GROWTH OF A NEW ENGLAND. 61 



does not exist in Evesham, for it certainly 

 does. I found, for instance, one well-matured 

 orchard rented at £14 an acre, and from £3 to 

 £5 an acre is quite common in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the town. (During the fall 

 of last year there arose a new lord of the soil 

 who caused much tribulation amongst those 

 who tilled the land.) And yet when a man has 

 saved a fair amount of capital after a life of 

 toil on the land (generally combined with a 

 judicious amount of dealing), he shows no dis- 

 position, so the estate agents tell me, to purchase 

 the soil that he has tilled for so many years. He 

 knows that at any time he can make good in 

 hard cash the trees that he has planted and 

 tended for so many years. If he has but a small 

 surplus put by, he uses that to extend his 

 operations farther afield, becoming, as a rule, 

 an employer of labour when he begins to 

 cultivate more than three acres. 



If he has amassed more, he will buy a build- 

 ing site in the town for erecting cottage 

 property. An estate agent told me an amusing- 

 story of how a tenant, whom he knew at one 

 time as a farm labourer, came into the office 

 one day and asked the agent to sell him a 

 building site. 



