216 THE POSSIBILITIES 



grown in Mid and South Kent, where we find the 

 culture of fruit combined with large jam factories. 

 One of such factories is connected with great 

 fruit farms covering 2,000 acres at Swanley, and 

 its yearly output attains 3,500 tons of jam, 

 850 tons of candied peel, and more than 100,000 

 bottles of bottled fruit. An extensive horti- 

 culture has also developed of late in Cambridge- 

 shire, wherefrom fruit is sent partly fresh to 

 London and Manchester, and partly is trans- 

 formed on the spot in the jam factory at Histon. 

 No less than 250 workpeople were employed at 

 this factory at the time of Rider Haggard's visit 

 in 1900, and no less than 7,600 tons were ex- 

 ported ; the most interesting result of this in- 

 dustry combined with agriculture being that 

 quite a number of small farmers, renting from 

 three to twenty acres each, have grown round the 

 jam factory. " Altogether," Mr. Haggard wrote, 

 " fruit and flower culture has increased enor- 

 mously ; so that, in 1901, from 4,000 to 5,000 

 acres in the neighbourhood of Wisbech were 

 devoted to this trade. Plums, apples, pears, 

 small fruit, as also cauliflowers, asparagus, 

 rhubarb, narcissi, pansies and other flowers 

 were grown here on a grand scale, and as much 

 as from 130 to 140 tons of gooseberries and from 

 60 to 70 tons of strawberries were despatched 

 from Wisbech in one single day." " The result of 



