220 THE POSSIBILITIES 



complain of the quality of the fruit, and that it 

 will not pay to grow " (vol. i., p. 338). 



Speaking of Catshill, Mr. Haggard gives also 

 a very interesting instance of how a colony of 

 people called " Nailers," who lived formerly by 

 making nails by hand, and compelled to abandon 

 this trade when machine-made nails were intro- 

 duced, took to agriculture, and how they succeed 

 with it. Some intelligent people having bought 

 a farm of 140 acres and divided it into small 

 farms, from 2i to 8 acres, these small hold- 

 ings were offered to the nailers ; and at the 

 time of Mr. Haggard's visit " every instalment 

 which was due had been paid up." No able- 

 bodied man out of them has gone on to the 

 rates. 



But the vale of Evesham is still more in- 

 teresting. Suffice it to say, that while in most 

 rural parishes the population is decreasing, it 

 rose in the six parishes of the- Evesham Union 

 from 7,327 to 9,012 in the ten years, 1891 to 

 1901. 



Although the soil of this district offers nothing 

 extraordinary, and the conditions of sale are as bad 

 as anywhere, owing to the importance acquired 

 by the middlemen, we see that an extremely 

 important industry of fruit-growing has devel- 

 oped ; so important that in the year 1900 about 

 20,000 tons of fruit and vegetables were sent 



