138 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



Dunton, where you will find a body of real 

 Somersetshire yeomen who have farmed small 

 holdings from time immemorial, men who are 

 earning an entire livelihood out of their twenty 

 or thirty-acre farms. It is they who are 

 growing a little corn on these patches of red 

 earth, more for the sake of the long luxuriant 

 straw — which, owing to its scarcity, they can 

 sell for £2 a ton — than for the grain. 



Elsewhere, alike on the verdant plain and 

 on the hillside, graze sheep and cattle, and 

 where they are, of course, the cheery blue 

 smoke of cottage chimneys is seen at rare 

 intervals. 



Around Street, however, houses are on the 

 increase, and the price of land is rapidly rising. 

 The population here has increased during the 

 last decade : a rare enough incident in rural 

 England. But it would not be fair to attribute 

 the increase alone to the multiplication of 

 small holdings and poultry-keeping, for there 

 is a boot as well as a skin factory in the 

 village, and yet undoubtedly, small farming 

 has had the effect of keeping people in rural 

 cottage homes. 



Street, with its population of between 4000 

 and 5000, is relieved from that which so often 



