20 EPWORTH, ISLE OF AXHOLME 



and beet were grown in individual cases. The 

 potato crops average 6 tons to the acre, and go 

 up to 11 tons in a good season. 



A local dealer told me that nearly 2,000 tons of 

 potatoes passed through his hands yearly from the 

 Epworth district. 



The holders all live in Epworth, the outskirts of 

 which are very straggling ; many of the detached 

 houses in the street have farm buildings, with open 

 yards adjacent to them. Everyone keeps pigs for 

 manure ; the larger holders fatten one or two 

 bullocks for sale at the annual May fair, or keep a 

 few cows, rearing the calves to fatten at eighteen 

 months. 



Artificial manure is largely used ; since the light 

 railway from Haxey Junction has been opened 

 there has been an enormous amount of town 

 manure sent from Hull and Sheffield at a cost of 

 6s. a ton (including carriage at 2s. 6d.). Here, as 

 in other districts on good land, I was assured that 

 it paid small holders to grow ordinary farm crops 

 and sell corn. I doubt, however, that this would 

 be the case if it were not for the potatoes ; more- 

 over, the necessity of growing enough straw to 

 make manure seemed to weigh in their minds 

 more than the monetary value of the grain. The 

 want of knowledge in the preservation of farmyard 

 manure was very apparent, both from the waste of 

 straw and the pools of wet and mud in which the 

 manure lay about in the yards. 



