck ; and he may
ultimately find the financial position in which he is
placed a serious set-off to the advantages he otherwise
derives from his co-operative societies — without which,
indeed, it would be hardly possible for him to pay his
way at all.

CHAPTER XIX
PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

APART from the action of politicians, land reformers,
and public authorities, there are certain antagonistic
conditions which tend, on the one hand, to restrict,
and, on the other, to increase, the number of allotments
and small holdings in our own country.

However sympathetic, as a matter of sentiment or
principle, many of our great land-owners may be to the
general movement, they are often practically governed
by, or otherwise leave themselves in the hands of,
their estate agents, and these individuals are, with
almost one accord, opposed to the system, and dis-
inclined to do anything that will lead to its extension.
They object to it both on personal grounds and as men
of business. On personal grounds it is obviously
much less trouble to themselves individually to deal
with one large farmer rather than with fifty or a hundred
small men occupying the same amount of land, and
including, probably, a considerable proportion who
would worry them more or less about complaints or
minor repairs and improvements which the large farmer
would keep to, or undertake, himself. Then, as men
of business, they consider it safer to deal with a farmer
on a large scale, whom they know and can trust, than
with a collection of small cultivators of whom they

243 16 — 2

244 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

know little or nothing, and in whose proper cultivation
of the land, and prompt payment of the rent, they can
feel no sense of security.

In these scruples the estate agents are often
strengthened by the large farmers, who meet them
from time to time, are intimately acquainted with
them, and can influence the mind of the agent just
as the agent, in turn, can influence the mind of the
great land-owner. The large farmer, devoting, it may
be, his chief attention to the cultivation of cereals, is
the type of agriculturist from whom the loudest com-
plaints in regard to agricultural distress are heard, and
he is apt to look with no friendly eye on the small man
who is achieving a greater degree of comparative success
with some minor industry. His prejudices (I am here
taking the case of the average English farmer) become
still more acute when the small man happens to have
been a plodding, persevering labourer or foreman, whose
aspiration to be independent of service and become a
farmer himself he personally resents. So when the large
farmer meets the estate agent, and the subject of small
holdings is discussed, the large farmer expresses ideas
which the estate agent is already disposed to welcome,
being strengthened thereby in the emphatic protests he
makes to the land-owner, should the latter entertain any
idea of letting off part of the estate to small cultivators.

Even the greatest of land-owners would require to
have considerable strength of mind to insist on the
carrying out of their sympathetic ideas in face of the
moral pressure thus brought to bear upon them by their
expert advisers. In the result, they too often think
it better to follow the line of least resistance, so
that when any farm becomes vacant it is not cut
up for allotments and small holdings, but added,
preferably, to that of someone who already has a big

OBJECTORS AND CHAMPIONS 245

slice of land, and may be desirous of getting still
more.

While the estate agent has thus become the natural
enemy of allotments and small holdings, the country
solicitor has developed into one of their sturdiest
champions — always provided they are to be owned, and
not rented, by the occupier. For country solicitors,
in those districts where small holdings are in vogue,
peasant proprietary has become somewhat of a gold
mine. They, at least, do not share the prejudices of
the estate agents in favour of large farms. On the
contrary, they believe in cutting up the large farms
into the greatest possible number of freeholds. ' Back
to the land,' is their cry. ' Plant as many people as
you can on the soil (and especially in our highly
desirable locality), but let them all be freeholders.'

The reason for this attitude on their part is obvious
enough. For every fresh holding that is bought, or
transferred, there are various fees to be paid, a goodly
proportion of which will remain in the pockets of the
solicitors. Then each new freeholder becomes a new
client for the gentleman who arranges the sale. It is
extremely improbable that the aspirant for peasant
proprietorship will be able to pay at once for the land
he agrees to purchase, and the lawyer then gets another
set of fees for arranging a mortgage for him ; he finds
a profitable investment, besides, either for his own
money or that of some other client, and he retains
a hold on the new freeholder for probably the rest of
his days.

So far has this sort of thing been carried that in
a small country town which forms the centre of a
district where a large number of peasant proprietors
are already established (and where, judging from adver-
tisements in the local papers, the creation of still more

246 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

is being actively continued), I was told by a local
resident who had special facilities for knowing the
truth of what he said, * Within a radius of ten miles
of this town there is drawn from the land, in the form
of fees for conveyancing, transfers, negotiations for
mortgages, commissions, and other legal expenses and
charges, mainly in connection with small freeholds,
a sum of at least £5,000 a year.'

Can the land, and especially the land cultivated by
small holders, stand such a drain as this ? Are not
these conditions a primary cause, rather, why so much
of the small farming in this country is in a state that is
absolutely rotten ? Here we have questions that are
well deserving of consideration.

Looking, in the first place, at the price which the
would-be peasant proprietor must pay for his land,
independently of legal charges, it is certain that the
English agriculturist who desires to purchase a small
holding in the open market labours under special dis-
advantages. It is not alone that he has to compete with
a number of others possessed of similar aspirations, but
various causes have combined to give to much of the
land in this country — more, perhaps, than in any other
country — a market value which is in excess of its
commercial value — that is to say, its value when it
is wanted for the production of commodities for sale.
This is especially the case in regard to land which
might be utilized for residential purposes for the sake
of the social advantages afforded by the ownership of
an estate or in the interests of sport. Not only do
established country families seek to increase their
properties, for one reason or another, by incorporating
therein any bit of freehold they can secure in the
immediate neighbourhood, but the market value may
still further be kept above the commercial value by

THE PRICE OF LAND 247

reason of the fact that every Englishman, more or less,
who has prospered, thinks it is incumbent on him
to set up his ' place ' in the country, if he should not
have one already. In either case a higher price would
often be forthcoming than could be afforded by a
cultivator who desired the land as a means of obtaining
a living thereon.

Still more do these considerations apply in the
neighbourhood of a town, or of a village not too far
from a railway-station — that is to say, in precisely those
localities which the small holder who wanted to start
market-gardening, or some other such business, would
find the most desirable for his purpose. Here he might
have to compete with the retired professional man,
merchant, or tradesman, who, though unable to buy
a large estate, wished for ' a bit of land,' which he
could either build on or, at least, feel a pride in owning,
and for which he is not disposed to look too closely at the
price, assuming he finds what suits his fancy. Alterna-
tively, the local publican or blacksmith may be on the
look-out for a garden, or a local tradesman may require
some accommodation land for his horse. These indi-
viduals, again, would be prepared to give for a piece of
suitable land — of which the quantity within a convenient
area will be limited — a higher price than should be paid
by a cultivator who wanted the land only for the
purposes of profitable cultivation.

So, to begin with, the would-be small owner, standing
as a solitary unit, might agree to buy land at a higher
price than he ought to pay — from a commercial stand-
point— even if he had the money. But he has not got
the money. He possesses a certain sum, and this
the seller of the land agrees to accept, the remainder
being left on mortgage. Should he be a promising
man, and have a few sturdy sons, the lawyers may

248 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

encourage him by saying they will make the terms
' easy ' as regards the amount to be paid down, and the
conditions of the mortgage. Whether or not the
candidate for proprietorship is really a qualified agricul-
turist, likely to work his land to advantage, is a matter
of detail with which the lawyers have little or no direct
concern, even if they were really qualified to form an
opinion thereon. It is sufficient for them that the man
wants to buy, and can raise the stipulated sum. If he
should give up in the course of a few years, there will
be a further transfer and more fees.

In the circumstances it may well be that the ' pro-
prietor ' starts operations on his mortgaged holding
with practically no working capital. Almost every
penny he possesses will have been either sunk in the
initial payment for ownership or paid away for legal
expenses. What happens next is that he gets into
debt with the wholesale traders or their agents. He
expects them to supply him with everything he wants
at the beginning of the season, and to wait for their
money until harvest time, when he will pay them— if
he can. Should one trader demur, he withdraws his
custom and goes to another. The trader is thus forced
to become, in effect, the cultivator's money-lender, with
this difference : that what is lent is represented by seeds,
manures, implements, etc., instead of hard cash. Such
transactions go by the courtesy title of ' long credit,'
but they may represent not only money-lending, but
money-lending in a particularly bad form. If the
small holder received hard cash he would know what
he got, and what rate of interest he had to pay. But
the trader to whom he resorts is, at least, in a position
not only to charge him for the goods supplied a price
which would include a money-lender's rate of interest,
but also to palm off on to him — if he still remains an

TRIALS OF THE SMALL FREE-HOLDER 249

individual unit — seeds, manures, etc., of so defective a
quality that he would have little or no chance of getting
a satisfactory return from them.

Bad, therefore, as the prospect is for the small free-
holder when he has (i) sunk his available capital in
ownership, (2) satisfied the demands of get-rich-quick
lawyers, and (3) strapped on his back the burden of a
mortgage he can hardly hope to redeem, his position
becomes still worse if he tries to make his way with no
co-operative society through which he can buy neces-
saries of guaranteed quality at the lowest rates, or con-
sign and sell his produce to the best advantage. He
struggles on, hoping that times will mend, and doing
his best to meet inflexible mortgage charges which, in
bad seasons, become the worst form of 'rent.' His
struggles become even more severe when, still as an
individual unit, he competes on the market with foreign
produce grown in countries where land values and
cost of production are lower, and the actual producers
represent a highly-organized community. In the end
he joins in the despairing cry that ' British agriculture
does not pay '; he reviles the railway companies ; he
calls on the Legislature to make him prosperous ; and
he probably finishes off by disposing of his holding for
what he can get — in which case there will be a fresh lot
of fees for the lawyers, and the whole business will
recommence de novo.

If the small holder were in a position to purchase
right out, free of any mortgage at the start, there would
still be the temptation to raise money on mortgage
later on whenever it was wanted, and to such tempta-
tion the majority of peasant proprietors who are abso-
lute owners, either in England or elsewhere, generally
succumb. This has especially been the case with the
' statesmen ' of Westmoreland and Cumberland, whose

250 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

steady disappearance various writers have deplored.
When, in spite of the hardest toil and the closest thrift,
many of these English peasant proprietors found them-
selves on the verge of starvation (as happened in bad
times), the only remedy open to them was to mortgage
their properties. In effect, nearly all of them were
' mortgaged up to the hilt,' and, even if they avoided
foreclosure, they had to meet the heavy burden of
interest on the mortgages, as well, possibly, as the pay-
ments to other members of the family with which
inheritance might be saddled.

Should the small free-holder resist the temptation of
raising money on mortgage, there is still the possi*
bility that he would yield to temptation in another
form by selling his land to some well-to-do citizen,
who might be willing to give him more than its com-
mercial value. In that case the small holding would
probably be a small holding no longer, but be used for
residential purposes. The small owner might even find
it desirable (as many an English cultivator, including
Lake District 'statesmen,' has done) to sell under
these favourable conditions, and, with the money thus
raised, start afresh as the tenant of a larger farm else-
where. Alternatively, if a small free-holder grew weary
of the labour involved, and found he was not adapted
thereto, he might sell out to a more successful neigh-
bour, who would add the plot to his own, and so, in
course of time, as the result of various purchases of
this kind, rise from a 'small' into a 'large' owner.
For these various reasons, there can clearly be no
guarantee of continuity in the ' ownership ' of small
holdings.

Looking at the matter from the point of view of first
principles, I should say that purchase — provided
tenancy on satisfactory lines can be secured instead

THE USES OF CAPITAL 251

— is the more undesirable, because the small holder
should be able to do better with his money. Farming
as a business must be run on business lines, and there
ought to be a greater profit from capital placed in a
business, with the possibilities of a more or less frequent
turn-over, than from capital locked up in land that is
wanted for cultivation, and especially in land bought at,
as I have said, more than its commercial value. In
the case of a person of independent means, or of a pro-
fessional man having no enterprise of his own in which
to invest his savings, surplus money might well be put
into such land ; but the position is different with an
agriculturist whose limited supply of capital represents
the primary essential for the successful management of
his business, and who really cannot, as a rule, afford to
introduce into business any considerations that may be
purely sentimental. As a peasant proprietor, he is
dependent entirely on his own capital. As a tenant,
he is working, to a certain extent, with the capital of
his landlord, paying, through his rent, in part, only a
low rate of interest thereon.*

At a farm in Yorkshire I saw recently some build-
ings which the landlord had erected, at a cost of £300,
to enable the tenant to carry on his dairy business to
better advantage. Had the tenant owned the land, he
would have had either to put up these buildings himself or
go without them. As it was, they were provided by the
landlord, without, as it happened, even such increase in

* Mr. Druce, an Assistant Agricultural Commissioner, wrote in
a report published in the ' Allotments' Blue-Book of 1882 :

1 If a man has ,£1,000 to spend, he can buy 10 acres of land,
and have still sufficient capital to work them ; but as a tenant
farmer he can farm 100 acres with a capital of £10 an acre, and
will make more money, as he has the advantage of using his land-
lord's capital at a very low interest, whereas if he buys the land the
money is sunk.'

252 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

rent as would represent interest on outlay. Here, then,
we meet with another consideration : that the peasant
proprietor must pay for all his own improvements — a
prospect that may be far from pleasing should he still
be heavily mortgaged and in debt to the traders or
money-lenders. In the same way, of course, the
peasant proprietor must do all his own repairs, and meet
the fixed burdens on the land.

Ownership, again, may prove a serious bar to advance-
ment. A cultivator who starts on a very small holding
may find in the course of a year or two that he can do
with a larger one. He repeats the same experience later
on, and, step by step, should he be a tenant only, he
moves from one place to another until he becomes a
farmer on a comparatively large scale. One instance
brought to my knowledge in Yorkshire was that of a
man who began as a labourer with a small allotment,
and, in successive stages, worked up to the tenancy of a
farm of 80 acres, settling his sons on other farms around
him. In cases such as this actual ownership would
mean that a man would advance a certain distance and
then stop. The trouble and cost of successive dealings
in land will be found more than the average small
proprietor cares to undertake, and he will rest contented,
and lag behind, while the tenant, with his greater free-
dom, is able to adapt himself readily to new conditions.
Instead of the small owner being master of his land,
the land is more likely to become master of the small
owner.

And then there is that last problem of all for the
solution of the small owner : What is to become of his
few acres when he dies ? If he leaves them to his
widow and she sells, she will do so at a disadvantage.
If he divides the holding equally among his children,
and these, in turn, divide their share among their

OTHER DRAWBACKS 253

children, it will not be long before a state of things
is reached analagous to that found in certain parts of
Italy, where 25 per cent, of the peasants have ' properties '
of less than J acre each. Should he leave all to one
son, the other members of the family may feel aggrieved,
while if the son who inherits is required to contribute to
the maintenance of other members of the family, there
is created a rent-charge which, with the special moral
obligations involved, might become much more burden-
some than ordinary rent, especially in times of depres-
sion. Alternatively, any general letting of properties so
inherited would bring into existence a body of small
landlords, who would probably be found far worse than
the large landlords they succeeded.

The small holder who is content to hire rather than
buy thus avoids what Dr. Lavergne describes as ' that
turning aside of capital from the cultivation of land to
its purchase, which is one of the chief vices of our
French rural economy.' Whatever money he possesses
he can keep as working capital ; he has less need to
borrow, and then to sorrow ; he is more free to improve
his position as opportunity occurs, and he avoids possible
family discords and complications.

These considerations should almost suffice in them-
selves to show that, while the drawbacks of peasant
proprietary may have to be tolerated as best they can in
France and other countries where they are the growth
of generations, one may well pause before doing any-
thing to create deliberately such a system in Great
Britain.

I would, however, also point out that the tenant has
this further advantage over the would-be small pur-
chaser : that sympathetic land-owners, who care more
for the social advantages or for the opportunities for
sport they derive from their estates than from any

254 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME

actual profit to be derived therefrom, might be willing
to accept tenants at a moderate rent for certain portions,
thus retaining the aforesaid social advantages and also
complete control, whereas they would be averse to
reducing the area of their estate, and especially to selling
to individuals who, when once in possession, would be
free from any control whatever, however badly they
might manage their farms, or however undesirable they
might prove as neighbours. In many instances, again,
the landlords could not sell, though willing to let, by
reason of the land being held in entail. Here, there-
fore, we get two further reasons for the limitation of
the amount of land available for sale as small holdings,
for the consequent higher proportions of price, as
compared with rent, and for the preference which, as I
submit, small holders, speaking generally, should show
for tenancy over ownership.

CHAPTER XX
TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

THE alternative to a system of peasant proprietary—
always assuming that an increase in the number of
small holdings is desirable — is, of course, to be found
in tenancy.

Here the ideal would be to have a broad-minded,
sympathetic land-owner, who was prepared not only
to give small owners practical encouragement, but
willing to go to any amount of personal trouble in
order to make sure that all the arrangements were
likely to be satisfactory. It must, however, be ad-
mitted that this disposition is far from being general
among English land-owners ; and while, on the one
hand, there may be a certain number who, for a variety
of reasons, would not favour the setting up of small
holdings in their neighbourhood at all, there are pro-
bably more who, while sympathetic in the abstract,
would not care to carry on separate negotiations with a
considerable number of small holders, whether as pur-
chasers or as tenants.

These adverse conditions are especially likel} to be
experienced when the land-owner happens to be a mer-
chant or a manufacturer who has accumulated wealth
from his business in the town, buys an estate in the
country, and retires there to live a life of dignified

255

256 TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

ease, with no greater aspiration left to him to achieve
than that of ranking among the county families.
Accustomed to an active commercial life, in which
bargains are quickly made, decisions rapidly formed,
and money turned over, it may be, many times in the
year, such a person may find himself out of touch and
not in sympathy with farmers whose very business —
apart altogether from personal characteristics due to
habit and temperament — requires them to act with
deliberation in their dealings with the processes of
Dame Nature, whom they may not unduly hustle.
When a farmer has to decide six or twelve months
in advance the plans on which the success or failure of
his efforts may depend, and then wait patiently to see
them mature, it is not surprising if he should adapt his
ways of thought to his environment. The retired
representative of active commercial or industrial pur-
suits may not understand these things and make
sufficient allowance for them. Finding the farmers,
from his point of view, ' hopelessly slow,' he loses
patience, regards with aversion any idea of having
to deal with a large number of them, and probably
ends by resolving to keep for his own enjoyment the
whole of the estate he has bought. So, while the
county families may come in for an abundance of his
smiles, these slow-going farmers can hope to get little
more than their frowns.

Land-owners of this particular type — and they are
steadily on the increase — represent a great difficulty in
the way of any substantial extension of the small
holdings movement, especially where a connecting link
is wanting. The older class of land-owners — those
whose families have been settled on the land for gene-
rations, have themselves engaged in farming, and
thoroughly understand farmers and their ways — may

POSITION OF COUNTY COUNCILS 257

be more sympathetic ; but even in their case some-
thing is often wanted to form the said connecting link
with the would-be small holders, so that the land-
owner (or his agent) shall not be put to the trouble of
having separate business relations with a swarm of
small tenants, or the aspirant be left with his hopes
unrealized simply because of the difficulties that have
arisen. It may also happen that the land-owner has
not the capital available with which to meet the initial
cost of cutting up any considerable portion of his land
into small holdings, and would not care to give up
merely the choice morsels which could be utilized
without much expense.

In what way can the connecting link of which I have
spoken best be secured ?

Many well-intentioned persons have thought it might
be established as the result of combined legislative and
municipal effort, and Acts of Parliament have been
passed with the idea of creating a body of small holders
through the agency of the County Councils. But these
efforts have been followed by very poor results. The
stipulated procedure is so costly, so complicated, so
hampered by formalities, restrictions, and regulations
of almost every possible kind, that County Councils
have, as a rule, hesitated to take in hand a business
that was likely to give them a gre&.t amount of trouble,
without any corresponding guarantee of permanent
success. More especially was the great aim of the
legislators responsible for the Small Holdings Act of
1892 the creation of a peasant proprietary in England,
rather than merely the planting on the soil of a larger
number of those individuals who were indifferent to
ownership, provided they obtained land at a reasonable
rent, with security of tenure and the prospect of fair
compensation for the improvements they made. To

17

258 TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

what extent political considerations may or may not
have entered into the attempt to revive the old English
yeomanry that had succumbed mainly to economic
changes I need not stay to discuss ; but certain it is
that the one great aim of the Act was to facilitate the
purchase, rather than the letting, of small holdings. A
County Council was authorized by the Act to acquire
land, divide it into small holdings of from i to 50 acres,
erect buildings thereon, provide roads, fences, water-
supply, and drainage; but the main idea was to sell
such holdings, on an instalment system, to the persons
wanting them. A Council was authorized to let the
land only when ' of opinion that any persons desirous
of themselves cultivating small holdings were unable
to buy on the terms fixed by this Act, or where the land
has been hired by the Council on lease or otherwise ' ;
and even then the size of the holding so let must not
exceed 15 acres, or be of a greater annual value than
£15. Peasant proprietors were thus to be deliberately
created by Act of Parliament, and that, too, at the risk,
more or less, of the general body of the ratepayers.
Some of the latter might very well have said to any
County Council adopting such policy : * If you are
going to set up John Smith in business, so that he can
grow cabbages in the country, why can't you set me up
as a greengrocer, so that I can sell his cabbages for
him in the town ?'

Coming down to details as regards the Small Hold-
ings Act, I find that a County Council is authorized to
advance a would-be tenant four-fifths of the purchase-
money on the security of the holding. But that
arrangement still leaves the purchaser to provide one-
fifth of the sum ; and my contention is that a very
small capitalist could employ even that one-fifth much
more usefully in actual agricultural operations, if he

COUNTY COUNCIL FREEHOLDERS 259

were satisfied with tenancy, than by practically burying
it in the land in order that he could call himself ' pro-
prietor ' — a proprietor, that is to say, who stands with
a four-fifths' mortgage, the annual payments on which
still constitute, so long as they last, a ' rent ' in another
form, leaving him, besides, as ' proprietor,' to pay for
all improvements and meet all the permanent charges.

Then, the remarks I have made with regard to the
increase in the price of land in Denmark, and the
effect of the State loans to facilitate purchase, would
apply in special degree to the purchase of land by
County Councils. The land desired would acquire an
enhanced value instantly it became known that the
purchasers represented a local governing body ; and it
is on this enhanced value — over and above any increase
due merely to a greater demand for small holdings —
that the peasant proprietors would pay.

It is, again, a matter of common knowledge that the
work of erecting buildings and providing roads, fences,
drainage, etc., as carried out by a public body, would
assuredly cost more than such work as done by private
individuals or a private company ; so that here, once
more, the County Council freeholders would pay on
a higher scale.

The expenditure thus unduly swollen — and following
on the sinking in ownership of money that should have
been kept as working capital — must be met out of the
return on the commodities produced from the land.
There is no suggestion that the commodities themselves
would have an enhanced value because they had been
grown on County Council small holdings, and * senti-
ment ' would not count for much at Covent Garden or
elsewhere, so that the peasant proprietor, created by Act
of Parliament, would either have to work very much
harder, in the hope of increasing his output, or else be

17—2

260 TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

content with a smaller proportion of profit on his
produce, after meeting charges which are higher than
he ought, properly speaking, to be called upon to bear—
if not higher than the land itself can bear.

The whole position is commercially unsound ; but,
even if it were not, there would still remain the con-
sideration whether County Council management of
small holdings is a thing to be desired. In this
connection the fact is worth recalling that when, in
the year 1834, tne P°or Law Commissioners stated in
their annual report that ' the immediate advantage of
allotments is so great that, if there were no other mode
of supplying them, we think it would be worth while,
as a temporary measure, to propose some general plan
for providing them,' they added : ' Where the system
is carried on by individuals it has been generally
beneficial ; but when managed by parish officers it has
seldom succeeded.'

These views of seventy years ago are still applicable
to the general conditions to-day, especially considering
that local representatives and parish officers have a
multiplicity of duties to get through in the twentieth
century that was unknown in the early years of the
nineteenth. Even granting, too, for the sake of
argument, that County Council control might succeed,
there would still remain the question whether it would
be desirable that large colonies of peasant proprietors
should owe their creation to a popularly-elected body,
whose return they might be able to control, and whose
policy they might influence in their own favour, without
adequate regard for the interests of the general body of
the ratepayers, in whose name and at whose risk the
schemes in question would be put in operation.

For these various reasons I am not disposed to look
either to the Small Holdings Act of 1892, with its

FRIENDLY COMBINATIONS 261

complications and its strong prejudices in favour of
peasant proprietary, or to County Council intervention,
with its greater cost and its disadvantages in other
directions, as affording the most desirable of links
between land-owners and small holders in those cases
where, from one cause or another, direct relations
cannot be established between them.

For this desideratum I would look rather to the
creation of co-operative societies, or other combina-
tions, which would lease, or purchase, land in bulk
and let convenient lots to small holders, giving them
an absolute security of tenure — subject to their efficient
management of the holdings — and a guarantee of full
compensation for improvements, while exercising a
controlling influence, in the interests of the community,
over negligent cultivators.

The advantages of a system such as this have been
shown in several localities where it has already been
adopted ; but the time has come for a much wider
application of the general principle than has been the
case hitherto.

In the first place, the system in question surmounts
some of the chief difficulties felt by certain of the large
land-owners. Sympathetic towards the general move-
ment, they may shrink, as I have already shown, from
opening up direct relations with a large number of
small holders. But if they were approached by some
trustworthy society or combination, which said, ' Sell
or lease to us so much land, and we will guarantee you
payment of price, or rent, and relieve you of every
possible trouble, by ourselves undertaking everything
that the conversion of the land into small holdings
involves,' the scruples of the land-owners in question —
and especially of the estate agents — should be greatly
diminished, if not entirely overcome. A vast amount

262 TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

of land in this country is at present yielding so poor
a return that many owners who desired to increase
that return, and were not unfavourable to the small
holdings movement, would probably welcome the
resort to such an expedient as the one here suggested.

The question whether, under these conditions, the
land should be leased or bought by the intermediate
combination is one the answer to which would depend
on circumstances. If a satisfactory lease could be
obtained, the matter would be greatly simplified, since
there would be no need to raise a capital fund. On
the other hand, my objections to the purchase of small
holdings by small holders would not apply to the
purchase, if necessary, of land by a friendly asso-
ciation, syndicate, or trustworthy company, which
could command the necessary funds independently
of the limited resources of those it would accept as
tenants.

Whichever of these courses was pursued, the co-
operative society, syndicate, association, or company,
as the case might be, would at once relieve the land-
owner of any trouble in selecting and controlling
tenants, in making roads, fences, ditches, and drainage,
in constructing buildings, etc. It would also open up
a much larger area for occupation by small holders
than if the land-owner, not caring to undertake all this
work himself, simply let off for small holdings such
land as he had that was immediately available for that
purpose — land, that is to say, already having con-
venience of access, and, under existing conditions,
commanding a higher rental on that account. Not
only would the intermediary body probably have been
able to make a better bargain for the land at the
outset than a County Council could have done, but
it would accomplish the work of development at a less

SMALL HOLDERS AS TENANTS 263

cost, thus being able to make proportionately lower
charges to its tenants.

And tenants under this system the small holders
would be — to their own distinct advantage. With
security of tenure and guarantee of compensation for
improvements, they might well be content, from an
economic standpoint. It is true they would not have
the sentimental satisfaction of calling themselves
landed proprietors. On the other hand, they would
be able to keep the whole of their bit of money for
the purchase of stock, implements, seeds, and other
necessaries for the profitable development of the
holding, and the combination with which they started
would be most useful in enabling them to effect
economies in this direction. None of their capital
would be buried in the land at the moment it was
most wanted. They would have only nominal transfer
charges, and no lawyer's bills to pay before they could
enter into possession. They would know that they
could stop on the holding as long as they pleased,
provided they were not guilty of gross neglect. They
would pay rent as rent, instead of rent in the form of
mortgage charges, but they would not have to pay
for various things which peasant proprietors must
provide for themselves ; and when, in the course of
time, they had so far prospered that they could take
any larger holding that might be available elsewhere,
they would simply give notice to leave the plot they
had outgrown, secure the compensation to which they
were entitled, and start afresh on the larger plot, with
none of the trouble and expense which they would be
put to if they had to sell out one lot and buy another.

There is the greater need for such economy and
simplification because, where the margin of profit from
cultivation is so small, and the competition in the sale

264 TENANCY AND A CONNECTING LINK

of supplies is so keen, it is especially undesirable that
such profit should be reduced still lower by unnecessary
out-goings. Heavy legal expenses represent a charge
upon the soil which modest cultivators who indulge in
the sentimental luxury of ownership must cover by
still more arduous labour ; and there is many a small
owner in certain parts of England who toils with his
wife and children from dawn to sunset — leading a life
akin to slavery, freeholder though he is — not so much
to achieve the forlorn hope of future independence, as
to satisfy the present demands of those who have
enabled him to attain to the rank of ' peasant proprie-
tor,' but have proved to be as bad as, if not worse
than, the most exacting of landlords.

Following up the line of argument here advanced,
I propose to give in succeeding chapters examples of
three different types of connecting links, all deserving,
I think, of consideration, and dealing consecutively with

(1) the acquirement of allotments, as stepping-stones,
by town workers, through a co-operative association ;

(2) the establishment of small holdings through a
friendly syndicate ; and (3) the formation of a company
on commercial lines for the purpose of establishing
home colonies of workers by actual settlement on the
land.

CHAPTER XXI
THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

ONE of the gravest problems attendant upon urban
and industrial life, and one that has been felt in an
especially acute form in the town of Leicester, is being
met there by a little body of working men in a way
that, modest and unpretending though it be (sugges-
tive, indeed, of the very humble beginnings of the
* Rochdale pioneers '), may well be commended to the
attention of the world at large.

Stated in its briefest form, the problem in question
is : ' How can artisans in industrial centres best supple-
ment their earnings in times of trade depression, and
at the same time fit themselves for some other occupa-
tion in life which they can take up when, for one
reason or another, employment in factory or workshop
fails them altogether ?'

Leicester has certainly had good cause to ponder
over this problem, for she has known long periods of
slackness of trade, when the hours of labour have been
cut down to five a day, or when there has been a
cessation of work for weeks together. There are
thousands of men in the boot and shoe and the hosiery
trades of Leicester whose average earnings do not
exceed £i a week, and there are many who of late years
have not been earning more than from 45. to 8s. a

263

266 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

week — though even they have been better off than those
out of work altogether.

Conditions such as these are bad enough, but they
are not without hope, for depressed trade may be
followed by a revival. Far worse is the position of
the man who is thought ' too old ' for factory life, and
has no chance of returning thereto. What is he to
do, then ? To what use can he put the energy he
still possesses in order to maintain himself and those
dependent upon him ?

Under the former system of handicrafts a man learnt
a trade, and if his employer dispensed with his services
he not only still knew that trade, but could often set
up in business in a small way on his own account.
With the advent of the factory system and its minute
subdivision of labour the handicrafts are dying out,
and the worker learns a * trade ' no longer. All he
learns is to perform one or more of a long series of
mechanical operations, until he becomes almost a part
of the machinery itself, indispensable as a link in a
chain, but of no greater utility (from an industrial
standpoint) than a single link of such chain when
standing alone.

These considerations presented themselves with
special force to my mind when I visited at Leicester
one of those huge boot and shoe factories which are
the twentieth-century representatives of the individual
shoemakers of old. Here, in the suburb of Aylestone,
two and a half miles out from the centre of the town,
I found a factory which employs 1,200 persons, and
turns out every week from 25,000 to 55,000 pairs of
boots and shoes for distribution — by the Co-operative
Wholesale Society — to every part of the British Isles,
if not a good deal further. The secret of this immense
output is, of course, machinery. A complete pair of

FACTORY LIFE TO-DAY 267

boots could, it seems, be produced at the factory within,
from start to finish, three hours. But in those three
hours, or such other time as might actually be occupied,
the pair of boots would go through something like thirty-
five different hands, or separate processes, and, as far
as possible, each process would be done by machinery.

Many of the machines are positive marvels of
ingenuity. But, for my own part, I was still more
impressed by the human machines, for such they
seemed to be, who attended on the machines of steel
and iron. I remember reading, in the days of my
youth, a series of stories concerning learned shoe-
makers— individuals who read and who thought as
they shaped and made a boot on their knee, and
became men of learning, if not quite philosophers, in
their way. But in the operation of that infinite variety
of machines I saw in the Wheat Sheaf Factory at
Aylestone there was no time for philosophy — no time
for anything but for the performance by each worker,
with the utmost expedition, of just that one operation
on each boot or shoe, or section thereof, that was
required of him from one year's end to the other.

So one gets to this remarkable outcome of the factory
system — that out of the 1,000 or more men and women
employed in one of these vast establishments, nominally
as ' boot and shoe makers,' there might be scarcely half
a dozen able to make a boot right out, and only a small
proportion who would be qualified later on in life to set
up even as village cobblers. The man, for instance,
who was spending his days in pushing strips of leather
under a press which moulded them into the required
shape for heel-stiffenings might well be an expert
operator in working that particular machine. But how,
when eventually separated both from the machine and
from the factory, should he still earn his living ?

268 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

The Aylestone solution of the problem here presented
is : The co-operative tenancy, under the most econo-
mical conditions, of allotments which will (i) give a
factory worker healthy recreation ; (2) enable him to
supplement wages and decrease household expenses by
the production of fruit and vegetables, which will, at
the same time, give his family a better food-supply than
would otherwise be possible ; (3) afford him an oppor-
tunity, while still engaged in a factory, of gaining such
experience of, and acquiring such taste for, market-
gardening work that, when the factory failed him, he
would still be able to contribute to the support of his
family, if not keep them and himself altogether, by
becoming a market-gardener, instead of having to
depend on such odd jobs as he might be able to pick
up as one of the unemployed.

The essence of the Aylestone idea is, in fact, ' Don't
wait until you have been scrap-heaped. Prepare for
another possible vocation while you still get in the
factory such work as you can. Secure your allotment
at once, and regard it as a preparatory school for a
possible small holding. Spend your evenings and your
Saturday afternoons there instead of in the public-
house. Let your family have from your own garden
vegetables fresher in quality and far more abundant in
quantity than you would be likely to buy from green-
grocer or street-hawker. If you keep your work in the
factory you will still gain from your allotment. If you
lose your factory work, or become weary of it, why,
you will have something else to fall back on.'

On the soundness of these propositions there is no
need for me to enlarge; but there is much that is interest-
ing in the details respecting the particular form of their
application at Aylestone, and especially in the resort
there to co-operative principles in regard to tenancy.

RESORT TO CO-OPERATION 269

For the actual origin of the allotments in question
one must go back to about the year 1892, when certain
influential gentlemen in Leicester secured some land on
lease, and divided it into allotments, themselves remain-
ing trustees. But in the course of time (and here I
would point to a source of weakness in the trustee
system) some of these gentlemen died, some removed
from Leicester, and some who remained no longer took
much interest in the management. Thereupon the
tenants, who were mainly employes at the boot and
shoe factory already mentioned or at the Leicester
Corporation Gasworks, constituted themselves into a
registered co-operative society, which rented the land
afresh from the owners on the expiration of the previous
leases.

The society now controls 172 separate allotments,
covering 21 acres, independently of 6 acres held in
reserve, and at present let for grazing. Some of the
allotments are 1,200 yards in extent, but the majority
are 400 or 500 yards. For the greater part of the land
the society pays a rental of £3 per acre, the charge for
the remaining portion being £4 per acre. This is
regarded as substantially less than what a land-owner
would have to charge if, instead of accepting a co-
operative society as the one responsible tenant, he had
the trouble, cost, and risk of dealing with 172 individual
tenants. So the society is able to let to the actual
occupiers at the rate of 2s. 8d. per 100 yards, inclusive
of rates and taxes, initial outlay, cost of roads, water-
supply, etc. The difference between the amount paid
to the landlord and the equivalent of £6 8s. 2d. per
acre charged to individual members covers working
expenses. There is, besides, a share capital, repre-
sented by 250 shares (of which all the tenants have at
least one) at los. each, though only 33. has been called

270 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

up. Then, again, the financial operations are facilitated
by the fact of the tenants — especially at first — being
required to pay six months' rent in advance. Non-
shareholders may rent an allotment when one is vacant,
but a shareholder gets the preference. The average
rent paid per allotment is about 12s. the year.

Operations were thus started by the society with only
an extremely moderate demand on the financial resources
of its members. The position was, in fact, very different
from what it would have been had they resolved to buy,
instead of renting, the land they wanted. The 21 acres,
at £120 per acre, would have cost them £2,520, of
which amount they would have been expected to pay
down at least £600, leaving the remainder on mortgage.
But when the society was formed, in 1901, the members
could not have raised even £100. By accepting the
principle of tenancy instead of ownership, and sub-
scribing, as I have shown, the modest sum of 35. each,
they avoided any financial difficulty, and kept the
remainder of their scanty savings for seeds, plants,
tools, or manure. The society, as tenant-in-chief, has
good landlords to deal with — one of them, Sir J. Rolles-
ton, is a warm supporter of the movement and patron
of the society — and the allotment holders, as tenants
of the society, are really in a better position than if
they had run the risk of financial embarrassment by
becoming owners of the land they hold.

In confirmation of this view I would point to the fact
that in the course of a single year no fewer than 29
out of the total of 172 allotments changed hands, owing
to removals from the district or to other causes. Such
frequent changes are characteristic alike of allotments
and small holdings, and, where the land is owned by
the person who is leaving, it may very well happen that
he will lose on the sale, while the cost of transfer may

TRANSFER FEE ONE SHILLING 271

represent a comparatively substantial item for persons
of limited means. Under the system adopted by the
Aylestone Society the outgoing tenant and the incoming
tenant first of all agree between themselves as to the
amount the latter shall pay the former by way of com-
pensation. They then jointly apply to the secretary for
the transfer of the tenancy. Should the proposed new
tenant be approved by the committee, the transfer is
granted, the transfer fee charged being at the rate of
3d. per 100 yards. Thus on a 400 yards plot the cost
of transfer from one tenant to another comes to is.,
this amount including 6d. for a stamp. Should the
new tenant take over the share or shares of his
predecessor (though this is optional), he pays a further
is., including 6d. for a second stamp. Adding the
amount of compensation paid to the outgoing tenant,
the new-comer would, as a rule, not have to find more
than -£i in order to acquire an allotment as a going
concern.

Then the allotment holders, as tenants of the society,
have various advantages, such as water-supply, which
they would have to provide for themselves if they were
owners, and they secure protection against negligent
neighbours, who might tolerate such a growth of weeds
as would become a source of trouble to the holders of
adjoining plots. Each of the three ' fields ' controlled
by the society is under the direct supervision of a sub-
committee of the holders thereon, whose duty it is,
among other things, to report to the committee any
case of negligent cultivation ; and, inasmuch as one
or other of them will be paying frequent visits to the
allotments, the supervision thus exercised becomes a
daily one. Should the complaint be upheld by the
committee, the offender is fined 2s. 6d., and if the
offence is continued, he will be liable to a three months'

272 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

notice to quit.* If all the parties concerned were
owners of their plots there would be no remedy against
a careless cultivation, and even if they all rented direct
from the land-owners the control would not be anything
like so effective.

As for the land-owners themselves, they have a
distinct gain in accepting a registered and trustworthy
co-operative society as their tenant in preference to a
large number of individuals. They are sure of the rent
in a lump sum whenever it is due, whereas, if the
owners, say, of the land used for the Aylestone allot-
ments dealt direct with 172 different tenants, they would
not only be put to much trouble and cost, but would
certainly lose to the extent of 20 per cent, on removals
and bad debts.

The co-operative society relieves them of all worry,
but does not itself run the same risk. Whereas the
land-owner, or his agent, would be personally acquainted
with only a very small proportion of the tenants, there
would not be one among the latter, or even probably
among the candidates for tenancy, with whom some
member or other of the committee was not acquainted.
The society can thus make a better choice of tenants
than the landlord could, just as it can exercise better
supervision over them afterwards. So, instead of losing
20 per cent, as the land-owners might do by direct
letting, the society does not lose at the outside more
than i J per cent, from bad debts, even if the percentage
should exeed i per cent. All expenditure is kept to a
minimum, the only paid officer being the secretary,
who receives a modest allowance for the considerable
amount of work involved in his duties ; and so well
managed is the whole undertaking that a profit of

* The full text of the regulations enforced will be found in the
Appendix.

SMALL MEANS: GOOD RESULTS 273

20 per cent, was realized in 1903, and one of 12 J per
cent, in 1904 (when some heavy expenditure was found
necessary), while one of 25 per cent, was anticipated
for 1905. The sums dealt in are, of course, small. In
the first year of the society's existence, as such, the
receipts were under £10, and the financial statement
for that year contains the intimation, ' Balance due to
treasurer, 2s. 8d.' Even in 1904 the turnover was less
than £200. Yet, with such modest resources as these,
the society has found it possible to provide separate
allotments just beyond the limits of a penny tramcar-
ride of the centre of Leicester for no fewer than 172
working-men, with all the present and prospective
advantages which, as I have ventured to affirm, those
allotments are calculated to afford.

But to appreciate to the full extent all that is being
done, a visit to the allotments themselves is essential,
and such visit I paid under the escort of the president,
Mr. Jeffs, himself a worker in the Wheatsheaf Boot
and Shoe Factory and tenant of an allotment.

The first fact which strikes the visitor's attention is
the great variety of produce these amateur market-
gardeners are able to grow on such comparatively
small patches of ground. * Thanks to vigorous spade-
work,' said Mr. Jeffs, the * productiveness of the soil is
increased fourfold '; and his own allotment was suffi-
cient in itself to confirm the truth of his assertion.
Here, in the course of the year, he had grown, on
600 square yards of land, potatoes, peas, brussels
sprouts, cabbages, kale, kidney-beans, carrots, parsnips,
onions, black currants, red currants, strawberries,
various herbs, and a choice collection of flowers. Such
of the crops as remained looked, too, in very good
condition, a fact which Mr. Jeffs accounted for by his
belief in the principle and practice of deep cultivation.

18

274 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

Then, among other allotments, I saw one of 400 yards,
the tenant of which is a youth of twenty, who is em-
ployed in a local timber-yard, and pays a rental of
los. 8d. a year for his holding. He cultivates it entirely
himself, and he gets back probably much more than the
amount of his rent by selling cut-flowers, of which he
grows a considerable quantity, including many choice
varieties. But he finds room on his diminutive holding
not only for flowers, but also for red currants, black
currants, gooseberries, two varieties of kale, potatoes,
brussels sprouts, savoys, cabbages, kidney-beans, celery,
onions, and tomatoes.

Another holder, still a young man, but with the
advantage of having worked under a market-gardener,
started with an allotment of 400 yards, which he devoted
to the growing of rose-trees. He has succeeded so well
that he now rents 1,600 yards of land from the society,
and has also acquired close by 400 yards of freehold,
which he uses for glasshouses, devoting his whole time
to the business.

Most of the vegetables grown are used in the house-
holds of the growers, and wives and children get a
plentiful supply, not only of ordinary varieties, but also
of kinds which would otherwise count as luxuries for
working-class families. It is sometimes a question not
alone of an abundance, but of a superabundance, the
surplus being then disposed of to neighbours, who
appreciate it so much that they are ready to pay more
for what they know is absolutely fresh than they would
give to the street-hawker. Experiences of this kind,
coupled with the example of the rose-tree-grower men-
tioned above, have served to strengthen the idea that
the allotments should be regarded as stepping-stones to
such small holdings as would support a man entirely.
I found that Mr. Jeffs favoured this idea, and I asked

POSSIBLE STEPPING-STONES 275

him to tell me what amount of land he thought would
be sufficient for anyone having his own experience of
market-gardening, as derived from an allotment, to live
upon. The answer was prompt and precise : ' Two
acres. But he would want some help in the summer,'
Mr. Jeffs added, * and he would be likely to get
much better results if he formed one of a number
of two-acre holders who joined together so as to have
horses, carts, and implements in common, and so as
to buy their necessaries, if not, also, to sell their
produce, in common '; and the eyes of a worker who
had grown gray in the toils of factory life positively
sparkled at the idea of such a prospect being opened
out to him.

Meanwhile, the holders of allotments through the
Aylestone Society are, at least, being prepared to avail
themselves of wider possibilities in the future, and, it
factory-work fails them, only the opportunity will be
necessary for enabling them to start afresh — somewhat
further out from Leicester, where land is cheaper — as a
little colony of market-gardeners. Meanwhile, also,
they add the equivalent of from 35. to 45. a week to
their wages, their families are better nourished, they
themselves are in more vigorous health, while, since
they have learnt to find relaxation in gardening, they
have saved the money they once spent in pursuits much
less remunerative and beneficial.

This story of what has been done at Aylestone may,
I think, well be commended to public attention. It
shows what a body of clear-sighted and energetic work-
ing men can do for themselves, with the scantiest of
means, but acting on the principle of ' self-help ' rather
than of * State-aid '; and what Aylestone has done ought
to be quite capable of accomplishment elsewhere. In the
suburbs of most large towns or cities there is land

18— 2

276 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

which may some day be required for building purposes,
but at present is lying more or less idle — ' awaiting
development ' at what land-owner or builder may regard
as the psychological moment. That moment may not
arrive for another ten or twenty years; but even
if the land-owner were now in a position to sell,
he probably would not sell at the agricultural value
for the purposes of allotments or small holdings, while
either he might not care for the trouble of dealing
individually with 100 or 200 allotment holders as
tenants for the time being, or his scale of rent, to
cover expenses, agents' commission, losses, etc., might
be unduly heavy.

These difficulties would be overcome by the interven-
tion of a co-operative society working on Aylestone
lines, and taking, if possible, a lease for such period as
could be mutually arranged. It might so happen that
the lease could not be renewed beyond that period, as
the time for building operations would then have
arrived ; but, meanwhile the land-owner would have
had his guaranteed rent from the society ; the land
would be all the better for having been cultivated ; and
the working-men renting the allotments (situate pro-
bably within easy reach of their dwellings) would not
only have had all the immediate advantages I have
enumerated, but, what is still more to the point, would
have been much better qualified to earn a livelihood on
the soil, in case of need, than if they were without the
practical experience and the taste for rural pursuits
which had followed from their cultivation of allotments
while still in the ranks of 'town workers.'

The example set at Aylestone has since been followed
oy the Newfoundpool (Leicestershire) Co-operative

PLEA OF WINCHESTER WORKERS 277

Allotment Society, Limited, and the Woking and
Maybury (Surrey) Allotments Society, Limited, both
affiliated (as is also the case with the Aylestone
Co-operative Allotments Society, Limited) with the
Agricultural Organization Society.

I may also mention that in January, 1906, a body of
working men, holding land at Winchester (Hants) from
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as allotment gardens,
sent a memorial to that body (by whom most of the
land suitable for allotments within a reasonable radius
of the city is owned), pointing to the present uncer-
tainty of their tenure, stating that on October 4, 1905,
they had held a meeting at which they formed them-
selves into an Allotment Holders' Association, and
proceeding :

1. It is well known that the working man of the present date finds
it very hard to pay his way on account of high house-rent and pro-
visions, compared with his low wages, and especially owing to the
distress throughout the country, through so many of the working
class being out of employment ; and, were it not for the fact that
many of these have the advantage of an allotment garden to provide
vegetables for their families, matters would be far worse than they
are at the present time.

2. By having a piece of land many of the working class have not
only been able to provide themselves with vegetables, but have
been the means of growing sufficient to supply some of their un-
fortunate community with the necessaries of life, and found them
employment on their allotments, remunerating them as far as lay
in their power, which has been the means of many a man being
engaged at a healthful occupation who would probably have been
loafing the streets ; and it is seriously felt that, should the working
class be deprived of their allotment ground, many of those who
now spend all their spare time on their gardens would not be
otherwise engaged.

3. Gardening has been admitted by professional medical men to
be one of the best and healthiest recreations, and no doubt the
general good health among the working class of this city has been
considerably due to many of the men and members of their families
being engaged at it.

4. The land now let as allotment gardens at Fulflood, St. Cross,
HighclifTe, and Winwall has notice-boards upon it, stating it can be
let on lease for building purposes ; but, if what we hear is correct,

278 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS

that it is intended for the erection of villas only, at a rental of ^30
per annum, we feel sure that at present there can be very little
demand for such houses, though there is, no doubt, a very great
demand for houses for the working men at a rental of 6s. or 75.
per week.

5. We humbly pray that, under the circumstances, you will, if
possible, allow the land to remain let as allotment gardens, and,
should you feel disposed to do so, the allotment holders are pre-
pared to register themselves into an association, and take over the
land on a lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, and to get
rules and regulations passed by the Registrar.

I am glad to be able to add that this memorial has
been received most sympathetically by the representa-
tive of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It is pointed
out, in reply, that some of the land in question is now
too valuable to remain devoted to allotments, while
building has been started at the present time on 2 acres
at Fulflood, mainly with the idea of finding work for
the unemployed. But the Commissioners will be quite
prepared to consider the question of allotting another
field to those holders who are displaced by the building
operations.

Should the Winchester allotment-holders form them-
selves into a registered association on the lines sug-
gested, they would doubtless find it an easy matter to
get their land on lease for a fixed period, on specially
favourable terms, thus avoiding the element of un-
certainty to which the memorial refers.

CHAPTER XXII
SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

No more enthusiastic and, at the same time, more
practical supporter of allotments and small holdings is
to be found among the great land-owners of England
than Lord Carrington, who, especially at the outset of
the work he undertook in this direction, showed a
courage, a zeal, and a willingness to run what land-
owners and their agents generally would consider no
little risk, of which the world at large has but little
idea. Happily, his efforts met their deserved success,
for in an article contributed by him to the Nineteenth
Century in March, 1899, on ' The Land and the
Labourers,' he said :

My practical experience of over thirty years is that small holdings
and allotments, not only keep villagers on the land, but that they
are, and always have been, a financial and social success. With
me they have succeeded, not only round an artisan town, but
equally on the clays of North and Mid Bucks, on the chalk hills
and in the valleys of South Bucks, on the light lands and ordinary
soils of North and Mid Lincolnshire, and, best of all, on the grand
land of the Lincolnshire fens.

Lord Carrington has not been converted to the idea
of a peasant proprietary, for though Lincolnshire, with
its rich soil and abundant opportunities, is an ideal
county for small holders, he gave in his article a
melancholy picture of Lincolnshire freeholders who

279

280 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

have bought land, at an excessive price, with borrowed
money, and been ruined by the exorbitant interest.
But, notwithstanding his own strong sympathies with
the small holdings movement, he has fully recognised
the value of the service which a connecting link between
landlord and small holder may serve, as the story I have
now to tell will show.

In 1892 there was formed at Spalding Common — a
thickly populated suburb in the west of Spalding
(Lincolnshire) — a Provident Allotments and Small
Holdings Club, which had for its object, ' To enable
persons desirous of obtaining land for allotments and
small holdings to assist each other by combination with
a view of (i) treating collectively with local authorities
or private owners; and (2) holding a reserve fund, if
necessary, for rent.' The idea of such a club adapted
itself the more readily to the minds of Lincolnshire
labourers and small cultivators because almost every
Lincolnshire village has a friendly society in one form
or another, and the payment to a Provident Allotments
Club of small periodical sums towards the renting of
land would be no more than supplementing the sub-
scriptions regularly paid for sick benefits on life insur-
ance. So the club prospered, and an application for
land was made to Lord Carrington, who arranged with
one of his tenants to let direct to the members, in
acre lots, a field 33 acres in extent. In the follow-
ing year (1893) more land was asked for by the club,
and Lord Carrington allotted to the members a field
on an adjoining farm. The 35 acres in this field were
divided in acre lots among as many tenants, who, in this
instance, were to pay their rents to the estate agent.

But that gentleman's offices were several miles distant
from Spalding, and, apart from the inconvenience, from
an agent's point of view, connected with a system which

DIFFICULTIES AND A REMEDY 281

necessitated the dealing with thirty-five persons instead
of one, the exercise of effective control, from such a
distance, over what was happening in the neighbour-
hood of Spalding, became a matter of no little difficulty.
Under these conditions the agent could not be person-
ally acquainted with all the applicants for tenancy ; he
could not guarantee that he always selected competent
and trustworthy men ; he could not keep close watch
over the cultivation of the holdings, and he could not
avoid losses of rent when tenants went away without
giving notice or without paying what they owed.

These experiences illustrate what may well happen
when a great land-owner, however beneficent in his
intentions, seeks to operate a large scheme of allotments
and small holdings himself, and they may seem to
excuse the attitude that land-owners have sometimes
taken. But in this instance a way out of the difficulty
was found by the formation of the South Lincolnshire
Small Holdings Association. What had already been
done by Lord Carrington had greatly stimulated the
demand for allotments and small holdings, especially
when it was seen that the tenants were getting land at
reasonable rents, with security of tenure, and were able
to apply all their surplus cash to the immediate
development of their holding, instead of paying it away
as a first instalment for purchase. A great opportunity
presented itself at Lady Day, 1895, when the Willow
Tree Farm, 217 acres in extent (also on Lord Carring-
ton's estate) became vacant. Individual members of
the club wished to have separate portions, but it was
clearly preferable that the farm should be dealt with as
a whole ; and here it was necessary to create an inter-
mediate authority, or principal tenant, who would take
over the entire farm on a lease, and arrange payment
of tenant right, etc.

282 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

The solution of this particular problem was brought
about by Mr. R. Winfrey, who for a number of years,
and especially as chairman of the Small Holdings
Committee of the Holland (Lincolnshire) County
Council, had taken an active interest in the develop-
ment of small holdings. It had been on his suggestion
that the Spalding Common Club was formed. This
gentleman now secured the co-operation of five friends,
and, with them, formed a syndicate, to which the title
of South Lincolnshire Small Holdings Association was
given. To this syndicate Lord Carrington let the farm
in question on a seven years' lease (subsequently re-
newed). But the members of the syndicate, or asso-
ciation, subscribed no capital, and there has been no
need for them to do so from that day to this. All they
did was to guarantee, jointly and severally, the payment
to Lord Carrington of the rent for the entire farm. On
this condition they became the principal tenant, and it
was for them to sublet the farm in small holdings,
apportion rent and expenses among the occupying
tenants, and collect from them the money to be paid
to Lord Carrington. Nominally, the association is
responsible for all losses ; but, practically, there have
been no losses for it to bear.

The Willow Tree Farm was divided among about
100 tenants in holdings which range from i to 35-acre
lots. Then, in 1902, Lord Carrington offered to the
association a twenty-one years' lease of the Cowbit
House Farm, 265 acres in extent (on its becoming
vacant), and he further expressed his willingness to
transfer to the association six detached allotment fields
which he had previously managed through his estate
agent. Accepting these further responsibilities, the
association now had the control of 650 acres of allot-
ments and small holdings, ranging from rood plots to

PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES 283

40- acre holdings, and capable of accommodating over
200 separate tenants. Thus the connecting link was at
last fully established, and the difficulties which Lord
Carrington had previously experienced were no longer
encountered, while a substantial impetus was given to
the general movement.

One fact of paramount importance which must be
borne in mind is that Lord Carrington let the farms, of
217 acres and 265 acres respectively, to the Small
Holdings Association for precisely the same rent as he
would have asked from two large farmers. Even
allowing for increased cost of management, etc., the
average land-owner would naturally expect to get a
higher return from his land when it is occupied by 200
tenants than when it is rented by one or two. By
pursuing the course he adopted, Lord Carrington
enabled the association to start with a great initial
advantage in the apportionment of the rents to be paid
by the occupying tenants.

Then, as the half-dozen gentlemen forming the
association had, though guaranteeing Lord Carrington
his rent, themselves subscribed no capital, they had no
interest to provide for, and they sought for no pecuniary
profit on what they had done. So the rents to be paid
by the occupying tenants need only be such propor-
tionate amounts as would make up the sum total to be
paid to the land-owner, plus an addition of about 10 per
cent, to cover certain expenses. Mr. Winfrey, who
fills the r61e of managing director, receives no fee or
remuneration in any form, but there is the commission
paid to the very competent steward and surveyor to the
association, Mr. J. H. Diggle, to be covered, and one
or two other things besides. The entire management
is practically in the hands of Mr. Winfrey and Mr.
Diggle, the association meeting, as a rule, once a year

284 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

only, to receive an annual report and balance-sheet, and
these ought to be regarded as satisfactory, considering
that the losses have hitherto amounted to scarcely
i per cent.

There is also the important fact that, notwithstand-
ing the addition of the said 10 per cent, to the rents
charged to the occupying tenants (to meet the expenses
of management) as compared with the amount paid to
the landlord, the rents so charged are still something
like 25 per cent, below those paid by other small
holders in the same district, who hire in the open
market the small amount of land there available.

Here, therefore, we see one practical result of con-
certed action. There are others besides. Some of the
tenants wanted to have a strong wooden bridge con-
structed over an open drain which runs between the
two farms. The cost of this bridge was estimated
at £100. The tenants who would benefit were willing
to pay an additional is. per acre per annum on their
rent until the cost of construction had been covered,
and on this understanding the gentlemen forming the
syndicate obtained an advance of £100 from the bank,
once more holding themselves jointly and severally
responsible for repayment. So the bridge was duly
constructed, Lord Carrington agreeing to take it over
at a valuation on the expiration of the lease. On
another occasion a new road, costing a further •£ 100,
was made under similar conditions. In the same way
the syndicate provides fences, supplies and paints any
extra gates required, and maintains the ditches in good
order, distributing the bare cost among the tenants
directly concerned. Not only is this an advantage to
the tenants, but for the landlord it means that the
estate is maintained in better condition than would be
the case if each of the 200 tenants acted independently,

FARM BUILDINGS 285

or even than it was when each farm had only a single
tenant.

Still another fact of special importance has reference
to the buildings on both the Willow Tree and the
Cowbit House Farms. It is often assumed that, in the
cutting-up of a large farm into small holdings, special
difficulties are presented by the risk of not finding a
good tenant for the farmhouse, and by the question as
to what shall be done with the farm-buildings. But
these difficulties have been very readily overcome.
The Willow Tree farmhouse was adapted at little cost
for the use of two tenants, and Cowbit farmhouse is let
to one of the tenants, G. R. Scott, who began work on
the land at the age of eight years, spent his youth as a
farm servant, left the land to work as a railway
employe, returned to it as horseman, was next a shep-
herd, worked his way to the position of foreman,
became a small holder, and now farms 40 acres of
land on the estate. As for the house, its condition of
neatness and scrupulous cleanliness, as I saw it on the
occasion of a surprise visit, would have done credit
even to a Dutch housewife. The farm-buildings have
been so adapted, at a cost of about £100, that no fewer
than eight of the small holders have each their
separate storeroom, stable, yard, etc., while five have
each a section of the cart-hovel. There is also a stack-
yard, which is occupied in common, and here I saw
stacks in course of construction by nine different
tenants.

Instead of there having been any trouble in disposing
of the original buildings, the chief fault I should be
disposed to find is that there are not buildings, and
especially not dwellings, enough on the estate. Many
of the tenants live two or three, and a few of them
even seven miles by road away from their holding.

286 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

There is evidence here of keen appreciation of the
advantages offered ; but these vast fenlands of South
Lincolnshire, stretching for miles in every direction,
would support a far larger number of people, and it
would be a great boon to a considerable proportion of
the small holders if they could be provided with modest
dwellings on the land they cultivate. At one frontage
of the Willow Tree Farm I saw half a dozen cottages in
course of erection by Lord Carrington ; but there is
plenty of room on Cowbit House Farm for others, and
until these have been provided there will still be some-
thing wanting to complete the scheme and for visitors
to criticise.

Many of the holdings are only modest allotments, not
intended to do more than fill up the time of * sons of
the soil ' working for neighbouring farmers, and to serve
as first steps to farms of their own. But others there
are which claim the full energies of their holders, some
of whom are achieving distinct success. Experience
shows that, as a rule, from 50 to 60 per cent, of the
small holders thrive and do either fairly well or very
well, from 20 to 30 per cent, neither advance nor
recede, and from 5 to 10 per cent, are total failures.
Much, of course, depends on the men themselves ; but,
as showing the possibilities of the situation, I would
mention the case of one tenant who began in 1895
with 8 acres of grass land, 4 acres of arable land, and
a few stock. He now has 35 acres, partly grass
and partly arable ; he breeds for sale stock of all
descriptions — horses, cattle, pigs, and poultry ; he feeds
into his stock what he produces on his arable land ; and
he is now quite equal to taking over 100 acres, if the
association could only provide him with them.

There is just one additional fact to be mentioned in
connection with the South Lincolnshire Association :

ACTION IN NORFOLK 287

that the tenants voluntarily agreed to subscribe to a
guarantee fund a sum equal to half a year's rent of each
holding, large or small, up to 4 acres, in order that
such fund should be available to indemnify the six
members of the association — who had made themselves
responsible for the payment to Lord Carrington of
upwards of £1,000 a year rent — should there be any
loss in respect to land let to the members. The fund,
which now amounts to £225, further constitutes the
capital of the Spalding Agricultural Credit Society, into
which the Spalding Common Provident Allotments
Club has now been transformed. The society, which
is amliated to the Agricultural Organization Society,
grants loans, at 5 per cent, interest, for the purchase of
stock, etc., and for reproductive purposes, 4 per cent,
being paid to the members who have advanced the
money. The steward to the association is honorary
secretary to the Credit Society.

The success of the South Lincolnshire experiment led
to the starting, in 1900, of the Norfolk Small Holdings
Association by a syndicate of gentlemen, which included
Lord Carrington, Mr. F. W. Wilson, M.P., Mr.
Winfrey (president), Mr. A. Jermyn, of King's Lynn
(honorary secretary), and several others. But in Nor-
folk no land was available for leasing, as in South
Lincolnshire, and the policy of purchase had to be
adopted instead. The conditions, therefore, in Norfolk
are somewhat different. Three farms were bought — at
Swaffham, Watton and Canbrooke, and Whissonsett —
representing a total of 337 acres, at a cost (including
conveyancing, enfranchisement of copyholds, initial
repairs, fencing, and adaptation of the land for about
sixty holdings) of £8,709. Here, therefore, it was a
matter not merely of so many gentlemen signing a
guarantee for payment of rent, as in South Lincoln-

288 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

shire, but of raising, or becoming responsible for, money
for actual purchase. What happened was that the
syndicate subscribed £1,750 (the interest on which
has each year been placed to a reserve fund), they
obtained an overdraft from the bankers, and they
mortgaged the estate for the balance.

The combined effect of having to raise a capital sum
and of meeting the various legal expenses in connection
with the purchase, mortgaging, etc., of three separate
farms, before possession of the land could be obtained,
was that the Norfolk Association, as buyers, could not
offer such easy terms to their tenants as the South
Lincolnshire Association — themselves only renting from
the owner — had been able to make with theirs. All
the same, the Norfolk tenants have done much better
through their association than they could have hoped
to do for themselves, and the demand for the land is
much greater than the supply.

Alike in South Lincolnshire and in Norfolk, the
tenant gets complete security of tenure, subject to
his fulfilling certain conditions. The tenancy can be
determined by six months' notice on either side, to
expire on October n in any year, and it is stipulated
in the agreement that, in the event of such determina-
tion of the tenancy, the amount of the tenant-right
due to the tenant (as compensation for unexhausted
improvements) shall, if not otherwise agreed upon,
be fixed by valuation. The tenant agrees to ' cultivate
and manage the land in a good and husbandlike
manner,' and six months' notice can, of course, be
given to him should he neglect so to do. It is further
provided that if the tenant should fail to pay his rent
within twenty-one days of the date at which it is due,
or if he should fail to keep the terms of the agreement,
the landlords — as represented by the association — are

CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 289

to be at liberty to retake immediate possession, without
any payment of compensation.*

Mr. Diggle, who is steward and surveyor to the
Norfolk Association, as well as to that in South
Lincolnshire, says of Whissonsett, in a pamphlet he
has issued on * The Creation of Small Holdings in
Lincolnshire and Norfolk,' that ' practically the whole
of the small village has an occupation interest in the
farm, the tenants including the labourer who worked
for the retiring farmer, the village shopkeeper, carpenter,
and innkeeper, the working-farmer's son living at home,
the assistant overseer and shoemaker, and the son of
the parish churchwarden. Farm foremen, or working
farm bailiffs, who, after some years of service, and
having probably saved £50 to £100, desire to go into
business on their own account, make excellent tenants
of the larger holdings, and are, indeed, a very deserving
class.' Mr. Diggle further says, in his pamphlet :

The existence of the following conditions has largely contributed
to success: (i) The tenants are men who understand the cultiva-
tion of the soil, and have not been failures either in agriculture or
in other walks of life. (2) The majority of the Lincolnshire tenants
hired an acre first, and made that a success before taking a larger
quantity. (3) The land is of good average quality, adapted for
small holdings, and, as to four-fifths of it, within a reasonable
distance. (4) The occupiers can grow what cropping they like in
reason, have fixity of tenure — subject to good management — and
can use the whole of their capital to farm with. (5) The rents are
reasonable and appreciably lower than the rents paid by tenants of
small holdings hired in the open market.

In comparing the respective conditions of the two
sets of holdings, it may be argued that, although the
South Lincolnshire tenants — whose land has been
leased by their association — pay lower rents than are
charged to the Norfolk tenants — whose association
bought the land they hold — there is no guarantee in

*,See Appendix.

19

290 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

the case of the former, or in any similar case, that the
rent charged to the intermediary body may not be
raised by the land-owner when the time comes for
renewing the lease. Although, some persons will say,
the present land-owner may be quite sympathetic and
reasonable, it is possible that his successor will be
neither, and may raise the rent on the tenants' own
improvements.

Criticisms such as these have a direct bearing on the
question whether an intermediary association should
lease or purchase. At first sight the objection to the
former course appears to be well based ; but, on look-
ing closer into the facts and probabilities, it will be
found to have less weight. In the first place, the pre-
sent lease of the South Lincolnshire Association with
Lord Carrington is for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one
years, the option of renewal being on the side of the
association, whose members are thus secure for prac-
tically a generation. Should the lease not be renewed
at all at the end of the present possible term, the sub-
tenants will, nevertheless, have had a good innings ;
the land-owners will take over important improvements
(such as the bridge already mentioned) at a valuation,
while the minor improvements by the tenants — fences,
gates, etc. — will be of no great value at the end of
the term.

Then, one must assume that no small holdings
syndicate or registered society treating with a land-
owner for a farm would pay him a rent in excess of
that paid for other farms on the estate, solely because
they desired it for small holdings. If, therefore, the
land-owner were unreasonable, he would probably have
the land left on his hands by the syndicate. But he
might then (it will be said) instruct his agent to take
over the land, and raise the rents of all existing

POSSIBLE CRITICISMS 291

tenants. He certainly might ; but I think it equally
certain that the agent would dislike the idea of collect-
ing from 100 or more tenants instead of one ; that he
would want to be paid a higher commission ; that
losses of rent would be sustained ; that the land-owner
would be called on to do a good deal more in the shape
of improvements ; and that in the long-run he might
not gain anything financially. The average large land-
lord, also, would hardly care to incur the risk of losing
his good name in the county. A small land-owner —
and especially one devoid of conscience — might ; but a
responsible syndicate would not be likely to deal with
such a person, as it is the essence of the South Lincoln-
shire system that the syndicate should be able to lease
large farms on an estate, at the same rent as would be
charged to a large farmer.

The risks involved in tenancy by the intermediate
association, in preference to purchase, are not therefore
so serious as might be supposed ; while against them
may be set the greater simplicity in procedure, the
absence of any necessity to raise capital, and the
charging of lower rents to the actual occupiers. There
would, perhaps, be greater reason for criticising the
South Lincolnshire Association on the ground that it
rests on the life of one man — Mr. Winfrey, now M.P.
This is admitted to be a weak point, however long that
gentleman may, happily, be spared to preside over the
well-being of an organization to which he has devoted
so much energy ; and as I write these lines I hear that
a proposal is being mooted for changing the association
into a registered co-operative body. Another important
point is that such groups of tenants should, emphatic-
ally, form themselves into co-operative agricultural
societies for the purposes of combined purchase, trans-
port, and sale.

19 — 2

2Q2 SMALL HOLDINGS SYNDICATES

Whether the tenancy or the ownership system be
adopted by the intermediary syndicate or association,
we still see that, provided a land-owner is sympathetic,
or suitable land can be bought on the market ; provided
gentlemen of position are willing to incur the risk in-
volved in such arrangements as those described ; and
provided, also, individuals desirous of becoming small
holders will act together and be content with a secure
and reasonable tenancy — then, under these conditions,
there is the possibility of putting people on the land by
combined effort, at either a small outlay or no outlay at
all, with comparatively little trouble, and with none of
the complications necessarily attendant upon any
attempt to create small holders, and especially small
owners, by Act of Parliament.*

* In The Tribune of January, 27, 1906, details are given of a
scheme which is being promoted by an Essex land-owner for setting
up a colony of small holders on co-operative lines between Ipswich
and Manningtree. He will begin by starting twenty suitable young
men with I acre each, leased to them for ninety-nine years at £i
per annum. He will also assist promising tenants in building their
house, stocking their farm, etc. ; but a condition of the tenancy is
that each colonist must become a member of an association which
will be responsible to the land-owner for the rent of the whole of
thejholdings. A central hall will be provided, where agricultural
and kindred topics can be discussed. Purchase of necessaries and
sale of produce will be on co-operative lines. Costly agricultural
implements will be owned in common. Negligent cultivators will
be paid off by the community and ejected ; others, leaving the
colony, can sell out at a valuation. Colonists may hope to extend
their holdings to 4 or 5 acres. The amount of land set aside for
the purposes of the scheme is 1,000 acres.

CHAPTER XXIII

SMALL HOLDINGS BY 'PRIVATE ENTER-
PRISE'

IT will have been seen, from what I state on p. 67, that
in the conversation I had with Mr. Hugh Andrews
at Toddington Manor, I found him distinctly sym-
pathetic towards the small holdings movement, but he
felt, I go on to say, ' that such undertakings should be
entrusted to syndicates or powerful combinations, with
capital sufficient to enable them to grapple with the
housing problem.'

The suggestion here made is one that, to my mind,
is deserving of very serious consideration. It offers the
same idea of an ' intermediary ' as, in principle, I have
already sought to expound; but it carries that idea
further in the importance it deservedly attaches to the
inclusion of ' housing ' in schemes for the promotion of
land settlement. So long as provision for actual
residence on the land is not included, small holdings,
of whatever dimensions, are still but little better than
allotments. They serve an extremely useful purpose,
but they do not entirely meet the necessities of the
situation. It may be that a large proportion of the
existing small holders do not want to live on their
holdings, provided that these are within reasonable
distance of a town or village. In this case they prefer

293

294 'PRIVATE ENTERPRISE'

to dwell in the town or village for the sake of such ' life,'
or, at least, such social intercourse, as it may afford,
working on the land during the day, and having the
opportunity of a little recreation in the evenings. There
are, however, many who would be quite willing to
discard the attractions (such as they are) of village life,
and settle down on the land, while alternatively the
holdings might be so far away from any village or town
that they could be cultivated efficiently only by persons
actually living upon them. Here it would be a question
of creating a new colony, the dwellings in which would
represent a fresh village, thus disposing of any feeling
of isolation, and satisfying the natural desire for human
fellowship.

Any comprehensive scheme for a greater rural settle-
ment should, therefore, be based on the principle not
only of getting land for cultivation, but also of assuring
adequate housing accommodation, either (a) on the
land, or (b) in the neighbouring villages, according to
the circumstances of the case. The question does not
arise at Aylestone, where the allotments are small, and
dwellings are plentiful within a distance of a mile or so.
It does arise (as I have already intimated) to a certain
extent in South Lincolnshire, and it arises still more
in such a centre as Evesham. There one finds one of
the most desirable of districts from the point of view
of the small cultivator, and, in spite of all the progress
of late years, great scope for expansion still exists,
provided that the new-comers do not want to settle in
the immediate vicinity of the town, where the best
plots have already been taken up, but are willing to
go further afield. Evesham, however, affords a very
practical example of the two-fold nature of the general
problem. Available land there may be, but the supply
of available houses would seem to be exhausted. In

RURAL HOUSING 295

the early part of 1905 it was found that there was then
scarcely a single cottage vacant within a radius of six
miles of the town. It was found also that many of
the houses were overcrowded, and that the further
development of the Vale of Evesham was being much
retarded by the absence of an adequate supply of cottage
homesteads.

The general situation in regard to small holdings at
Evesham is well brought out in the following statement,
drawn up by Mr. Raymond Webb at the request of
some local gentlemen who contemplated the formation
of a syndicate practically on the lines suggested to me,
though quite independently, by Mr. Hugh Andrews :

LAND AGENCY OFFICES,
EVESHAM,

April z, 1905-

DEAR SIR,

In accordance with your request, I now beg to give you a
short report upon the small holdings in the district, with which, as
you are aware, I have had about eleven years' personal experience,
during which time I have made careful inquiries and observations
on the industry. From my late father, who had more than fifty
years' experience of small holdings, I also gained a great deal of
information on the subject.

At present I act as agent for twenty-four small holding estates
in the Vale of Evesham, upon which are about 850 tenants, renting,
roughly, 1,800 acres, the average size of each holding being rather
more than 2 acres. The majority of these tenants were, in the
first instance, farm-labourers, receiving from 95. to 155. per week.
Now many of them own the house they live in, as well as the land
upon which they work.

The men, their wives and families, as a rule are most industrious,
commencing work in the summer at sunrise, and keeping on until
dark. In the winter the men are at work whenever the weather
will permit. The men do most of the hard work, as well as taking
the produce either to the saleyards (of which there are two now in
Evesham), dealers, or railway-stations. The women and children
do hoeing, pick flowers and vegetables, tie up flowers, onions,
thyme, etc.

As regards paying the rent, I find small holders, when the land
is once cleaned and planted out, pay up wonderfully well, with but
few exceptions, and then there is in most cases sufficient security

296 'PRIVATE ENTERPRISE'

on the land in the shape of ingoing to satisfy the rent. I have
specially noticed that the men pay their rent and get on much
better in localities where there are no expensive amusements or
public-houses, and for this reason houses built upon the land, away
from temptation, have an advantage.

With regard to the thousands of acres of land now under culti-
vation in the district as small holdings, originally, with but little
exception, the whole was let and cultivated as farms at rentals
varying from a few shillings up to 305. per acre, and a great propor-
tion very indifferently cultivated. The same land is now let in
small holdings at rents varying from 255. to £10 per acre, and
cultivated in a most satisfactory manner. The demand for suitable
land is continually increasing. As the older tenants bring their
holdings under a permanent crop, they require more land for
growing crops in the open. The younger generation also require
land, and there has, in addition to this, been a steady influx of
gentlemen's sons, retired tradesmen, and townspeople, who have
been attracted by the healthy and remunerative occupation. As
an instance of the demand for more small holdings, I had about
40 acres of farm land to let out last Michaelmas, three miles from
Evesham, lying in a low position, and only suitable for open culti-
vation. A few years ago this land had been let at 75, 6d. per acre
for farming purposes. I have now let it to good tenants, on a
rising rent, commencing at 255. per acre for the first year, 305. for
the five successive years, and finally £2 per acre. In addition to
this, I had to refuse quite a dozen applicants for the same land.
At Michaelmas next I have 70 acres of land adjoining that
previously mentioned to .let on the same terms, together with six
cottages, and already have applications for the whole. This will
show you what a demand there is for suitable holdings in the
district.*

One of the greatest drawbacks is the shortage of cheap-rented
cottages. If cottages could be built on or near the land, containing
a good kitchen and scullery, some with two, and others with three,
bedrooms, to be let at a rental of about ^8 to £10 per annum, I am
confident that hundreds would; be taken up immediately they were
built. Almost every village within a radius of five miles of Evesham
is short of cottages, and I am continually being asked for them.
At the present moment I am not aware of one that is vacant. In
many cases the cottages are occupied by two families owing to this
shortage. If only such a cottage as I have described can be
built, the small holding industry will increase by leaps and
bounds.

I could say a great deal more on the subject of small holdings,

* It is estimated that the present acreage under small holdings
of from i to 10 acres in the Vale of Evesham is 20,000, and that
the number of cultivators is 3,000 or more.

AN EVESHAM SYNDICATE 297

but in a report of this description can only touch on a few of the
most important points.

In conclusion, I may say that, if suitable land can be provided
(and there is plenty to be had in the district), and let in small
holdings, on a fair tenancy agreement, at a reasonable rent, with
such cottage accommodation as I have described, the increase in
the small holding industry will be enormous, and we shall see
many who have gone into the towns come back to the land again.

I am,

Yours faithfully,

RAYMOND WEBB.

The inquiry thus made is likely to have a very
practical outcome. During the course of 1905 the
syndicate in question bought up five small estates,
comprising an area of about 1,000 acres, in the neigh-
bourhood of Evesham, with a view to cutting them
up, partly into small holdings of 3, 5, or 10 acres
each, and partly into small farms of from 40 to 50
or even 70 acres each, principally for market-
gardening, fruit-growing, and dairy purposes. With
their local knowledge, and as private individuals, the
members of the syndicate were able to purchase the
land at * bottom prices ' — prices, in fact, much lower
than a local authority buying in the open market would
have had to pay — and with their practical experience,
they bought only such land as they knew to be suitable
for the desired purpose. On the holdings that are
sufficiently large to support a family, the syndicate will
build cottages, and these are to be constructed of
cement-sand bricks or cement blocks, as used in some
of the cottages shown at the Letchworth exhibition in
the summer of 1905. The dwellings will be of such
a type that they can be let at a rental of about 45. 6d.
a week.

The syndicate will give facilities to persons who may
desire to purchase allotments or holdings from them ;
but the majority of the applicants, it is expected, will

298 ' PRIVATE ENTERPRISE'

be quite content with tenancy. In the Evesham
district sentimental aspirations for ownership have no
great force among small holders, who find that their
interests are well protected by what is known as ' the
Evesham custom.' In effect, an outgoing tenant,
giving up possession of his own free-will, arranges with
the incoming tenant as to the amount of compensation
the latter shall pay him for his improvements, and then
introduces his proposed successor to the landlord, who
is morally bound to accept him at the same rental,
unless for some adequate reason. Under these normal
conditions, the landlord is not concerned at all in the
question of compensation. It is only when he himself
gives notice to the tenant to quit, or refuses to accept
the outgoing tenant's nominee, that a claim for com-
pensation is made upon him.

How the system operates is shown by the follow-
ing concrete case : A labourer at Evesham rented
3 acres of land, at 303. an acre, and planted it with
asparagus. He cultivated it for three years, spending
at least £10 a year on artificial manures, but then
decided to give it up. By that time, however, he
estimated that his tenant-right was worth £160, cash
down, and he found someone who was quite ready to
take over the holding on those terms. This person he
introduced to the landlord, the landlord accepted him
at the same rental, and the new-comer was well satisfied
with the arrangement, inasmuch as he expected to
make on the first year's crop of asparagus — as planted
by his predecessor — a sum fully equal to what he had
given for the tenant-right.

The ' Evesham custom ' has, in fact, greatly facili-
tated the expansion of small holdings in that district,
where growers on a considerable scale are also quite
content to rent substantial areas of land on an annual

THE 'EVESHAM CUSTOM' 299

tenancy, and spend thousands of pounds on planting
them with fruit, feeling quite satisfied with the security
which the local ' custom ' gives them. In practice,
growers, small and large, take as much interest in the
cultivation of their land as if they were the actual
owners. They have the advantages of ownership
without the attendant drawbacks, and, in these cir-
cumstances, there is very little probability, whatever
increase there may be in the facilities offered, that men
of moderate means at Evesham will want to bury their
working capital in the luxury of actual ownership.
Still, if they do want to buy, the syndicate will
afford them reasonable facilities for gratifying their
aspiration.

Operating on the lines here detailed, ' private enter-
prise ' should be able to purchase land, at the outset,
not only cheaper than a local authority, but especially
much cheaper than the small holders, acting indi-
vidually, could do. The saving also in lawyers' fees
and legal charges, as compared with what a group of
' peasant proprietors ' would be called upon to pay,
represents in itself a considerable item. Then the
cottages will cost less when put up by the syndicate
than if they were built either by a County Council or
by the occupiers. The advantages, as compared with
individual ownership, go, however, much further than
this. Under a scheme such as that with which I am
here dealing, the unit of administration is the com-
munity. Questions of drainage, ditches, roads, and
fencing will be dealt with as a whole instead of by
individual tenants. It may also be assumed that
effective precautions will be taken against negligent
cultivation to the detriment of neighbours' interests.
One further guarantee the syndicate would offer. As
men having practical acquaintance with the needs of

300 'PRIVATE ENTERPRISE'

the district, and with a considerable number of appli-
cants to choose from, its members would accept as
tenants only such persons as were capable of becoming
efficient cultivators. In this way, therefore, the control
exercised by the syndicate would be more effective than
the control of a large land-owner, of a land company
operating in London or elsewhere, or of a County
Council possessed mainly of a beneficent idea to plant
the unemployed on the land. Taken altogether, the rule
of such a syndicate would be the rule of a beneficent
autocracy, and, in the circumstances, such a rule should
tend to promote the general welfare of those concerned.

Another practical advantage which the colonists
under the proposed scheme would obtain is in the
matter of cartage. At present each small holder at
Evesham makes his own arrangements for getting his
produce to the local markets, or to the railway-station,
and this generally means (i) that he is put to the cost
of buying a horse, or a donkey, and vehicle ; (2) that
he incurs further expense on account of keep ; and (3)
that he loses time in having to take in the produce
himself. It is estimated that for a small holder with
5 or 6 acres of land these items represent the equivalent
of from £4 to £6 per acre added to his rent.

To avoid all this expense and waste of time, the
syndicate would provide horses and vehicles for the
combined conveyance of produce, according to a scale
of moderate charges which would work out very much
less for the tenants than if each member of the little
colony acted independently of the others. The horses
thus kept would also be available for hire for light work
on the land when they were not otherwise engaged.
In this way there would be no need for the tenants to
buy and keep animals of their own, and the profits
from their holdings would be increased proportionately.

OPENINGS FOR CO-OPERATION 301

From the basis of organization here represented, it
would be but a short step for the little community to
form themselves into co-operative societies with a view
to obtaining all the advantages that combined action in
regard to production, transport, and sale are calculated
to secure. Altogether, therefore, and subject to certain
matters of detail which have not been definitely settled
as these lines are being written, the scheme of the
Evesham syndicate is one that well deserves to be
watched with a good deal of interest, as affording a
possible solution of some of the greatest problems now
met in the further increase of small holdings.

The natural objection to such procedure as this on
the part of private enterprise is that where a scheme of
the kind described is operated on commercial lines, the
tenants run the risk of being unduly exploited in the
interest of dividends or profits. To this the obvious
reply is that the adoption of any such policy would
inevitably lead to the collapse of the enterprise. If the
rents were excessive or the restrictions unreasonable,
the tenants would leave. But, in point of fact, the
syndicate should be able to let allotments or small
holdings at lower rents than either an individual land-
owner or a local authority could accept, and, under its
system of management, it would still secure a reasonable
return on its invested capital. Such a return, too, is
certainly desirable, if only for the purpose of encourag-
ing others to start elsewhere on similar lines, and save
local authorities from any need or excuse for further
adventures into the region of municipal landlordism.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE HUMAN ELEMENT

I AM perfectly aware of the fact, to which some of my
readers may point, that such proposals as those I have
advanced would not fully solve the problem of the
' unemployed ' in the towns. They might, it will be
said, help to check the rural exodus, and also provide
outlets for the settlement of a certain number of towns-
people in the country, but the larger number of those
who are crying out for work in the towns would still
remain there.

All this I frankly admit ; but my immediate purpose
was to discuss the problem from an agricultural or
economic rather than from that social or philanthropic
standpoint under which the absorption of the unem-
ployed in general naturally falls. There are reasons
why I feel bound to concur in the views of Dean Stubbs
when he says in his book on ' The Land and the
Labourers ' :

Nearly twenty years' close intimacy with the conditions, social
and economic, of rural life have taught me that success in agri-
culture, even on a small scale, demands qualities of head and hand
and heart which, to say the least, it is quite idle to expect from a
merely miscellaneous company of the loafers and slummers and
labour failures of town life. It is too often forgotten by the glib
land reformers of our city debating clubs that the efficient agri-
cultural labourer is not in reality the dull chaw-bacon sort of
person of a Punch cartoon, but one of the most highly-skilled of

302

THE UNEMPLOYED 303

English workmen. To expect, therefore, that the town labourer
who has failed can be readily transformed into the rural labourer
who will succeed is to expect miracles.

If these remarks are just as regards ordinary agri-
cultural conditions, they apply still more forcibly to
those various phases of the lesser agriculture with
which small holders would especially deal.

In the first place, one must remember that the
division of the personnel of British agriculture into
' landlord, farmer, and labourer ' no longer has the
same force as of old. The division to-day is becoming
more and more a twofold rather than a threefold one :
the land-owner and the small tenant-farmer, or culti-
vator, who either does all the necessary work himself,
with the help of his family, or else obtains outside
assistance on a limited scale or on rare occasions only.

Then the fact that Science now enters much more
fully into the general work of agriculture than it did in
the days when the largest number of labourers was
engaged on the soil is especially true of the various
industries in which small holders would have the best
scope for their energies, so that not only the small
holders themselves, but assistants and labourers, where
they are wanted, must represent a type of men often
superior alike to the average ploughman and to the
average town labourer. Industries, in fact, such as
dairying, horticulture, floriculture, stock-raising, etc.,
as distinguished from the growing of corn, are occupa-
tions requiring technical knowledge, skill, business
capacity, and unremitting personal attention on the
part of those engaged therein — qualities and qualifica-
tions not necessarily possessed by even the average
farmer of the old school, and still less by the average
agricultural labourer of the passing generation, however
efficient the latter may have been in the days when the

304 THE HUMAN ELEMENT

work he had to do made less demands on his intelli-
gence than upon his physical endurance. In the same
way there may be still ^less prospect of successfully
settling the * unemployed ' on the soil, there to work
out their own salvation as small owners.

This point is so important, as a matter of public
policy, and as one that is giving rise to hopes which
may be doomed to disappointment, that it is desirable
the position should be clearly understood.

In the matter of market-gardening, for instance, it
may be said that anyone can dig ; but the successful
growth of a variety of vegetables, fruits and flowers
under present-day conditions, and especially for sale on
the market, needs a wide range of experience and
practical knowledge (apart from the sustained physical
exertion involved), and it might well happen that the
' labour failures of town life ' would not be equal to
the requirements of the situation.

Butter and cheese making, again, are industries in
which training and technical knowledge count for much ;
while even if the dairy farmer should content himself
with sending milk to the towns, he will secure the best
results if he understands the scientific principles of
milk production, and learns from their application
which of his cows yield the most, breeding from them
accordingly, in preference to the less remunerative
animals.

As regards the growing of fruit, the Departmental
Committee which recently reported on this subject
said :

The fruit industry, as at present conducted, is a comparatively
modern one, and it may be said to be largely in the experimental
stage in this country. It is not surprising, therefore, if the average
grower is ignorant of many things essential to his success ; but
the ignorance alleged appears to go very far beyond this, and on
certain material questions nobody in this country appears to be

WHERE SCIENCE COMES IN 305

able to speak with certainty. To give two remarkable instances :
first, with regard to manures, doubts appear to exist as to the
effect of manures on fruit-trees, especially on apple-trees. . . _. The
other example of the inadequacy of our present knowledge is con-
cerned with an insect pest, known as the black-currant mite. The
ravages of this mite in recent years have been most serious ;
indeed, unless some remedy is found, there is danger that black-
currant growing may be extinguished in this country altogether. . . .
Great ignorance appears to exist as to the proper treatment of
trees. Far too few precautions are taken in many districts against
the ravages of diseases and insect pests, and pruning is frequently
either very badly done, or not done at all.

Judging from this statement, the average ' out-of-
work ' from London or Manchester would have but a
poor chance of success as a small holder operating an
orchard ; while to start him straight off as a grower of
fruit, flowers, and early vegetables under glass would
be to court certain failure.

Stock-raising, though not dealt with in detail in the
present volume, is an occupation that opens up wide
possibilities to small men as well as great ; and, by way
of illustrating those possibilities, I might mention that
in the autumn of 1905 a representative of the Hungarian
Government bought up 250 pigs in this country for
distribution throughout Hungary for breeding purposes,
consigning them via London and the Thames to Ghent,
whence they were taken by special train to Hungary.
The 250 pigs, however, were merely an instalment, the
total number actually required in Hungary to complete
the scheme in hand being 4,000. But it is animals of
choice breeds and perfect condition that the foreigner
wants to buy from us for reproductive purposes, and,
though small holders ought to have a good chance of
sharing in a lucrative business, there is evidently a
special call for intelligence on their part if they are to
supply what is wanted. Even poultry production on
lines that pay has developed into a science, while
poultry-fatting for the market is an art that, simple as

20

306 THE HUMAN ELEMENT

it seems, calls for a certain degree of skill, a great
amount of perseverance, and, also, a more or less
substantial capital, if it is to bring in a living.

So the ' three acres and a cow ' remedy (especially if
the acres are to be owned) is, by itself, no remedy at
all ; and so, too, must the reader see that the ordinary
' unemployed ' of our large towns, and the ne'er-do-
wells of urban life in general, are not the type of men
who could be settled on the land straight off as small
holders, whatever else might be done with them.

All the same, I think there is a distinct and even a
desirable opening in the industries in question for
certain other types of individuals from the towns.
Apart from the factory workers who have gained ex-
perience on allotments (as at Aylestone), there are
men who, though intelligent, capable, and willing, are
physically unfit for the stress and strain of life in great
cities, especially when close confinement in an office or
counting-house may be included therein. Others there
are who, though considered ' too old ' for the employ-
ment on which they have hitherto been engaged, still
possess an amount of energy and vigour, the devotion
of which to a healthy rural pursuit would not only
provide them with a fresh and a more or less profitable
employment, but would enable them, in effect, to
' renew their youth.' Others, again, the sons of manu-
facturers, business men, or professional men, might well
start in the country in some occupation which either
appealed to their tastes more, or would suit the con-
dition of their health better, than following in the foot-
steps of their fathers. At Evesham there are several
young men of this class who, having developed a ten-
dency to consumption, took to the fruit industry in
preference to entering the paternal mills, learnt the
business, spent their days in the open air in the mild

DESIRABLE TOWN TYPES 307

climate of the Evesham Valley, got rid of their con-
sumption without having to go into exile across the
seas, established, in course of time, a fruit farm or a
fruit business of their own, and are now ' doing well,'
both physically and commercially. I may be going
beyond my text, but I must confess that when I read
in letters to The Times reiterated appeals for more and
still more thousands of pounds for ' homes ' for con-
sumptives, I think of the fresh-air cure adopted by
those young men at Evesham, and wonder whether it
would not do more good if the money were spent
instead in enabling consumptives to settle on the land
while they may still be cured.

Individuals of the desirable town types I have men-
tioned might need, in the first instance, either to hire
themselves out for a time to farmers, fruit-growers,
market-gardeners, or others, in order to gain experience,
or, alternatively, pay a premium for facilities offered ;
though here I am assuming that they would be persons
of quite a different stamp from the ' remittance men,'
not only of the Canadian Far West, but of Yorkshire
and other English counties, who are supported by sup-
plies from parents or relatives while presumably learn-
ing the business of farming, but are more often to be
found in the drinking-bars (in Canada) or alongside a
trout-stream (in England) than in the fields or gardens.
Starting, however, with the assumption that the towns-
men in question were alike intelligent, energetic, and
determined to succeed, there ought to be no insuperable
difficulty in the way of their acquiring, within a reason-
able time, a sufficiency of knowledge of some one or
other of the minor industries of agriculture to be able to
make, at least, a living out of it, even if they could not
eventually do much better.

As a matter of fact, some of the greatest successes

20 — 2

308 THE HUMAN ELEMENT

achieved in several of these minor industries of late
years have been won by enterprising men from the
towns who had had little or no previous experience of
country life. Given the brains, the will, the energy,
and the business aptitude, the necessary degree of
technical knowledge has soon been picked up. With
the qualifications mentioned, men who started in the
first instance without technical knowledge have suc-
ceeded where others — natives of the soil and possessing
technical knowledge only — have failed. One of the
largest and most successful growers of fruit and vege-
tables under glass in this country devoted the earlier
years of his life to the law. Another grower (in the
same line) I have met was formerly in the tea trade.

A clerk in the Railway Clearing-house, finding his
health affected by the close confinement of office life,
went to Lincolnshire, started as a farmer, dealt in
corn, cake, and seeds, and then took to bulb-growing,
first as a hobby, and then as a serious business. He
had had no expert knowledge of bulb production, but
he persevered, learned by experience, and worked away
until he became one of the principal growers in his
district. He now has a farm of 87 acres, of which
20 acres are devoted to bulbs.

A Yorkshire factory operative had devoted his leisure
to growing flowers, and he won several prizes at local
shows. After a time he left the factory and took to
floriculture altogether. That was fifteen years ago.
Since then — as I found on visiting his place — he has
developed into a producer on an especially large and
successful scale. He lays claim to no scientific training,
and told me he had gained his knowledge less from
books than from close observation of Nature. He has
also carried out an absolutely original system of
cultivation, in which perfect efficiency is combined

INSTANCES OF SUCCESS 309

with extremely low cost of production, while he has
himself developed into a business man of exceptional
shrewdness and force of character.

Many more such stories could be told, but I must
now content myself with the following :

Thirty years ago, or thereabouts, there lived in
Scotland a certain draper who, in addition to being a
successful business man, had a strong attachment for
flowers, and was secretary of a local horticultural
society. For some years he was content to regard
flowers in the light of a hobby, but his devotion thereto
became at last so strong that he gave up his business
in Scotland, and came to London to see if he could not
earn a livelihood at the more congenial pursuit of
flower production. He took over a nursery garden ;
but his business instincts had convinced him that it
was necessary, not only to grow attractive flowers, but
to market them in such a way that their natural beauty
would be fully preserved and shown off to the best
advantage. Discarding, therefore, the old-fashioned
style of tying up the flowers into round bunches, or
* nosegays,' he adopted the then novel method of
placing them flat in long boxes, after the fashion of
'sprays,' so that all the flowers were presented the
same way, and there was no danger of any one of them
being crushed by the others. On the top of the flowers
thus arranged he fixed a small piece of cane, slightly
longer than the breadth of the box, in order to prevent
them from moving about during transit.

This improved method was the acme of simplicity,
but the effect — especially in the packing of narcissi, to
which the trader in question devoted particular attention
— was that the boxes of flowers so arranged had an
immediate success on Covent Garden Market. The
innovation amounted, in fact, almost to a revolution in

3io THE HUMAN ELEMENT

the cut-flower business, and it has since been generally
adopted.

Here, then, we have a clear example of how a man,
without any previous special training, but possessing
business aptitude and a real attachment towards the
matter he takes up, may introduce new ideas, and bring
about fresh developments that may have good results
not only for himself, but for others besides. Not
content with success in this one direction, the same
enterprising pioneer subsequently undertook the grow-
ing of peaches and nectarines under glass ; and though
at first some of his friends were amused at his boldness,
it was not long before they had to admit that his
peaches and nectarines were among the best that came
into the market, and that in regard to those fruits, at
least, even the experts must look up to him with
respect.

In all these various instances it was the brains and
the business aptitude that told, and the more that these
qualities can be introduced into rural industries, the
better it will be for everyone concerned.

Whether or not, and, if so, by what means, such a
result could be further secured under the operation of
some practical scheme which would give suitable persons
of modest means wider opportunities for obtaining small
holdings is a matter that concerns the advancement,
not alone of the individual, but of agriculture in
general. While themselves seeking personal benefits,
and having much to learn, the immigrants from the
towns — always provided they were men of the right
stamp — would take into the country a more practical
knowledge of business life, a wider intelligence as to
the altered conditions of trade and commerce, and a
ready willingness to adapt themselves thereto. Free
from the traditions which have flourished on the soil

TOWN AND COUNTRY 311

for generations, they would have none of the prejudices
that still hamper the old-fashioned farmer, and, though
the latter's acquaintance with agriculture would at
first surpass their own, they might hope to produce
eventually as well as he ; while in most cases they
would probably resort to a better system of marketing.
There would, again, be less risk of their becoming
victims of the middleman or of the money-lender ;
they would respond more readily to the principle of
combination, and they might, altogether, well succeed
where others would fail.

The increased flow of such a leaven as this into the
rural districts (to supplement the retention there of the
younger generation of agriculturists, thanks to the
increased facilities for land occupation) would be of the
greatest value alike to the people and to the land. In
this view I am confirmed by an authority well qualified
to speak on this particular subject, who said to me :

It is difficult to deal with the men who are now on the land —
that is to say, those who have spent on it the whole of their work-
ing days. Living in an isolated position, and clinging tenaciously
to out-of-date ways and ideas, they are full of prejudices and
suspicious of innovations. It is scarcely possible to bring home
to their minds a complete consciousness of the economic changes
that are proceeding in our own country, and of all that is being
done in those other countries which aim at supplying our markets,
and have already become such formidable competitors of the
British producer. There is not much to hope for, I fear, from the
present generation of agriculturists ; but there should be a better
chance with the rising generation, especially if we do not expect
them to advance at too great a speed. It is the second generation
that will respond more readily to new and organized methods, and,
again, especially if we can introduce more and more into the country
the intelligence of the towns. It is not the Tired Tims and Weary
Willies who are wanted, but men whose advent would be a real
acquisition. Intelligence from the towns, joining with the virile
strength we look to from the land, should produce a transformation
in men fully equivalent to, and able to cope with, the transformation
already effected in economic conditions. If with this new factor
there were combined an adequate supply of opportunities for its
development, I should look forward to the future of British agri-

312 THE HUMAN ELEMENT

culture, not with despair, but with a feeling of assured trust and
confidence.

Any such transformation in the men would require,
however, to be supplemented by efficiency on the part
of the women, for the wives and daughters of small
holders may play an even more important role in the
insuring of success than if they were the wives and
daughters of large farmers. I would not for one
moment suggest that they should toil in the fields and
gardens as the women members of peasant proprietors'
families in France and Germany do, performing arduous
tasks entirely unsuited to them, and converting them-
selves into little more than beasts of burden. But,
without going to such extremes as this, there is no
doubt that the success or failure of many a small hold-
ing turns on the capability of the small holder's wife,
not only as a household manager, but also as a helper
in the lighter work and an assistant supervisor of the
general operations.

CHAPTER XXV
AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

IN my book on ' The Organization of Agriculture ' I
dealt so fully with the action being taken in the various
countries of the world in seeking to improve their agri-
cultural conditions that there is no need for me to enter
in any detail in the present volume upon that phase of
the general question. But early in 1905 there was
published, in connection with the Liege Exhibition, a
collection of official reports, issued by the Servian
Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry,
under the title of ' La Serbie a 1'Exposition Universelle
de 1905 a Liege,' and some of these reports have so
direct a bearing on much that I have said in the fore-
going pages that I venture to offer a brief outline of
such of the facts given as concern the matters here
under discussion.

Servia is essentially a land of small holdings. Farms
of less than 12 acres in size represent, approximately,
54-56 per cent, of the whole; those of from 12 to
25 acres 27*55 per cent. ; and those of from 25 to 50
acres 13*87 per cent. Even the very small properties
are much split up, and measures have had to be taken
to prevent the peasant proprietors from being entirely
dispossessed by money-lenders or other creditors. Thus,
a special law guarantees to each Servian peasant an area

313

314 AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

of about 5 acres, which he cannot dispose or be deprived
of for the payment of personal debts. It has likewise
been made illegal for cultivators to give bills of
exchange.

The number of those engaged in agricultural pursuits
in Servia represents 84 per cent, of the entire popula-
tion. The cereal most largely cultivated is maize,
which forms the chief item of food for about three-
fourths of the people, and is also largely used for the
feeding of live-stock. After maize come wheat, barley,
oats, rye, etc. Among leguminous plants the haricot
is extensively grown, both for domestic consumption
and for export. But fruit-growing is the industry that
claims, perhaps, the greatest degree of attention in
Servia, and here the influence and direction of the
Government have been especially active.

Fruit is regarded in Servia as a distinct source of
national wealth, and everything possible is done to
foster its production. Plums, apples, pears, nuts,
cherries, peaches, apricots, and medlars are all grown,
but plums receive a degree of attention far in excess of
that shown to the other varieties of fruit. They are
exported fresh or in the form of prunes; they constitute
the basis of a 'plum brandy,' and they are also exten-
sively made up and sold as preserve. The value of the
prunes exported from Servia in 1904 was £240,000, an
increase of £40,000 as compared with 1903, though
a substantial reduction on 1902, when the value was
close on £360,000. Of plum preserve, the exports in
1904 were of the value of £120,000.

Here, then, is a business well deserving attention in
a small country, and the Government have seen to the
organization of it on systematic lines.

In the first place, they have their special officers at
all the principal markets to examine the prunes on sale

NATIONAL WEALTH IN FRUIT 315

and see that they are of a good quality and have been
properly dried, the dealers not being allowed to send
away any that are not considered satisfactory. But
much more than this is done, for every arrondissement
is required to have a model nursery of fruit-trees,
occupying an area of at least 12 acres, where the
particular trees best suited to the locality are grown,
where practical courses of instruction on fruit-culture
are given — each commune having the right to send to
them two pupils, who are to be maintained, if necessary,
at the public expense — and where also any cultivator
can go at any time and obtain such advice as he may
require, together with, at a very low charge, young
trees of the particular kind most likely to grow and
bear well in his own orchard. The surplus stock not
sold to the peasants is planted along the highways, on
waste lands, or on river-banks.

Of these public nurseries there have been established,
since 1898, no fewer than fifty-one, ranging in size from
the minimum of 12 acres to 57 acres. At most of
them will be found, in addition to an orchard, a
vineyard, a poultry farm, an apiary, and a silk-worm
establishment, all on ' model ' principles, together with
a meteorological station. Lessons are, in addition,
given in basket-making and other village industries.

Nominated by the State, but receiving their stipend
from the department or the arrondissement, the official
agricultural instructors are required, among other things,
to give practical guidance to the peasantry concerning
the cultivation of the soil, fruit-culture, vine-growing,
stock-raising, poultry and bee farming, fisheries, etc. ;
to see that the agricultural processes are carried on
under right conditions and at the proper times ; to
study the local agricultural situation, and advise the
Minister of Agriculture thereon ; to watch over, and

3i6 AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

report upon, and render every possible assistance to,
the various agricultural societies and institutions ; and
to see that the laws and regulations concerning agricul-
ture are duly observed.

The State further takes an active and very practical
interest in the raising of live-stock, pig-breeding
ranking with maize-growing and fruit culture as one
of the greatest of the national industries. The State
keeps stud-farms of its own, and supplies the needs of
the communes, each of which must possess a sufficient
number of male animals to meet local requirements.
The commune buys them from the State if necessary,
recouping itself from the fees it charges for the animals
thus acquired. The State gives prizes for the best
animals exhibited at the agricultural shows, and it even
grants subsidies to individual owners of breeding-stock.

The combined effect of the State encouragement
thus afforded, and of the activity of various agricultural
societies, is seen in the steady progress which the
export of live-stock from Servia is making. Between
1900 and 1904 the number of live cattle exported
increased from 62,385 to 64,207 ; that of sheep and
goats from 55,683 to 74,928 ; and that of pigs from
77,000 to no fewer than 147,000.

Much attention is also being paid to poultry-keeping.
The State has set up four special poultry farms (in
addition to those at the public nurseries already
mentioned) ; two breeds of imported foreign poultry
(including Dorkings and Orpingtons among the fowls,
and Aylesburys among the ducks) are propagated at
each, as well as the native varieties; and systematic
efforts — which are joined in alike by special organi-
zations and even by certain banks — are being made to
improve the primitive conditions under which almost
every household throughout Servia keeps its own fowls,

STATE AID

317

ducks, geese, and turkeys. Considerable numbers of
birds are being distributed throughout the country
with a view to improving the breed, and the Govern-
ment has given encouragement to the establishment of
killing-centres for poultry. At one alone of these the
weight of dead poultry despatched during the course of
twelve months was 1,000 tons. The poultry business
is to be further extended by a strong co-operative
society which is to concern itself with the production
of eggs and poultry, and the export thereof in large,
regular, and satisfactory consignments to other countries
— England included.

The progress already made in the export of poultry
and eggs from Servia during the course of ten years is
shown by the following table :

Year.

Live Poultry.

Dead Poultry.

Eggs.

Total Value.

Number.

Tons.

Tons.

£

1894

74,607

I58

97

11,200

1904

2,091,890

612

935

106,420

In connection with the dairy industry, the State
grants a subsidy to a school of cheese-making set up
at Smederevo in 1903 by M. Draskovitch, a lawyer by
profession. It sends a certain number of young people
to the school each year to go through the course of
instructions ; and it has also sent young people to study
in the special cheese-making schools of Austria and
Switzerland.

The advance of agriculture in Servia has not been
entirely due to State aid, though the list here given of
the directions in which such aid has been offered may
appear sufficiently comprehensive. There has been a
good deal of well-organized effort in other directions

3i8 AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

as well. Especially important is the work done by the
Servian Agricultural Society. Formed at Belgrade in
1869, this society not only became in itself a powerful
factor in the agricultural situation, but it formed, in
course of time, a network of no fewer than forty
branches throughout the country. It also promoted
both national and provincial exhibitions of live-stock,
etc. ; it set up a model farm of its own on 74 acres of
land, where special attention was paid to fruit-culture
and courses of practical instruction were given ; it
encouraged local societies to adopt a like policy in
accord with local conditions ; it carried on experiments
with seeds and plants, or gave demonstrations of the
use of machinery, in a considerable number of provincial
districts, in order to afford further practical instruction
to the cultivators ; and it organized competitions for
the best-managed farms, fields, orchards, gardens,
vineyards, woods, etc.

But M. N. Lukitchevitch says : ' It is in acting as an
intermediary for the purchase and distribution of seeds
and agricultural implements and machinery that the
society has contributed the most effectively to the
progress of Servian agriculture.' Prior to the formation
of the society it was, it seems, a rare thing to find in
Servia a steel plough, and it was still more rare to
find other modern implements and machines, or good
qualities of cultivated plants, etc. The society began
to introduce these things, and already in 1870 it was
responsible for the first threshing-machine, operated by
horse-power, seen in Servia. It subsequently followed
with steam threshing-machines, etc., and though it was
a work of time to get the people to appreciate the
innovation, they hastened to make use of the new
advantages offered to them when at last convinced of
their utility. So much was this the case that the value

SELF-HELP 319

of the seeds purchased through the society rose from
£36 in 1869 to over £1,000 in 1904; and that of
agricultural machines and implements (exclusive of
ploughs) from £45 in 1869 to £2,390 in 1904.

Agricultural co - operative societies, as told by
M. Avramovitch in a report on ' La Co-operation
Rurale,' were founded in Servia in 1894. Five years
later there were already 100 in existence. To-day
there are over 500, with about 250 local branches in
addition.

First in importance are those co-operative credit
societies which made the Servian peasant independent
of the money-lenders, or tradesmen acting as such, who
had previously preyed upon him so mercilessly. Based
mainly on Raiffeisen principles, the societies have,
generally speaking, no more capital than reserve funds,
though most of them conduct savings banks where
even the pence of school-children are received. The
members of each society, however, make themselves
jointly and severally responsible for all liabilities
incurred, and on this guarantee loans are obtained
from the Caisse Centrale of Agricultural Co-operative
Societies, which was founded in 1899, anc^ receives a
certain amount of financial support from the State.
Each local agricultural credit society operates in a par-
ticular village or locality, and only peasants who lead
an exemplary life are eligible for membership. The
purpose for which a loan is desired must be specified
and approved in advance, and care is taken to see that
the money is duly expended on that purpose and none
other. The officers are unpaid, with the possible
exception of the secretary, who may get a small allow-
ance, and the cost of operation is small ; while a great
advantage is conferred on the peasant, who secures, at
a low rate of interest, a loan which may be most helpful

320 AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

to him in the purchase of live-stock, implements, seeds,
or feeding-stuffs, or in defraying the cost of construct-
ing or repairing his buildings, these being the purposes
for which loans are mostly sought. In 1903 there were
359 of these local agricultural credit associations in
Servia, and the returns made by 295 of them showed
that the membership thereof numbered 14,139, and that
9,307 loans were granted during the year, representing
a total of £31,632.

The purchases in 1903 of the various societies which
group the orders of their members for seeds, fertilizers,
feeding-stuffs, implements, etc., amounted to close on
£22,000.

Then there were also in the same 3^ear 120 co-opera-
tive societies for the combined acquirement and joint
use of costly agricultural machines. The members
operate without capital, but they hold themselves once
more 'jointly and severally ' responsible for the liabili-
ties incurred, and with no other guarantee than this
the Caisse Centrale obtains the desired machine and
sends it in to the society. It is then put at the disposal
of the individual members, according to a fixed rate
agreed upon among them, three-fourths of the sums
thus received being forwarded to the Caisse Centrale
to pay for the machine, while the remaining one-fourth
is retained to cover the cost of repairs. In this way
the poorest of the peasants gets the use of the most
perfect of agricultural machinery in return for a small
fee, which becomes almost nominal when eventually
the cost of the machine has been fully repaid.

Of co-operative dairies there are only seven in Servia,
all of recent formation. Included in the number is one
for the sale of milk in Belgrade.

The various local societies have their district unions,
and they further join with these and with the Caisse

FUNCTIONS OF CENTRAL BODIES 321

Centrale in constituting the ' General Union of Servian
Co-operative Agricultural Societies.' This general
union watches over the welfare of the whole movement,
appointing inspectors, holding conferences in various
parts of the country — no fewer than forty-five different
localities having been visited in this way — and publish-
ing fortnightly a periodical, called Rural Co-operation,
which, as a source of enlightenment and guidance,
fulfils a most useful purpose. Each local society con-
tributes 15 per cent, of its receipts to the funds of the
General Union.

As regards the Caisse Centrale, I may add that each
co-operative agricultural society and each district union
is entitled to representation thereon, and it may be
joined also by honorary and corresponding members of
the General Union, though no one shareholder can hold
more than 100 shares or have more than a single vote.

The objects of the Caisse Centrale are : To grant
loans to co-operative agricultural societies ; to provide
them with agricultural machines, seeds, live-stock, raw
materials for manufacture, etc. ; to sell produce for
members ; and to receive savings of members or non-
members, and pay interest on them. It advances by
way of loans to the different local societies about
£16,000 a year; it buys for them agricultural machines
to the value of some £3,000 a year, and, under the
system of grouped orders, it provides them with seeds,
etc., to the value of £2,000 a year, a substantial saving
being thus effected as compared with what the indi-
vidual members, or even the individual societies, would
pay if left to their own resources. A certain make of
reaping-machine, for instance, which formerly cost
£32, bought locally, is now obtained by the Caisse
Centrale direct from Holland at a cost, delivered in
Belgrade, of only £22.

21

322 AN OBJECT-LESSON FROM SERVIA

Yet, after all, what Servia is doing by means of this
systematic and comprehensive effort to expand and
improve her agricultural industry is merely typical,
more or less, of what is being done in Continental
countries in general, and especially in those of them
which have an eye to British markets as an outlet for
their surplus supplies.

I would not for one moment suggest that it is either
necessary or desirable, in an older, richer, and more
advanced country like England, for State and local
authorities to become to anything like the same extent
the foster-parents of agriculture, and to attempt to do
for the British farmer all that is done in countries of
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, where the general
conditions are widely different. All the same, there
are obvious lessons to be learned even from the by no
means exceptional story here told respecting so com-
paratively insignificant a country as Servia, and such
lessons may well be commended to the consideration of
the British agriculturist and of those who are interested
in his welfare.*

* The significance of the facts stated in this Chapter is increased
by the following remarks which I find in the course of an article on
' The Situation in Servia,' by the Belgrade correspondent of The
Times, published in that journal on February 9, 1906: 'The
revulsion of sentiment in Servia has been quickened by considera-
tions of a more material character, for it is hoped to shake off the
economic thraldom of Austria by securing a\ market for the native
agricultural produce in England, where alone it can enter free of
duty.'

CHAPTER XXVI
POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

WHILE the readers of these pages may not agree with
every view I have advanced, the facts given afford, in
my humble opinion, ample justification for looking at
the present position and future prospects of British
agriculture — always using this word in its widest sense
—from a more sanguine standpoint than that which
is usually adopted. Great as the falling off has been
in some directions, I have shown that compensating
developments have taken place in others. Agriculture
has suffered, and suffered severely, in the past ; but the
experiences of those engaged therein have often enough
been paralleled in the industrial world. There are
industrial centres such as (Birmingham and Coventry),
which in the course of their history have seen once
prosperous industries decay, and even die out, because
of changes of fashion, new inventions, or foreign com-
petition ; but, though there has been a set-back for a time,
relief has been found in a resort either to new methods
or to new branches of production, with the result that the
towns in question have re-established their position, and
even, it may be, become more prosperous than before.
Had the agricultural world shown a like power of initia-
tive, a like fertility of resource, and a like recognition
of the need for changes in production or of method to

323 21—2

324 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

suit altered conditions, the recovery would have been
much more rapid.

All the same, that recovery is an actuality of the day.
It may not be along the old lines, but it is a recovery,
all the same, for those able and willing to take advantage
of it. So far has it gone already, in fact, that there are
fruit-growers, market-gardeners, and others who have
much to say about * over-production.' For my own
part, I adhere to the view that there would be much less
talk of over-production if the system of marketing were
improved. Notwithstanding all that has been done
during the last few years in the way of opening up
direct supplies to retailers in the smaller towns — instead
of leaving them to buy from wholesale men in the large
centres — there is a great deal more that could be done
in this direction. There are many other towns which,
for one commodity or another, should be put on the
same footing. There are towns with numerous popula-
tions which have not yet any market at all. There are
important suburban districts of large cities to which,
one would think, direct supplies could be sent, reducing
the expenses of the retailer, and enabling him to sell
cheaper, in which case a greater demand should follow.
There are seaside resorts, on the Cornish coast and
elsewhere, which still look to London for their eggs, and
butter, and other produce, as though such supplies were
not obtainable elsewhere, and especially in their own
neighbourhood. There are scores of villages where,
though people live in the * country,' commodities of one
kind or another are often difficult to get or prohibitive
in price ; and there are thousands of homes throughout
the land where good wholesome fruit and vegetables
still count as luxuries. Who can say there is over-
production when conditions such as these obtain ?

The glut that follows when too much of a certain

THE CRY OF OVER-PRODUCTION 325

commodity is crowded on to certain markets is not
necessarily ' over-production.' It may represent only
imperfect and ill-regulated distribution, and an inade-
quate resort to practical measures for utilizing a surplus.
If all the fruit grown in this country were sent to
Covent Garden, there would certainly be a very substan-
tial ' glut ' upon that market, and loud complaints about
' over-production ' would follow. But there are other
markets, to which the fruit is sent ; there are retailers
who buy direct from the growers ; there are jam-
makers who buy up enormous quantities ; and, as I
have told already, there are the prospects of a substan-
tial industry in canned and bottled fruits, not to mention
the possible growing of our own apples in larger
quantity, in place of the big imports from Canada or
elsewhere.

Then an improved distribution should be followed by
an increased consumption. The British public have
yet to recognise fully the food value alike of fruit, of
vegetables, and of milk. They still regard them (except
in the case of potatoes and one or two of the vegetables)
too much in the light of luxuries, instead of as regular
and most desirable articles of diet. But the progress
already made during the past few years is suggestive of
a greater demand still to come ; while here, again, there
is the question whether businesses could not be worked
up (as suggested in the case of English-grown asparagus)
for the preserving of vegetables for winter use or for
export. As for eggs and poultry of English production,
the demand for these is inexhaustible, provided they
can be put on the market at a reasonable price.

There is, in fact, no real reason for crying ' Halt !' in
regard to the various phases of production dealt with in
the present volume, however great the need for more
markets and better marketing. The 'transition' may

326 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

thus certainly be allowed, and encouraged, to continue ;
and here I would say that any well-considered scheme
for settling small holders on the land should certainly
aim at enabling them to produce milk, poultry, eggs,
fruit, flowers, vegetables, live-stock, and so on, accord-
ing to circumstances, in preference to starting them on
the growing of corn or other farming crops.

But one material factor in the situation is that there
should be stepping-stones. For a new beginner to
attempt too much at first will be to lead to almost
certain failure. From this point of view, allotments
should precede small holdings, and they should prefer-
ably be regarded for a time as merely supplementing
the work done for some farmer in the neighbourhood.
This would benefit alike the man and the farmer.

In the agricultural, as in the industrial, world, there
are seasons or periods when constant employment
cannot be found for a fixed number of workers ; but
the labourer who had an allotment would be able to fill
up profitably these periods of leisure and provide better
for his family, having at the same time a greater
inducement to remain on the land. The surplus
labour of the rural districts would thus be more readily
absorbed and be rendered more available for the farmer
at times when he needed all the assistance he could
get. Beginning with the small allotment, the labourer,
as time went on, would he able to undertake a larger
one, and so on until he got a holding or a farm which
would absorb the energies of himself and family.
Scores of well-to-do cultivators have started in this
way, and hundreds of others might succeed as well as
they if they were enabled to make a good start.

The small holdings or the small farms would follow,
and might well be taken up by the men who had
already gained a certain amount of experience on the

STEPPING-STONES 327

allotments which must be regarded as an almost indis-
pensable preliminary thereto in the vast majority of
cases. The question of how the small holdings should
be held is one that I have already discussed in detail ;
but one thing absolutely necessary to success in any
scheme of land settlement, whatever the basis on which
it is laid down, is that, if the producers grow for sale,
and not simply for domestic consumption, they should
form part of an organized body. They must avoid
unnecessary cost in production ; they must be able to
take advantage of the lowest railway rates available ;
and they must get the best possible returns on the sale.
All these advantages can be secured by means of organi-
zation only, especially if they represent a group of very
small producers, any one of whom might have a small
quantity of produce which it would not pay to send to
market by itself. A group of 50 or 100, operating in
common, would get advantages impossible of attain-
ment so long as each acted independently, and the profits
on agricultural produce are, as a rule, such as will not
allow of prudent men neglecting any reasonable oppor-
tunity for increasing them. The individual cultivator
in the country may be exceptionally skilled in the art
of growing a crop ; but, apart from the question of the
quantity of stuff he produces, he may know little or
nothing of the art of marketing, and be no match at all
for the shrewd and clever dealers in the town, who
know everything about that particular subject that is
worth knowing. As a ' unit ' he is in their power. As
a member of an organized body, he has a better chance
of marketing to advantage.

If, in addition to the ordinary agricultural societies
for combined purchase and sale, co-operative credit
banks could be more generally established, the prospects
of good results being secured would be greatly in-

328 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

creased. Worked in conjunction with the societies, they
would enable the allotment-holder or the small farmer
to surmount the difficulty of having to pay cash down
for what he wants, and, at the same time, to avoid
getting into debt with the traders, or, what is still
worse, into the clutches of the money-lender. On this
question of co-operative credit banks, however, so much
has been so ably written by Mr. Henry W. Wolff,
chairman of the International Co-operative Alliance
(which body has rendered great service to the move-
ment for agricultural combination), that I have not felt
it necessary to enter here in any detail on a subject that
Mr. Wolff has made essentially his own.

Lest there may be any doubt as to the actual chances
open to a group of small producers in a country district,
I should like to place on record some very practical
remarks made to me by a gentleman of great experience
in the marketing of fruit, and I would venture to commend
these remarks to the special attention of the land-owners
of the country :

Looking at the very large quantities of fruit imported from
abroad, and especially apples from Canada and the United States,
I have often asked myself whether a much larger proportion could
not be grown at home to the advantage of our own people, and
there is no doubt whatever that it could. One thing that should
be done is this : Large land-owners, instead of giving their cottagers
20 poles of land each, should let them have half an acre, one half,
at least, of which should be put down to permanent fruit — apples
and pears as top fruit, and soft fruit underneath. The landlord
should arrange to supply the trees and plants, so as to insure
uniformity of variety and quality over a given area, and he should
also arrange for some horticultural teacher, not to give lectures in
the village schoolroom in the winter, but to go into the gardens
and give direct instruction to the cottagers and their families as to
the proper cultivation of the trees and plants. He would, for
instance, show them exactly how prunings should be done, putting
the knife into their hands, and standing alongside until he saw that
they understood exactly what he meant. One hour's practical
instruction of that kind would be worth all the schoolroom lectures
that he could possibly deliver. This would complete the first stage.
The cottagers would have the land, they would have the proper

LANDLORDS AND COTTAGERS 329

trees, and they would know how to grow fruit, which they might
accordingly expect to have in due season.

But then would come the question how they should dispose of
it to advantage. For this next step it would be essential for them
to have a system of collection and of combined sale. Assume
that a land-owner had divided 20 acres of ground among forty
cottagers, then the fruit grown by them should be grouped into one
lot and sent to market in the name of one sender, or of a small
co-operative society, the proceeds being distributed among the
cottagers according to the amount of fruit they had contributed to
the consignment. The fruit would have to be properly graded and
packed — for those are essential conditions — but inasmuch as it
would all be of the same variety, the cottager who had only a few
pounds ready on a certain day could send those in to the collecting
centre, and be paid for them accordingly, just as one of his neigh-
bours might be able to give in a substantially larger quantity. In
this way they should be able to make up, say, consignments of
20 bushels of apples, all of the same class, from week to week, and
find a ready market for them, while the forty cottagers, acting
independently, would be put to more trouble in disposing each of
his own particular lot than the business was worth. Still worse
would the position be if each cottager, more or less, grew a different
kind of apple.

Under the scheme I suggest the cottagers would want some
kind of a shed in which to receive and pack the fruit, and such
shed, I think, the land-owner might provide. With a little co-
operative society to help they could easily divide between them the
work of attending at the shed, and so on, and I think the members
of their family, and especially their children, should assist in the
packing. The young people would soon be interested in the
packing of the fruit, and in the case of apples and pears the work
could be done in leisure moments during the week, as there would
be no need for immediate despatch. Gooseberries and currants
would, of course, require to be sent off the same day, but this
could easily be arranged. It might be necessary for one of the
forty to beg a day off from his ordinary work, but the thirty-nine
others could follow their ordinary employment, though still securing
their share from the sales.

There are various advantages that would follow from the carry-
ing out of this system. Not only would it increase the supply of
English, as distinguished from imported, fruit, and not only would
business be developed under conditions deserving the attention of
wholesale traders, but the cottagers in the country would get
increased earnings, would be more satisfied with their lot, and
would take greater interest in country life. I can well imagine, too,
that when the boys left school, went into the gardens, and watched
there the horticultural instructor giving his very practical lessons,
they would regard fruit-growing as a much more attractive business
than the production of ordinary crops, and might eventually be led
to say : ' Father, I think that if only I had a quarter or half an

330 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

acre of my own I would rather stop in the country and grow fruit
than go into the town and look for work there.'

In the end a greater inducement would be offered to the people
who are now on the land to remain there, while small beginnings,
such as those here suggested, might lead to much more substantial
results in individual cases. A man who starts with half an acre
may put up a greenhouse, then get another half-acre, and so go on,
step by step, until he gets together a good-sized business. I have
seen innumerable instances of that sort of thing, and the greater
the facilities that are offered, the better it will be both for the
people and for the country.

One gains here a good idea of what land-owners could
do to provide the initial stages of that increased land
settlement which is assuming the proportions of a
national want ; but I still think it would often be
necessary to provide intermediary bodies who would be
able to develop schemes of small holdings — including
therein suitable cottages — on a scale which few private
land-owners would be either able or willing to under-
take. There is very little doubt that, if these inter-
mediary bodies — whether co-operative or commercial —
could be established on solid and essentially practical
lines, no great difficulty, as a rule, would be found
in their being able to obtain land, either by purchase
or lease ; though it would be essential to the success of
their scheme that they should have not only the right
soil and the right conditions in general, but also the
right sort of men as their tenants.

From this latter point of view it would, I maintain,
be far better to deal with men who are already in the
country, with a view to keeping them there, than to
make costly experiments with the ' unemployed ' from
the towns. I am aware that schemes concerning the
settlement of the latter on the land generally make the
promise that only those who have actually come from
the country would be sent back there. It is doubtful,
however, if the man born in the country who has lived
some years in, say, the East End of London, is not, as

BENEFITS FOR URBAN WORKERS 331

a rule, spoiled for returning to rural pursuits. Where
experiments of this kind have been tried by certain
sympathetic growers I have met, they have invariably
been failures. In one instance a grower paid the fare
to Lincolnshire for a ' countryman ' from London,
agreed to give him £i a week wages, and advanced
him money for his first week's keep. But the man
from London found that the baskets which the women
employed in the same field lifted without difficulty
were too heavy for him. He was seen to be a failure,
but was given his chance. At the end of a fortnight
he announced that he was going back to London.
Asked his reason, he replied that ' it was too dull in the
country. There wasn't even a place where he could
get a shave.'

But, although the man who has spent his life, or
even any number of years, in a large city, might be un-
fitted for rural industries (and especially those of a
kind requiring skill, knowledge, and capacity of no
mean order), it is important to bear in mind that, by
keeping the countryman in the country, the urban
worker would be relieved of a competition he finds it
especially difficult to meet when he is a candidate for
work where physical vigour and a sturdy appearance
are a recommendation. A substantial development of
rural industries, again, would give more work to bottle-
makers, box-makers, can-makers, printers, and others,
who would follow their ordinary occupation much
more readily than they could undertake the growing of
agricultural or horticultural commodities. It is in
these directions, leading to the improvement of the
general trade of the country, that the average urban
worker would be benefited, rather than by any scheme
which aimed at putting him to occupations he knows
nothing about, and of which he would, probably, except

332 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

in a comparatively few instances, very soon grow
weary.

My own proposals, therefore, go little further than
granting to men who are already on the land increased
facilities for settling there, and devoting themselves
especially to those subsidiary branches of agriculture
which have already undergone such substantial develop-
ment, but for which, under an effective system of
combination, coupled with improved marketing condi-
tions, there ought to be still further opportunities. A
certain proportion of townsmen might be absorbed,
but any wholesale migration would, I fear, prove
impracticable.

Within this more limited scope there is clearly room
for action in regard to the establishment of a larger
number of persons on the land, whether on the
particular lines I have recommended or otherwise.
But any action so taken should be regarded as forming
part only of a National Agricultural Policy, directed to
putting the agricultural industry of the British Isles
on an improved basis. When the other countries of
the world are doing so much for the advancement of
their own agricultural interests — and very largely with
aspirations towards our own markets — it behoves us to
be on our guard to do all that we can for the improve-
ment of our own position. That this position is already
stronger than is generally assumed has, I trust, been
established by the facts I have here presented ; and
though I am not favourable to undue dependence on
State-aid where the principle of self-help will suffice,
there are directions in which practical assistance might,
and ought to be, given by the State.

Personally, I should not be disposed to support the
idea that the State should provide large sums of public
money for the creation of a large body of peasant

A NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL POLICY 333

proprietors. But there is clear scope for such an
improvement and simplification of the land-laws as
would remove some of the stumbling-blocks from the
path of those who would seek to establish more people
on the soil by means of private or co-operative effort on
the lines I have already detailed. I think, also, that
the State should relieve agriculturists of some of those
permanent financial burdens of which Mr. Alec Steel
speaks so forcibly, and that the local authorities should
be reduced to reason in respect to their abnormally
heavy taxation, especially as applied to those glass-
houses which represent one of the British grower's best
means of fighting foreign competition. I am strongly
convinced, too, that the Government should, at least,
do all that is possible to foster those various subsidiary
industries which represent the present-day hope of the
British agriculturist ; that they should carry out a
scheme for the promotion of agricultural education on
essentially practical lines; that experimental farms,
especially in connection with fruit-culture, should be
set up in every district where they are likely to be of
direct service ; that assistance should be given in the
setting up of agricultural credit banks ; and that a
more generous measure of financial support should be
extended to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries with
a view to enabling it to increase its powers of usefulness
to the agricultural community. These are directions in
which the Government alone can act, and, considering
the magnitude of the interests concerned, it is not
creditable to the country that Ministers can do so little,
and that Parliaments, busy with questions of party
politics, can do still less, for the advancement of the
greatest of our national industries.

There is the less reason why the Government, or why
Parliament, should hesitate to take action along these

334 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

or other lines akin thereto, because one cannot doubt
that public opinion would strongly support the adop-
tion of such a step. The discussions which have arisen
in so many different quarters on the subject of land
settlement ; the various schemes advanced from time to
time ; the deputations that have gone abroad to study
foreign conditions ; the spirit of inquiry that has been
awakened throughout the land ; the publication of so
many and such excellent periodicals which deal with
every possible phase of agricultural or country life, and
penetrate to the dwelling of practically every farmer or
cultivator; the springing up of a new generation of
men prepared to adopt new ideas, to work on scientific
principles, and to accept the advantages that combined
effort opens out to them ; the actual developments
that have already taken place in the fruit and other
industries — all these things show that the time is fully
ripe for a revival of confidence in rural pursuits, and
that any Government which took the subject in hand,
and dealt with it on efficient lines, would have the
hearty support of the British people.

There is certainly scope for the assistance also of
local authorities in the carrying out of a National
Agricultural Policy such as that here suggested. The
item in respect to which they could afford the greatest
help is the matter of local rates ; and by this I mean,
not simply the shifting of burdens from one class of the
community to another — not simply a reduction in the
assessment on glass-houses, and a corresponding in-
crease in the assessment on something else — but an
actual reduction in the local expenditure, allowing of a
financial improvement all round. Especially could
that reduction be effected in regard to the policy of
carrying out in rural centres what are, in effect, urban
improvements, often involving both an outlay that is

POSITION OF RURAL AUTHORITIES 335

beyond the reasonable means of a country district, and
an undue increase in the cost of producing the com-
modities on which such district seeks to thrive.
Handicapped in this way, it is scarcely possible for
agriculture to flourish.

In the next place, rural authorities must seriously
consider the important question of building by-laws,
with a view to facilitating the more economical con-
struction of labourers' cottages, while still securing
adequate regard for considerations of health and sanita-
tion. The whole subject of rural education also calls
for revision, and action might more especially be taken
by County Councils (where this has not already been
done) on some such lines as those followed in the case
of Essex, as described in Chapter III. It may be open
to doubt whether County Councils are well-advised in
spending public money in teaching the art of butter-
making to dairymaids operating at individual farms,
since the lesson taught in the most emphatic manner
by our colonial and foreign competitors is that the
large quantities of butter which the British market
requires can only be successfully made by the adoption
of the factory system. But there can be no doubt as
to the value of analyses, of field experiments, of
scientific research, of the work of travelling professors
and demonstrators in fruit and farming districts, and of
agricultural instruction in general, all of which matters
come well within the scope of our County Councils.

Action along these lines would be both legitimate
and desirable ; but I could not advocate that County
Councils should emulate the example of the local
authorities who have resorted to municipal house-
building in the towns (at the cost of the ratepayers)
by themselves speculating in land in the country, with
the idea of creating colonies of small holders. Still less

336 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

would I give County Councils (as proposed in some
quarters) power compulsorily to acquire land for such
purposes. Not only would a policy of this kind open
the door to grave abuses (since the authority, armed
with compulsory powers, would naturally want the
best slices out of an estate, rejecting portions less
desirable), but the whole difficulty at present found in
the way of acquiring land for small holders could, in
most cases, be much better met on the lines set forth
in the preceding pages. There would be less objection
to a local authority renting land to let out as ' allot-
ments,' but even here the example of what has been
done at Aylestone and elsewhere suggests that the
intervention of a local authority is not indispensable.

Although, however, as a matter of principle, I should
be opposed to the granting of compulsory powers of
purchase, those of the land-owners who still cherish a
spirit of hostility towards the small holdings movement,
and refuse to make any concession whatever in other-
wise desirable districts, where they have, and seek to
maintain, a monopoly of the soil, may find before long
that the growing force of public opinion will exercise
such pressure on the Legislature that the enactment of
compulsory powers of purchase may prove to be un-
avoidable. Much will depend on the attitude of the
land-owners themselves. If they recognise adequately
the trend of events and submit in time, and with good
grace, to what is clearly the inevitable, they may check
the movement now proceeding in favour of compulsion ;
and certain it is that they never had greater oppor-
tunities than those that are now being opened out to
them. In most cases, as I have said, no great difficulty
should be experienced. As regards the remainder, if an
attitude of unreasonable hostility towards the small
holder be persisted in, even by a minority, to the

POLICY OF LAND-OWNERS

337

prejudice of national interests, a most powerful argu-
ment will be placed in the hands of those who favour
direct State interference.

As for the opportunities open to the British producer,
they could not be stated in a more concrete form than
in the following table of ' Values of Annual Imports
into the United Kingdom of Certain Articles of Agri-
cultural Production,' which I take from The Times of
January 8, 1906 :

Imports.

1903.

1904.

1905-

£

£

£

Cattle, for food ...

9,209,122

9,736,436

9,665,806

Sheep, for food...

546,063

591,984

278,753

Beef, fresh

8,366,141

8,058,341

8,9^,593

Mutton, fresh •••

7,826,062

6,861,531

7,336,480

Bacon

13,619,140

12,832,142

12,774,855

Hams

3,142,574

3,104,999

3,118,372

All dead meat ...

39,439.940

37,120,618

38,467,503

Poultry and game

1,202,288

1,217,277

999,480

Eggs

6,6i7,599

6,730,574

6,812,476

Cheese

7,054,710

5,843,770

6,339,742

Butter

20,798,707

21,117,162

21,585,622

Margarine

2,313,618

2,494,467

2,736,286

Lard

3,870,774

3,342,389

3,692,573

Wheat

29,940,191

34,266,416

35,279,928

Wheat-flour

9,723,652

7,258,600

6,044,745

Maize

12,465,583

10,247,134

11,034,748

Barley

7,221,789

7,161,600

6,017,350

Oats

4,263,950

3,726,120

4,713,265

Beans

594,832

577,094

414,227

Peas

690,768

767,097

724,757

Hops

578,739

1,839,854

456,280

Onions ...

1,003,016

1,076,472

1,094,693

Potatoes

2,603,238

2,437,971

1,404,607

Tomatoes

953,192

1,007,274

970,579

Apples, raw

2,781,643

2,118,294

2,065,193

Pears, raw

326,463

503,573

407,679

Plums, raw

622,268

526,438

524,673

Flowers, fresh ...

248,689

242,454

202,217

Seeds, clover, and

grass

1,008,772

869,838

651,712

Wool, sheep, and

lambs

20,622,523 20,366,030

23,821,359

22

338 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

It will be seen from this list that, with the exception
of the last three, all the items given relate to food-
supplies, and that, with the sole exception of maize,
all these food-supplies are of a kind capable of being
produced at home. Even omitting wheat, there still
remains a large assortment of other commodities, of
which we are, apparently, content to receive big con-
signments from abroad, instead of producing sufficiently
on our own account ; and though in our circumscribed
limits we might not be able to become absolutely self-
supporting in regard to all these things, we could
certainly produce them for ourselves in greatly in-
creased quantity. Some allowance must be made in
this list for 'early varieties,' imported before our home-
grown supplies are ready ; but even here the facts
already stated show that our drawbacks in regard to
climate can be readily overcome by a still greater
resort to glass-houses, provided that these are not
overburdened by local taxation.

Whether or not, and, if so, to what extent, the home
producer should be aided in meeting all this foreign
competition by a resort to a protective policy, is a much-
disputed question upon which I have not sought here to
enter. But, while leaving my readers to their own
views on this most controversial of points, I would
make one assertion, at least, without fear of contradic-
tion : that, whether a policy of protective tariffs be
adopted or not, British producers could in many
cases, as the combined result of improved methods of
culture and of effective combination for the purposes of
cheaper production, cheaper transport, and better
marketing, secure such economies, or get such in-
creased prices, as would represent benefits equal, prob-
ably, to any that might result from such tariffs as even
the most protective of British Governments would be

WHAT THE PUBLIC CAN DO 339

likely to impose. One could, I think, go even further,
and say that, if Protection were adopted in this country
without effective agricultural combination, the foreigner
would, in most instances, though not in all, still be able
to compete in British markets successfully with home
growers, because of his cheaper production and better
conditions of marketing, etc., due mainly to the
thoroughness of his organization.

Finally, I would submit, there are certain moral
obligations resting on the British public.

One market-gardener I have met was convinced there
would be no great improvement until we began to
appreciate more the value of good wholesome vege-
tables— and especially those of the lesser-known kind,
such as sea-kale — and increased the consumption
thereof. A dairy farmers' secretary lamented to me
that people still had much to learn as to the food-value
of milk, and various fruit-producers I know are looking
forward to the time when, whatever the average house-
wife may do in respect to vegetables and milk, she will,
at least, not overlook the virtues of fruit as a regular
article of diet, and thus send up the demand for avail-
able supplies. I do not mean * moral obligations ' of
this kind, but the need of appreciating (i) what may be
done with English land, and (2) the desirability of
encouraging practical schemes for settling thereon a
larger number of suitable persons to engage in the
particular industries still open to them, and offering
wide scope for their energies.

Those of us who are neither land-owners nor capital-
ists may still exercise a useful influence in first
realizing the actual facts of the situation, and then
helping to create a healthy public opinion which would
alike restore confidence in British agriculture ; en-
courage both Imperial and local authorities to advance

22 — 2

340 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION

its welfare along such lines as may be really practic-
able, apart from aims political or socialistic ; convince
farmers and producers of the value of improved
methods and effective organization ; and help to estab-
lish on British soil a larger number of capable, willing,
and most desirable of workers, instead of leaving them
to crowd into already overcrowded towns, or else to
adopt a policy of despair in quitting their native country
and seeking fresh homes in the lands beyond the seas.

APPENDIX

AYLESTONE CO-OPERATIVE ALLOTMENTS
SOCIETY, LIMITED

THE text of the agreement signed by members of this
society on taking over the allotments held by them
is as follows :

CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH TENANTS HOLD THEIR
ALLOTMENTS.

1. Tenancies to commence and terminate March 25 and Sep-
tember 29. Six months' notice to be given by the Committee or
Tenant, except in special cases defined in rules 12-15.

2. That 3d. per 100 yards entrance fee be paid. Rent due in
advance, and payable half-yearly, and the Committee to have full
power to refuse any application they do not approve. Any Tenant
being twenty-eight days in arrear from rent-day without giving a
satisfactory reason to the Committee will be fined 6d.

3. That no Tenant be allowed to relet or sublet the whole or
any portion of his allotment without the sanction of the Committee.

4. All sales and transfers to be approved by the Committee, the
incoming Tenant to pay a fee at the rate of 3d. per 100 yards to
the Society. Valuations to go through the Society's accounts in
case of non-agreement.

5. Main roads and outside fences to be maintained by the Com-
mittee. For this purpose 4 feet to be retained. No divisional
fence to be planted or erected without the Committee's approval.

6. No Tenant shall be allowed to plant trees within eighteen
inches of the next garden.

342 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

7. Tenants committing a nuisance, or throwing rubbish on the
main road or at the side of the fence, or injuring a neighbour's
allotment, will be fined is.

8. The Committee will hold the Tenants responsible for depreda-
tions or mischief caused by friends who accompany them, and also
retain the right to refuse admission to any person not being a
Tenant. For leaving gates open a fine of is. will be imposed.

9. Dogs will not be allowed on the estate except in slips. For
neglecting this precaution a fine of is. will be incurred.

10. Any Tenant cultivating his land on Sunday will be fined
2s. 6d.

11. For non-cultivation a fine of 2s. 6d. will be imposed.

12. In case of theft or wilful injury the Committee have power
to expel any Tenant and dispose of his cropping, and pay over
residue of same, after deducting all expenses and liabilities
incurred.

13. No live stock to be kept on the estate.

14. All cases of dispute between Tenants to be referred to the
Committee, whose decision shall be final.

15. The Committee shall have power to expel (at three months'
notice, without compensation) any Tenant who sets their manage-
ment at nought by persistently breaking the rules.

I hereby apply to the above-named Society for the tenancy of

yards of land, at the annual rental of^s. 8d. per 100 yards, or

such other smaller portion as the Committee may allot to me, and
do pledge myself to cultivate the same in accordance with, and
otherwise be bound by, the above-named rules governing the
Society's Tenants.

Signed,

APPENDIX 343

ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS
CLUBS

The following are the rules in force in the Provident
Allotments and Small Holdings Clubs, which have been
established in South Lincolnshire and Norfolk:

OBJECT.

That persons desirous of obtaining land for Allotments and
Small Holdings may assist each other by combination and organi-
zation—

1. By treating collectively with local authorities.

2. By hiring land of private owners.

3. By holding a reserve fund, if necessary, as security

for rent.

4. By holding funds to meet tenant-right, or to provide seed

and manures.

CONSTITUTION.

The officers shall consist of a Treasurer, Secretary, and Execu-
tive Committee of not less than seven members. The Treasurer
shall be elected triennially, the Secretary and the Committee
annually.

Treasurer. — The Treasurer shall receive monthly payments
from the Secretary, and place the same in the
bank when the amount in his hands reaches

&

Secretary. — The Secretary shall collect the subscriptions,

conduct the correspondence, and act generally
under the orders of the Committee at a fixed
salary.

The Committee. — The Executive Committee shall be members of
the Club, who shall control and direct the
general business, always provided (i) That
before taking land directly or indirectly they
shall consult a general meeting of the members

344 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

(the notice of which meeting shall explicitly
state the business), and shall receive the
sanction of two-thirds of the members present
and voting ; (2) That any resolution carried by
two-thirds of the members present and voting
at a general meeting shall be considered an
instruction to the Executive Committee.

RULES.

1. The Club shall consist of an unlimited number of members,
and any person may become a member, if satisfactory to the Com-
mittee, on paying an entrance fee of 3d.

2. Each member's subscription shall not be less than 2d. per
week to the Capital Fund, and id. every fourth week to the Working
Expenses Fund.

3. The Capital Fund shall not under any circumstances be
touched for working expenses, nor for any other purposes except
those stated in these rules.

4. The Working Expenses Fund shall be kept entirely separate
from the Capital Fund, and shall be vested in the hands of the
Treasurer. It shall consist of all payments other than payments to
the Capital Fund.

5. Any member allowing his arrears on 2d. a week to exceed
eight weeks' subscriptions shall be fined a halfpenny per week from
the first week until the arrears and fines be paid up ; and if six
months in arrears, after having received due notice of the same
from the Secretary, and after failing to give a satisfactory reason to
the Committee for falling back in his payment, he may be excluded
and forfeit all the moneys he has paid into the Club.

6. Any member may, on removal for more than three miles from
the Lodge Room, cease his membership and draw out the whole of
his payments to the Capital Fund, less a reduction of 5 per cent.,
such a deduction going to the Working Expenses Fund.

7. In case of the death of a member the whole of his payments
to the Capital Fund standing to his credit at the time of his decease
shall be paid over to his widow or next of kin. The widow or next
of kin may, if she or he desire, take over the membership of the
deceased.

8. In the event of the direct hiring of land by the Club the

APPENDIX 345

Treasurer shall be empowered (if so required by the land-owner) to
retain a sufficient sum to cover one half-year's rent, and to give
such guarantees to the land-owner as he may require. Each
member taking such land shall transfer from the amount of the
Capital Fund at his credit a proportionate share to such guarantee
fund.

9. In case of payment for tenant-right, seed, or manure, each
member shall be permitted to draw from the Club up to the amount
of the Capital Fund at his credit.

10. In case of a member not having paid into the Capital Fund a
sufficient sum to enable him to meet the tenant-right, or to find
seed or manure, the Committee may, if the funds will permit,
advance any sum from the Working Expenses Fund to such member
on condition that 5 per cent, interest per annum is paid on the loan,
and provided such member shall repay the loan when his capital
account will permit.

11. In case of land obtained directly by the Committee, members
who have paid into the Capital Fund a sum sufficient to cover the
first half-year's rent shall have a prior claim. In the event of the
number of applicants for land exceeding the number of allotments,
lots shall be cast in the usual way.

12. The Executive Committee shall have power to draw up
and submit by-laws for the management of allotments to a
general meeting of members from time to time as they may deem
necessary.

13. A general meeting of members may be called at any time by
the Committee, or by a requisition in writing to the Secretary
signed by any seven members.

14. No rule shall be altered except at a general meeting of
members, and after due notice of such proposed alteration has been
given to each member.

BY-RULES.

That all subscriptions to Capital Account and Working Expenses
be payable at the Club Rooms from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. the first
Friday evening in each and every calendar month.

That any person or persons wishing to become members of this
Club during the year should pay his share of the working expenses
for the whole year, or from the commencement of the Club's year.

That a fine of 6d. should be paid by any member of this Club

346 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

who shall swear or smoke in the Club Room during club hours,
such fines to be devoted to Working Expenses Account.

That no member of this Club, or anyone becoming a member,
shall be entitled to ballot for any allotment until he is twenty years
of age.

That two members of the Club be appointed annually to audit
the Club's books and other documents.

That no interest should be allowed those who withdraw from the
Club their last year's payments into Capital Account.

That in the case of land being obtainable by the Committee or
otherwise, those already having allotments and being members of
this Club shall not ballot for any allotment until each member shall
have received an allotment, or become tenant of an allotment.

That all persons holding allotments in connection with this Club
shall remain members of the Club, and fulfil all the obligations
of membership.

SOUTH LINCOLNSHIRE SMALL HOLDINGS
ASSOCIATION

I give below the form of agreement entered into
between the South Lincolnshire Small Holdings Asso-
ciation and each one of its tenants. Certain of the
requirements and stipulations may appear somewhat
arbitrary, but the reason given is that, * in these
agricultural agreements every contingency has to be
provided for.'

Jftemoranbtim ot Agreement made between the

Syndicate (hereinafter called the Landlords) of the
one part, and of (hereinafter called the

Tenant) of the other part, whereby the said Landlords agree to let
and the said Tenant agrees to hire as a yearly Tenant from the

day of 190 the holding numbered

in the Field of Allotments or Small Holdings on the land known
as situate in the parish

of and containing a. r. p., or

thereabouts, at the yearly Rental of £ and at a proportionate

APPENDIX 347

Rent for any period of less than a year over which the Tenancy
may extend, subject to the following conditions — that is to say :

1. The Tenant shall have and keep on deposit in the Spalding
Agricultural Credit Society not less than the sum named in the
rule adopted at a special meeting of the Provident Allotments and
Small Holdings Club held on July 18, 1901. The amount thus
placed on deposit shall be refunded to the Tenant, with any interest
due, on the determination of his Tenancy.

2. The rent shall be paid half-yearly, on the 6th day of April and
the nth day of October in each year.

3. The Tenant agrees to pay all rates, taxes, and other assess-
ments and outgoings, except Landlord's Property Tax.

4. The Tenant shall not underlet, assign, or part with the
possession of his Small Holding or any part of it, and shall reside
in the neighbourhood. In the event of the Tenant leaving the
neighbourhood, he shall, previous to leaving, give notice in writing
to the Landlords, and the Tenancy of his Allotment or Small Hold-
ing shall cease on the nth day of October next following the
receipt of such notice, or, if he fail to give such notice, immediately
on his quitting the neighbourhood.

5. The Tenant agrees to cultivate and manage the land in a
good and husbandmanlike manner. On the determination of the
Tenancy the amount of the Tenant-right due to the Tenant, if not
otherwise agreed upon, shall be fixed by valuation in the usual
way.

6. The Tenant of any grass land shall maintain a sufficient
fence to keep his stock on his own land ; the horses grazing on the
land shall be strictly limited to those owned by the Tenant or by
a Tenant of the Landlords, and shall not exceed in number one
horse for each 2 acres of land. The Tenant shall not mow and
remove grass or hay from the same land two years in succession.

7. The Tenant shall not erect on his holding any shed, hovel,
pigsty, tool-house, or shelter without the permission in writing of
the Landlords or their Agent.

8. The Tenant shall not plant any trees or shrubs so as to be
injurious to any adjacent Small Holding.

9. The Tenant shall not throw or leave any manure, soil, stones,
weeds, or rubbish, or otherwise obstruct any path, road, ditch,
stream, well, or pond belonging to the Landlords.

10. The Tenant shall not encroach, trespass, or commit any

348 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

depredation or damage on any other of the Small Holdings, or on
any land of the Landlords', and agrees so to manage and use his
Small Holding, and so to behave himself while on his Small Hold-
ing, as not to cause any nuisance or annoyance to the other Tenants
or to the Landlords, and to assist and give evidence in order to
discover and convict persons who so offend.

11. Unless a special agreement with regard to the ditches and
watercourses is made with the Tenant, the Landlords shall annually
rode out, and, when necessary, clean out and scour, the ditches and
watercourses, and the Tenant shall pay his quota towards the cost ;
according to the acreage occupied by him. The Tenant shall not
cut down any hedge or lop any tree on his occupation without the
consent of the Landlords.

12. The Tenant shall maintain and keep in repair the fencing
and gates adjoining his occupation. In default it is agreed that
the Landlords execute the work, and the full cost of the same shall
be a charge upon the Tenant.

13. Any Member of the Syndicate or the Steward shall be
entitled at any time to enter and inspect the Small Holding.

14. Every notice, request, or consent signed by or given to the
Steward or Agent for the time being of the Landlords shall be
deemed to have been signed by or given to the Landlords ; and
any notice signed by the Steward or Agent of the Landlords, and
given to the Tenant, shall be to all intents and purposes sufficient
notice to the Tenant.

15. The Tenancy shall be determined by six months' notice on
either side, such notice to expire on the I ith day of October in any
year ; but if at any time the rent shall be in arrear twenty-one days
after the time fixed for payment, or if the Tenant at any time not
less than three months after the commencement of his Tenancy
has not duly observed and kept the terms of this Agreement, the
Landlords shall be at liberty to retake immediate possession of the
Small Holding without paying any compensation whatever.

J10 8SBtttte0£ our hands this day of 190

Steward for the Syndicate.

Tenant.

Witness ...

APPENDIX 349

REGISTERED v. NON-REGISTERED
SOCIETIES

The difference between registered and non-registered
societies is very clearly brought out in a leaflet (No. 28)
issued in December, 1905, by the Agricultural Organiza-
tion Society, to the following effect :

ADVANTAGES OF REGISTRATION.

There is a large number of Agricultural Societies formed for
specific purposes throughout the country, which, through not being
incorporated (registered), do not exist in law. Some of these
societies engage in trading operations, and the responsibility for
these trading operations may fall entirely on the secretary or other
individual found to be taking an active part in the business, which
may lead to serious loss to him personally, besides the unpleasant-
ness, in case of any difficulty, of having to collect a loss by a levy
from the members.

An unregistered society is incapable of entering into contracts,
and therefore cannot, as a body, sue or be sued. It, therefore, is
possessed of no credit in the ordinary sense of the term.

The business of a voluntary society is usually carried on by the
secretary, and he, being purchaser of the goods as well as vendor,
has consequently to incur a responsibility to which no secretary or
official should be subjected. He may find himself saddled with
deteriorated goods, or he may make some involuntary mistake for
which his society may decline to be responsible, and which may
leave him with a heavy loss.

A creditor may take action against him personally, leaving him
to get what contribution he can from the individual members of the
committee, or the creditor may take proceedings against any
member of the association upon whose instructions he finds the
secretary or manager acted. Everyone who takes part in the
management of the business of an unregistered society is con-
stantly incurring personal liabilities, and, even however much he
may trust to the good faith of his fellow- members, many incidents

350 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

might arise or disputes occur which would oblige him to pay out
of his own pocket.

An unregistered society has no effective control over the action
of its employes, and in the case, for example, where a servant of
a registered or corporate body rendered himself liable to action for
damages on the part of his employers, it might easily happen that
no action could be taken by anyone on behalf of an unregistered
society. The action would have to be taken individually by the
secretary or official who hired the employe", and legal difficulties
would probably arise. This would also apply in the case of goods
shipped in the name of the society and lost or damaged, and also
to claims for insurance.

A registered society has a legal existence ; it is capable of con-
tracting, can sue and be sued, and can own property. No official
acting under the instructions of the society and within the scope
of its objects is personally responsible for any liability incurred,
and the individual liability of the members is limited to the amount
unpaid on their shares.

Agricultural societies engaging in business of any kind should
therefore become incorporated bodies, and the simplest and least
costly method of obtaining incorporation is to be registered under
the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1893. Registration
under this Act costs nothing, and the Act itself is so framed as to
give the utmost latitude to a society in the conduct of its business.
Agricultural societies desiring to place their business on a co-
operative basis can obtain gratis a complete set of model rules and
the necessary form of application, together with full instructions as
to the steps to be taken, from the Secretary of the Agricultural
Organization Society, Dacre House, Dacre Street, Westminster,
S.W.

INDEX

ADEANE, MR. C, 168
AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION SO-
CIETY, 69, 167-171, 177, 184, 190,

277
AGRICULTURE, CHANGES IN, 1-7,

25-8, 43- 47. 48, loo, 104, 133, 134.

303. 311
AGRICULTURE CO-OPERATIVE

FEDERATION, 168-171
ALLOTMENTS, 43, 50, in, 265-278,

326

ANALYSES, 34-6, 166-7
ANDREWS, MR. HUGH, 62-63, 64, 67,

293
APPLES, 55, 58, 61, 63, 109, 189-191,

337

APRICOTS, 55
ARUM LILIES, 64
ASPARAGUS, no, 118, 134, 138, 141,

298
ASSBEE, MR., 70,77

AVRAMOVITCH, M. , 319

AYLESTONE, ALLOTMENTS AT, 265-
276

BACON, 209, 337

BALZAC, 233'

BANKS, AGRICULTURAL CREDIT,

240, 319, 327-8
BEACH AND SONS, MESSRS. T. W.,

64

BEAR, MR. , 89
BERRY, MR. W. W.)48, 49
BLACKWELL, Mr. T. F., 41
BLAIRGOWRIE, FRUIT-GROWING AT,

So-51

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 333
BOTTLED FRUIT, 143
BOTTLED MILK, 35
BRANDSBY AGRICULTURAL TRADING

SOCIETY, 179-188
BRASSEY, HON. T. A., 168
BRIGSTOCKE, MR. A., 168
BROCCOLI, 116-122
BROWN, MR. EDWARD, 153-9

BRUSSELS SPROUTS, 106

BUDAPEST CO-OPERATIVE MARKET-
ING SOCIETY, 154

BULB-GROWING: In Holland, 79-80;
Scilly Isles and Cornwall, 80-81 ;
Spalding and Wisbech, 81 ; views
of a Lincolnshire grower, 81-2 ;
bulbs in Ireland, 82-7

BULGARIA, EGG EXPORT FROM, 157

BULMER, MR. H. P., 190

BURDENS ON LAND, 38-9, 82, 96, 102,

BURTT, MR. PHILIP, 15
BURY, MR. O., 208
BUTTER, 3, 9, 304, 337
BUXTON, MR. N., 168

CABBAGES, 64, 109, 119, 122-4, 138

CANADA AND FRUIT-GRADING, 189-
190

CANNING INDUSTRIES, 140-2

CARRINGTON, LORD, 279-287,

CARROTS, 106, 107, 109

CATTLE, DAIRY, 3, 27, 304

CAULIFLOWERS, 106, 118

CELERY, 124-7

CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FARMS,
68, 315

CEREALS, 2-7, 25, 48, 71, 134, 241

CHANNEL ISLANDS, FRUIT, ETC.,
FROM, 97

CHEESE, 10, 22, 32, 220-1, 337

CHENEY, MR. E. J. , 168

CHERRIES, 55, 58, 63

CHESHIRE MILK-PRODUCERS' ASSO-
CIATION, 21, 22-23

CHESTER AND WHITCHURCH DAIRY
FARMKRS' ASSOCIATION, 23

CHIVERS, MR., 42

CHRYSANTHEMUMS, 71, 77, 78. 96

CLYDE VALLEY, FRUIT-GROWING IN,
49-So

COMBINATION, AGRICULTURAL:
Milk -supply, 18-24, 28-32 ; joint
purchase, 36, 40, 69, 166-174, 3QI ;

35'

352 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

sale of produce, 51, 69, 189-194,
328-9; transport, 210-3, 225-6,
France, 235 ; Holland, 239 - 240 ;
Denmark, 242 ; Servia, 318-321 ;
need for, 327

CONSIGNMENTS, WEIGHT OR CHAR-
ACTER OF, 45, 75-6, 107, 139, 208,

210

CORN-FLOWERS, 71

COTTAGES FOR LABOURERS, 65, 102,

180-2

COUNTY COUNCILS, 257-262, 335
CREAM, 3, 22

CUCUMBERS, 64, 78, 89, 90, 93, 118
CURRANTS, 55, 58, 63, 305

DAFFODILS, 71
DAHLIAS, 71

DAMSONS, 48, 63
DENNIS, MR. J. W.,

208

DENNIS, MR. W., 112-3

DENMARK : Visit of Essex farmers,
36 ; bacon from, 209 ; land, 240-2

DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON
RAILWAY RATES FOR AGRICUL-
TURAL PRODUCE, 208, 209, 217,
218

DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON
FRUIT INDUSTRY, 41-4, 48-52, 96,
218, 304-5

DIGGLE, MR. J. H., 283, 289

DORRIEN-SMITH, MR. T. A., 73

DRASKOVITCH, M., 317

DRUCE, MR., 251

EAST CHESHIRE AND NORTH DERBY-
SHIRE FARMERS' ASSOCIATION, 23

EASTERN COUNTIES DAIRY FARM-
ERS' CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY, 30-
32

EASTERN COUNTIES FARMERS' CO-
OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, 171-7

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS,
277-8

EGGS, 3, 151-9, 317, 337

ESSEX : Prosperity in, 25 ; depression,
26 ; advent of Scotsmen, 26-29 ;
Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers'
Society, 29 ; Dairy Farmers' Co-
operative Society, 30 - 32 ; Essex
Education Committee, 32-6; re-
sults, 36-8 ; views of Mr. Alec Steel,
38-40 ; production under glass, 89 ;
market - gardening, 109 ; cabbage
crops, 124

EVESHAM: Early conditions, 133;
market-gardening, 134-5 '< railway
services, 135-6 ; local markets, 136 ;
telephone, 137 ; consignments,

138-9 ; canning industries, 140-2 ;
production under glass, 143 ;
French vegetables, 144-150; small
holdings, 294 - 301 ; ' Evesham
custom,' 298 ; health resort, 306-7
EYRE, THE REV. G. F., 168

FACTORY LIFE, 266-7
FAIRFAX-CHOLMELEY, MR. H. C.,

168, 178-188
FINDLAY, MR. A., 112

FlTZHERBERT - BROCKHOLES, MR.
W., 168

FLOWERS : Paper by Mr. Assbee, 70 ;
expansion of industry, 71 ; forcing
and retarding, 72 ; production in
Scilly Isles, 73 ; Cornwall, 74 ; Lin-
colnshire, 74-6 ; other districts, 76-8,
89, 97, 119 ; value of imports, 337

FRANCE, LAND IN, 231-5

FRUIT: Report of Departmental
Committee, 41-52, 96, 218, 304-5 ;
area under fruit, 42 ; fruit-growing
at Wisbech, 43-6; Cambridgeshire
district, 46 ; Holt district, 47 ; Kent,
48 ; Clyde Valley, 49 ; Blairgowrie,
50-51 ; jam production, 52 - 4 ;
foreign imports, 54-61 ; fruit-grow-
ing in Gloucestershire, 62-9 ; pro-
duction under glass, 88-97 ; co-
operative fruit - grading, 189-194 ;
rail transport, 226-7 > industry in
experimental stage, 304-5 ; fruit-
culture in Servia, 314-5 ; openings
for cottagers, 328-9

GIBB, SIR GEORGE, 209
GILLIES, MR. JOHN, 106, 107, 123
GILMOUR, SIR JOHN, 168
GLASS, PRODUCTION UNDER, 64, 82,

88-97, 143-4

GOOSEBERRIES, 49, 58, 63
GRADING, 57, 189-194
GRAIN, CARRIAGE OF, 209
GRAPES, 55, 89, 90, 93, 97
GREENGAGES, 63

HARPER, MR. JAMES, 55

HARRIS, MR. J. NUGENT, 168

HARTMANN AND CONEN, MESSRS.,
154

HEATHFIELD, POULTRY INDUSTRY
AT, 159-163, 211-3

HENNELL, MR. J. E., 218

HEREFORD CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT-
GRADING SOCIETY, 190-4

HEREFORDSHIRE, FRUIT-GROWING
IN, 42, 189-193

HILL, MR. VINCENT W., 48, 208

INDEX

353

HODGE, MK. J. M., 50, 51
HOLLAND : Visit of Essex farmers to,

36 ; bulb - growing in, 79 - 81 ;

market - gardeners' combination,

109-201 ; land, 235-240
HOUSING, 65, 102, 180-2, 294-7, 299
HUNGARY, Essex farmers' visit to,

36; egg and poultry industry, 154-7

IDIENS, MR. JOHN, 135, 146, 149,
218

IMPORTS: Fruit, etc., 54-5, 56-61,
103, 105 ; lettuces, 144 ; eggs, 151,
153; poultry, 153; bacon, 209;
butter, 209 ; general, 337

INTERNATIONAL Co - OPERATIVE
ALLIANCE, 328

IRELAND : Bulb-growing, 82-7 ; pota-
toes, 115-6 ; chickens from, 160-1

JAM-MAKING, 41-2, 51, 52-4, 137
JEFFS, MR., 273-5
JERMYN, MR., 287

JOHANNSEN, DR., 72

LABOUR, 48, 64-5, 102, 179
LABOURERS, 39, 43, 134-135, 179,

302-3, 328-9
LAFARGUE, M., 233
LAITY, MR. WILLIAM, 117
LAND : Utilization of, 6, 7 ; burdens
on, 38-40; conditions in France,
231-5 ; Holland. 235-240 ; Den-
mark, 240-2 ; England, 246-7 ;
' Evesham custom,' 298 ; proposed
compulsory put chase, 336; attitude
of land-owners, 336
LANDLORDS, 20, 25, 38, 253, 328-9
LAUE, FUNCK AND Co., 157
LAVERGNE, M. DE, 233, 253
LAW, MR. FRANK, 77
LAWRENCE, SIR TREVOR, 54
LAWREY, MR. ANDREW, 118
LECOUTEUX, M.,234

3, 106

LETTUCES, 106, 138, 144-150
LiciiFiELi), THE KARL OF, 20

>, 72

LILIES, 64. 72
LILIES OF THE VALLF.Y, 71
LONG, COLONEL C. W. , 168

LUKITCHEVITCH, M., 318

MACHINERY, COMBINED PURCHASE

OF, 174, 320, 321

MCCONNELL, MR. PRIMROSE, 37
MALBY, MR. ALFRED, 217
MARKET- GARDENING, 98-110, 133-

150, 199-204, 304

MARKETING OF PRODUCE, 18-24, 28-
31, 56-7, 136-7, 195-206, 324-5, 329
MARTIN, MR., 65
MEAT, 3

! MICHELET, 233
, MIDDLEMEN, 17, 28-30, 195-206
MILK, 3, 8-24, 27-31, 214-8, 304
MOTORS AND AGRICULTURE, 100-1,
185-8

j NATIONAL POULTRY ORGANIZATION
SOCIETY, 153

NEWCASTLE - ON - TYNE CO-OPERA-
TIVE SOCIETY, 16

NEWCASTLE-OX-TYNE FRUIT AND
POTATO MERCHANTS' ASSOCIA-
TION, 56, 225

NEWFOUNDPOOL Co - OPERATIVE
ALLOTMENTS SOCIETY, 277

NEWPORT AND DISTRICT AGRI-
CULTURAL CO-OPERATIVE TRAD-
ING SOCIETY, 193-4

NORFOLK SMALL HOLDINGS ASSO-
CIATION, 287-9

NUTS, 64

ONIONS, 58, 105, 109, 138, 337
ORLEBAR, MR. ROUSE, 168
OWNER'S RISK, 224-5

PARIS, LETTUCE-GROWING AROUND,

I44-S

PARSLEY, 107
I PARSNIPS, 106, 109

PEACHES, 55, 64, 90

PEARS, 55, 58, 337

PEAS, 109, 127-9, 337

PEASANT PROPRIETARY: In France,
231-5 ; in Holland, 235-240 ; in
Denmark, 240-2 ; in England, 243-

254, 332-3

PEONIES, 71, 77

PIGS : Co-operative insurance, 168 ;
co-operative sale, 176-7 ; consign-
ments to Hungary, 305 ; pig-breed-
ing in Servia, 316

PLUMS : 55, 58, 63, 65, 139, 337

POTATOES, 43, 58, 64, 108, 109, in-6,
118-9, 208, 337

POULTRY, 3, 63, 153-164, 211-3, 316-7,

PRESS, MR., 191

PROVIDENT ALLOTMENTS CLUBS, 280

PRUNES FROM SERVIA, 314

RABBITS, 201

RAILWAYS AND TRADERS, 49, 66,

104, 113, 128, 135 6, 185-6, 193, 207-

228

23

354 TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE

RAILWAY RATES, 13, 96, 149, 157,
161, 218-9, 220-1, 223-5

RAILWAYS TRAFFIC ON : Milk, n-
17, 214-8 ; fruit, 44-9 ; flowers,
73-8 ; bulbs, 81 ; hot-house produce,
89-96, market-garden produce, 104-
110, 138-9; potatoes, 113-5, 2°8 '•
broccoli, 116, 120-1 ; cabbages,
123-4 ; celery, 125-6 ; green peas,
127-9 ; rhubarb, 130 ; eggs from
Hungary, 157 ; from Bulgaria, 157 ;
poultry, 159-161, 211-3 • grain> 2O9

RASPBERRIES, 44, 49, 50

READ, MR. J., 190

RHUBARB, 64, 130-2

RIJN, DR. J. j. L. VAN, 79

RILEY, MR. JOHN, 190

ROBBINS, MR: 103

ROBERTSON, MR. JAMF.S, 83

ROLLESTON, SIR J., 270

ROSES, 64, 71

RUSSELL, MR. THOMAS, 218

SAMS, MR. W., 92, 96

SCIENTIFIC FARMING, 34, 40, 303-5

SCILLY ISLES, FLOWER - GROWING
IN, 73

SCOTLAND : Scottish settlers in Essex,
26-40; agricultural conditions in,
39-40 ; fruit - growing, 42, 49-51 ;
Scottish Agricultural Organization
Society, 168

SEA-KALE, 118

SERVI A, AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS
IN, 313-322

SMALL HOLDERS, 7, 43, 47-8, 51, 67-8,
92, 132, 134, 229-301, 313, 326-7

SMALL HOLDINGS ACT (1892), 257-9,
260

SMITHELLS, MR. EDWIN, 20

SOUTH LINCOLNSHIRE SMALL HOLD-
INGS ASSOCIATION, 281-7

STAFFORDSHIRE FARMERS' ASSOCIA-
TION, 18-22, 217

STAMER, MR. W. E., 193

STEEL, MR. ALEC, 38-40. 333

STOCK-BREEDING, 3, 286, 303, 305,
316

STRATFORD CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY,

STRAWBERRIES, 44, 46-49, 55, 58, 63,

93, 138, 139

STRICKLAND, MK. J. MASKILL, 179
STUBBS, DEAN, 302

SUDELEY, LORD, 62
SUTHERLAND, THE DUKE OF, 193

TAXATION, LOCAL, 39, 82, 96, 102,

333

TELEPHONE, THE, 133, 137
TEMPLE, MR. WILLIAM, 50
TENANCY, 255-264, 270, 289-292
TITHES, 38-40

TODDINGTON ESTATE, GLOUCESTER-
SHIRE, 62-9

TOMATOES, 50, 58, 61, 64, 78, 89,90,

93- 97. 337
TURNIPS, 109

UCKFIELD, POULTRY INDUSTRY AT,

159-163, 213

UNEMPLOYED, THE, 142, 302, 330-1
UNITED STATES, CANNING IN-
DUSTRY IN, 141-2

VEGETABLE MARROWS, 105, 106
VIOLETS, 71

WALLACE, MR. M. G., 115
WEBB, MR. RAYMOND, 295-7
WELCHMAN, MR. WILLIAM, 44
WENLOCK, LORD, 168
WENSLEYDALE PURE MILK SOCIETY,

15

WHEAT, 2, 43. 134, 241, 337

WILD AND ROBBINS, MESSRS., 103

WILEY, MR. SAMUEL, 179

WILSON, MR. F. W., 287

WINCHCOMBE CO-OPERATIVE
AUCTION MART, 69

WINCHCOMBE, ETC. , AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, 69

WINCHESTER, ALLOTMENTS AT, 277

WINFREY, MR. R., 282, 283, 287,
291

WISBECH, FRUIT-GROWING IN, 43-6

WOKING AND MAYBURY ALLOT-
MENTS SOCIETY, 277

WOLFF, MR. H. W., 168, 328

WORCESTER, PRODUCTION OF FRUIT
AND VEGETABLES, 140

WORKING MEN'S CLUB AND IN-
STITUTE UNION, 182

WORTHING, GLASS-HOUSES AT, 90-6

YERBURGH, MR. R. A., 168
YOUNG, ARTHUR, 133

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

WORKS BY EDWIN A. PRATT.

PUBLISHED BY JOHN MURRAY.

THE ORGANIZATION OF
AGRICULTURE.

Cheaper and Enlarged Edition. Paper Covers, is. net.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION — THE RAILWAYS AND AGRICULTURE— A DISSERTA-
TION ON EGGS — AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION IN DENMARK —
GERMANY — FRANCE — BELGIUM — ITALY — HOLLAND — HUNGARY —
AUSTRIA — SWITZERLAND— SWEDEN AND NORWAY— FINLAND — SIBERIA
— SERVIA — POLAND — LUXEMBURG — THE UNITED STATES — ARGEN-
TINA—CANADA—AUSTRALASIA— IRELAND— ENGLAND AND WALES—
A GERMAN VIEW OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE — Do THE RAILWAYS
HELP THE FARMERS? — CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS —
APPENDIX (BRITISH EGG INDUSTRY ; ECONOMIC REVIVAL OF THE
SCILLY ISLES ; AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF FENLAND; CANADA'S
AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS; AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION IN JAPAN)
— INDEX.

LETTER RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR.

'No. 10, SHIBA PARK, SHIBA, TOKYO,
' February 10, 1905.

'DEAR SIR,

* I beg to inform you that I am intending to translate
your excellent work, named " The Organization of Agriculture,"
into Japanese, and to introduce it to our reading public. Can
you grant me the honour, with the right of translation of the
above book, without in any way entrenching your own right
and publisher's? If you can, 1 believe I may rely on your
readiness to do so.

' Requesting again your permission, with your generosity,

* Yours truly,

'K. SATO,

' Secretary, Central Association of Japanese
Agriculturists!

WORKS BY EDWIN A. PRATT— Continued.

EXTRACT FROM A PAMPHLET OF ELEVEN PAGES (BULLETIN VIII.)
ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, NATAL,
UNDER THE HEADING 'AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATION.'

1 This article has been prepared with a view of answering the
question, What is the best form of Agricultural co operation
for Natal ? In order to arrive at an answer to this question, it
is, first of all, necessary to ascertain what has been done in
other countries, so that the errors into which the pioneers of
the movement fell may not be repeated in this Colony, and
that we may profit by the accumulated experience now avail-
able.

' Fortunately, very full information upon this subject of
Agricultural Co-operation — or, as it is sometimes called,
" The New Agriculture " — is now to be had. Practically
the whole of this article is based upon information gleaned
from the various publications of the Department of Agricul-
ture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, as well as from
the invaluable work of Mr. E. A. Pratt on "The Organ-
ization of Agriculture." This latter work relates in clear and
popular language the history of Agricultural Co-operation in
every part of the world, and no society or group of individuals
contemplating co-operative action can do better than purchase
a copy of the work in question.'

RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES.

WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE BRITISH CANAL .
PROBLEM.

Cheap Edition. Paper Covers, is. net.

Financial News. — ' The great array of facts is marshalled
with accuracy and skill.'

Financier and Bullionist. — ' The ablest vindication we
have seen of the much-abused railway companies.'

WORKS BY EDWIN A. PRATT— Continued.

Standard. — 'Will repay perusal by all who take interest in
one of the country's greatest industries.'

County Gentleman. — 'Ought to receive the attention of
all who have the welfare of the rural districts at heart.'

Scotsman. — ' A valuable book for railwaymen, traders, and
others who are interested, either theoretically or practically, in
the larger aspect of the economic problem of how goods are
best brought to market.'

Glasgow Herald. — ' In effect this is a statement of the
case for the defence against the attacks of traders and their
sympathizers. We are bound to say that the case is here pre-
sented with admirable lucidity, force and reason.'

Birmingham Daily Post. — ' A most valuable contribu-
tion to a complex and thorny question. Every business man
who thinks that the class to which he belongs has a grievance
against the British railway companies ought to read it.'

Iron and Coal Trades Review. — 'The author is to be
congratulated on the production of a well-written and able
volume.'

Engineering Times. — ' A book full of interesting informa-
tion.'

Railroad Gazette.— 'Not the least interesting part of
Mr. Pratt's work is the series of sketches of the history of rail-
road progress in various Continental States.'

T.P.'s Weekly.— ' The author has brought together and
put into readable form a vast amount of information not easily
accessible.'

Eastern Morning News. — ' The reading of the work
goes to show that there are two sides to every question.'

LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

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