GROWTH OF A NEW ENGLAND. 65 



ment/ At Littleton, for instance, where the 

 County Council has recently taken over a farm, 

 the rent to a number of small holders works out 

 at 32s. an acre. The private owner close by 

 was charging, I found, £2 to £2 ; 10s. an acre 

 for similar land to small holders, in spite of the 

 fact that on the other side of the railway line 

 the farm is bringing in the private owner only 

 18s. an acre as agricultural land. 



Though intensive cultivation is the rule in 

 the vale of Evesham, French gardening pure 

 and simple is not much in evidence ; and yet 

 French gardening, as it is called, was practised 

 in the vale of Evesham years before it became 

 the latest cultural mode imported from Paris. 

 The glass rims were used long before the 

 cloches which have now superseded them. 



There are three fairly large French gardens 

 at Evesham, and one of these, the most 

 interesting, at Bengeworth, imported 250 tons 

 of manure in one season for about two acres 

 of land. On this rich soil five crops were 

 taken — radishes, lettuces, cauliflowers, onions, 

 and melons. In the midst of an orchard of 



^ Mr. Walter Runciman, the new President of the Board of 

 Agriculture, stated in the House of Commons (Marcli 1912) tliat 

 County Councils need not charge small holders with the Sinking 

 Fund. 



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