50 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



great deal more than the large farmer with 

 his self-contained holding. 



In time, of course, when the orchards 

 grow to maturity, the holding becomes quite 

 a valuable property to the tenant, although 

 the rent may still be but £2 an acre. 



A tenant, who had the courtesy to show 

 me over his various holdings, took me to one 

 of them three miles from a station — an orchard 

 of apples and plums and black-currant bushes. 

 He planted these ten years ago. A few years 

 ago he was offered £30 an acre for tenant 

 rights. In the autumn of 1910, when I visited 

 him, he was offered £100 an acre for his stand- 

 ing crops, and £100 for the tenant rights. He 

 refused this offer. His rent still stands at £2 

 an acre. 



Equipped with a better education than 

 most market gardeners, and with staying 

 powers greater than the usual middle - class 

 man, he has been exceptionally successful, for, 

 beginning with only four and a half acres, he 

 now crops thirty-four. He takes his market 

 garden as a very serious business, and motor- 

 cycles from one of his scattered strips of land 

 to another, superintending the work and re- 

 turning to dictate letters to a typist. He is 



