410 REASONS OF SUCCESS 



men who have not enough land for a living, whilst 

 some of them may be working regularly for wages, 

 the larger number, as well as many who are said 

 to be making an entire living on the land, earn 

 their extra money in actual connection with small 

 holdings viz., by buying other supplies, as de- 

 scribed, and bringing back in their empty carts 

 loads of manure to sell after taking the produce 

 into Birmingham. 



The conditions are here reversed as to what one 

 usually finds viz., the larger men in the market- 

 garden and fruit industry supplementing their own 

 supplies by buying from small men. 



2. The cultivation is not of a very high standard 

 or very intensive ; the soil is not very good, nor 

 the climate forward. It is no doubt the proximity 

 of Birmingham as a market which makes up for 

 these deficiencies ; but at the same time one is 

 surprised to find the same acreage quoted as being 

 necessary for a living as at Evesham, with its 

 fertile soil and very intense and high-class system 

 of market-gardening. As a matter of fact, the 

 explanation probably is that these men do not 

 live so entirely off their holdings as do the 

 Evesham men, but supplement their returns in 

 the ways indicated. 



The place is a striking instance of the benefit 

 conferred on a poverty-stricken district by the 

 supply of land to small people. 



Here, as at Catshill, most of the population had 

 been nail-makers, and were thrown out of employ- 

 ment by the introduction of machinery. The men 

 were rapidly becoming demoralized through extreme 



