DESIRABLE TOWN TYPES 307 



climate of the Evesham Valley, got rid of their con- 

 sumption without having to go into exile across the 

 seas, established, in course of time, a fruit farm or a 

 fruit business of their own, and are now ' doing well,' 

 both physically and commercially. I may be going 

 beyond my text, but I must confess that when I read 

 in letters to The Times reiterated appeals for more and 

 still more thousands of pounds for ' homes ' for con- 

 sumptives, I think of the fresh-air cure adopted by 

 those young men at Evesham, and wonder whether it 

 would not do more good if the money were spent 

 instead in enabling consumptives to settle on the land 

 while they may still be cured. 



Individuals of the desirable town types I have men- 

 tioned might need, in the first instance, either to hire 

 themselves out for a time to farmers, fruit-growers, 

 market-gardeners, or others, in order to gain experience, 

 or, alternatively, pay a premium for facilities offered ; 

 though here I am assuming that they would be persons 

 of quite a different stamp from the ' remittance men,' 

 not only of the Canadian Far West, but of Yorkshire 

 and other English counties, who are supported by sup- 

 plies from parents or relatives while presumably learn- 

 ing the business of farming, but are more often to be 

 found in the drinking-bars (in Canada) or alongside a 

 trout-stream (in England) than in the fields or gardens. 

 Starting, however, with the assumption that the towns- 

 men in question were alike intelligent, energetic, and 

 determined to succeed, there ought to be no insuperable 

 difficulty in the way of their acquiring, within a reason- 

 able time, a sufficiency of knowledge of some one or 

 other of the minor industries of agriculture to be able to 

 make, at least, a living out of it, even if they could not 

 eventually do much better. 



As a matter of fact, some of the greatest successes 



20 2 



