CHAPTER IX. 



THE ISLANDS OF INTENSIVE CULTURE. 



It is Great Britain's most southern island that 

 should be the small holder's paradise, the 

 island which, according to Jerseymen, annexed 

 the larger island of England by conquest and 

 so built up the British Empire. 



Nature has been kind to this island set in a 

 sapphire sea, for though the soil is not naturally 

 very fertile it slopes gently from north to 

 south ; frost visits it but seldom, and the sea 

 yields up to its shores an abundance of good 

 manure which can be had for the labour of 

 picking up and carting. This ocean weed 

 is ploughed in as we plough in green manure. 



It is a striking fact that only six farms on 

 the island are above the English statutory 

 fifty-acre small holding. The whole area of 

 the island is only 27,717 acres, which is less than 



154 



