218 THE POSSIBILITIES 



testimony of the author of the already mentioned 

 Britannica article. The same must be said of 

 Worcestershire, and especially of the Evesham 

 district. This last is a most instructive region, 

 Owing to certain peculiarities of its soil, which 

 render it very profitable for growing asparagus 

 and plum trees, and partly owing to the main- 

 tenance in this region of the old " Evesham 

 custom " (according to which from times imme- 

 morial the ingoing tenant had to pay the outgoing 

 tenant, not the landlord, for the agricultural 

 improvements) a custom maintained till nowa- 

 days* the small-holdings system and the culture 

 of vegetables and fruit have developed to a 

 remarkable extent. The result is that out of a 

 rural area of 10,000 acres, 7,000 have already 

 been taken in small holdings of under fifty acres 

 each, and the demand for them, far from being 

 satisfied, is still on the increase, so that in 

 1911 there were still nearly four hundred farmers 

 waiting for 2,000 acres. A new town has grown 

 at Evesham, its population of 8,340 persons being 

 almost entirely composed of gardeners and gar- 

 deners' labourers ; its markets, held twice a 

 week, remind one of markets in the south of 



* P. E. Green, The Awakening of England, London (Nelson's), 

 1911, pp. 49, 50. Speaking of a certain farmer, Mr. Green 

 says : " In the autumn of 1910, when I visited him, he was 

 offered 100 an acre for his standing crops, and 100 for the tenant 

 rigJits. He refused the offer. His rent still stands at 2 an acre." 



