RURAL COUNCILLORS. 117 



districts as Sandy and Biggleswade, as little or 

 no stock is kept, all superfluous hedges have 

 been uprooted, and so keen are the men to 

 obtain small holdings that many travel on 

 their cycles a dozen miles a day to and from 

 their strips of land. Manure is railed from 

 London in large quantities at fairly reasonable 

 prices, but rent bears heavily upon the 

 cultivators of the soil, for as much as £4 an 

 acre is charged on sites near the station. " We 

 cannot afford," said a grower of carrots and 

 marrows to me, " to put our land under 

 ordinary farm crops." 



The Bedfordshire County Council make 

 the fifth county which has spent over £40,000 

 in the acquisition of land ; and in meeting the 

 ever-increasing demand of the rural population 

 for land, they have, up to the 30th of .Tune 1911, 

 provided applicants with 2759 acres ; but 

 altogether a thousand applicants applied for 

 12,350 acres. There are still two-thirds of 

 these waiting for land ! 



Where he can work with a free hand, the 

 parish councillor is one of the best agents to 

 bring about the recolonisation of our empty 

 countryside. This I have witnessed in my 

 travels again and again. 



