232 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



whether during all this period of town-life he 

 has ever cultivated anything in the open air 

 beyond that which he could grow in a back- 

 yard ; and yet earth hunger in this man is so 

 strong that I found him lightly wearing his 

 threescore years of life, and forking out the 

 twitch one bitter winter morning on his bare 

 acre-holding on the wind-swept Cotswolds. 



"My trade has gone to pot," he said, "but 

 I don't care. This is what I love." Just 

 that bare acre of earth on which not a green 

 thing was to be seen, nothing in fact to give 

 it the cosy feeling of home ; not a shed nor 

 a hedge to distinguish it from that of any- 

 body else, with his cottage a mile away in the 

 village ! Even his home had been turned 

 into a small-holder's warehouse, for one bed- 

 room was full of trays of sprouting potatoes, 

 and downstairs a room was filled with sacks 

 of grain and meal produced on his holding. 



Our cockney agriculturist wisely produced 

 largely for home consumption, and not for the 

 market. In the kitchen hung a side of bacon 

 which had once been a part of his own pig fed 

 on the meal ground from his own grain. His 

 own plucked chicken and eggs were on the 

 larder shelf, and he produced a loaf which had 



