THE PROFITABLE 

 CULTURE OF VEGETABLES. 



CHAPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



ALL history proves that a nation's well-being depends not 

 upon its industrial and intellectual pursuits only, but 

 upon a judicious combination of these with agriculture, and 

 that the neglect to cultivate its own land has always been the 

 prelude to a nation's downfall. 



The worker on the land is beyond question the ultimate 

 source of the wealth, stamina, and reproduction of every nation, 

 and yet for more than two generations we have permitted 

 the rural districts of the British Islands to be become steadily 

 depopulated, the inhabitants being dispersed, some to the 

 slums of our large cities, where they speedily deteriorate in 

 character and physique, and others to lands across the seas. 

 This depletion of the country-side has gone on until some 

 districts are now comparatively destitute of young able-bodied 

 men, most who remain being either elderly and slow or in 

 some way deficient. The extreme gravity of such a state of 

 things must be apparent to everyone who will pause to give it 

 consideration, matters having now come to such a pass that 

 unless the outflowing stream of humanity is speedily checked 

 the decadence of England as a great nation will soon be within 

 measurable distance, if indeed it has not already begun. 



Lack of opportunity for a full and prosperous existence in 

 close relationship with the land has undoubtedly been the main 

 cause of rural decadence, and it is obvious that the most natural 

 and effective means of restoring the necessary balance between 

 town and country is to afford opportunities for such an exis- 

 tence to all suitable persons desirous of obtaining a livelihood 

 from work in connection with agricultural pursuits. 



