EVESHAM 71 



soldiers on the land was a failure. That is quite 

 true. But let us look at the facts. Those men were 

 professional soldiers — non-commissioned officers, 

 with long service to their credit. In one case there 

 were three or four of them, with their famihes, 

 settled near a village among farm labourers with 

 whom neither they nor their wives with their 

 experience of life in England and abroad could 

 possibly have any points of contact. So they were 

 thrown upon their own resources, and the resources 

 of four families with the rigid traditions of the pro- 

 fessional soldier will not stand the strain of being 

 cooped up for a whole winter in a place miles from 

 anywhere and with the same dull round from 

 morning till night. These experiments were well- 

 intentioned, but ill-conceived, and they failed in 

 the end because they were failures from the start. 



As to the sort of living a man would make on the 

 land, this will largely depend on himself and the 

 type of his holding. Even under our present unsatis- 

 factory agricultural conditions there are many 

 examples of small holders making a very good 

 living. In the Evesham and Wisbech districts, 

 and generally throughout the Eastern Counties, 

 there are numerous examples of men making one 

 hundred pounds a year clear off a five-acre fruit 

 and vegetable holding. In Kent there are men, also 

 on live-acre holdings, producing fruit, vegetables, 

 poultry and pigs, making £100, £120 and £130 

 a year respectively, after allowing for pretty 

 high annual instalments in the form of rent and 

 sinking fund for their holding. I also know a case 

 of an arable dairy holding of twenty-six acres 



