84 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



acres. Potato-picking and pea-picking were 

 in full swing on the occasion of my visit, and 

 it was delightful to find that a farm of 200 

 acres which before 1907 gave a livelihood to 

 three men only, produces now sustenance for 

 thirty people. Farming, before the small 

 holders came here, consisted of turning bullocks 

 out to graze in May, locking the gate, and 

 returning after several months to take them 

 away to be sold, or finished off in stockyards. 



Now the fields are alive with women and 

 girls in blue, white, and pink sun-bonnets pick- 

 ing peas, and men and women lifting, sorting, 

 and sacking potatoes. Extra hands have, of 

 course, to be hired during the small holders' 

 harvest of strawberries, peas, and potatoes ; and 

 farm labourers from Norfolk, attracted by the 

 higher wages that small holders invariably give, 

 are housed and fed at the building opened by 

 Lord Carrington, which looks to all the world 

 like a mission-room. 



It would be no exaggeration to say that 

 upon this dreary, homeless expanse new villages 

 have sprung up since 1907. On this fertile 

 land, previously rendered almost sterile by bad 

 farming, the plough was set to work, and from 

 the breast of the plough has arisen not only 



