224 THE POSSIBILITIES 



It has thus become an important centre for 

 market-gardening, "120 trucks of produce 

 leaving Potton daily during the season for 

 London, in addition to fifty trucks which pass 

 over the Great Northern line from Sandy station, 

 together with much more from sidings and other 

 stations." This is the more interesting as 

 within a short distance from this animated 

 centre " thousands of acres are quite or very 

 nearly derelict, and the farmhouses, buildings, 

 and cottages are slowly rotting down." The 

 worst is that " all this land was cultivated, and 

 grew crops up to the 'eighties." * 



Another oasis of market-gardening is offered 

 by the county of Bedfordshire. " Being a 

 county of natural small-holdings, carved out 

 before the passing of the 1907 Act," it is rapidly 

 becoming we are told by Mr. F. E. Green 

 " a county of market-gardens." The fertility 

 of its soil, the fact that it can easily be worked 

 at any time of the year, and that a race of 

 skilled gardeners has developed there long 

 since, have contributed to that growth ; but, 

 of course, the whole is hampered by the heavy 

 rents, which have grown up to 4 an acre for 

 the sites near the station, where manure is 

 received in large quantities from London, f 



* Rural England, ii., 59. 



t F. E. Green, The Awakening of England, pp. 116, 117. 



