94 THE POSSIBILITIES 



in," an old labourer said to me ; and so it is 

 in reality.* 



Such were my impressions of British agricul- 

 ture twenty years ago. Unfortunately, both the 

 official statistical data and the mass of private 

 evidence published since tend to show that but 

 little improvement took place in the general 

 conditions of agriculture in this country within 

 the last twenty years. Some successful attempts 

 in various new directions have been made in 

 different parts of the country, and I will have the 

 pleasure to mention them further on, the more 

 so as they show what a quite average soil in these 

 islands can give when it is properly treated. 

 But over large areas, especially in the southern 

 counties, the general conditions are even worse 

 than they were twenty years ago. 



Altogether one cannot read the mass of review 

 and newspaper articles, and books dealing with 



* Round the small hamlet where I stayed for two summers, 

 there were : One farm, 370 acres, four labourers and two boys ; 

 another, about 300 acres, two men and two boys ; a third, 

 800 acres, five men only and probably as many boys. In 

 truth, the problem of cultivating the land with thu least number 

 of men has been solved in this spot by not cultivating at all 

 as much as two-thirds of it. Since these lines were written, in 

 1890, a movement in favour of intensive market-gardening has 

 begun in this country, and I read in November, 1909, that they 

 were selling at the Covent Garden market asparagus that had 

 been grown in South Devon in November. They begin also to 

 grow early potatoes in Cornwall and Devon. Formerly, no- 

 body thought of utilising this rich soil and warm climate for 

 growing early vegetables. 



