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count I can give will be one which includes what I saw on 

 my way, as well as what'I have seen here. In doing this 

 I shall be obliged to repeat some things I have said else- 

 where ; but I have no right to suppose all the members 

 of the Essex Agricultural Society know what I have been 

 saying, and then I have the satisfaction of knowing that a 

 good story will always bear repetition. 



It was on the morning of June 17th that I first saw the 

 shore of England as I landed at Southampton on my jour- 

 ney hither. The season was most delightful, — the month 

 which the poet calls ''the leafy June," — and the fields and 

 gardens of the old country were a scene of beauty to the 

 traveller, and of agricultural skill and prosperity to the 

 eye of the farmer. I was surprised to find so much well- 

 ordered market gardening as I saw along the railroad from 

 Southampton to London. It is not many years since the 

 cultivation of lands lying near the large cities was first 

 urged upon the English farmer for the purpose of market 

 gardening ; and even now the conversion of such lands in- 

 to sheep-pastures is quite a common occurrence. The 

 first crop of hay was being gathered from fields devot- 

 ed to grass, and the yield was abundant. But the vegeta- 

 ble growth in fields devoted to potatoes, early cabbages, tur- 

 nips, kale, carrots, cauliflower, spinach, etc., was most lux- 

 uriant, and the cultivation was systematic, clean, and well 

 arranged. Not a weed was to be seen — and so far as I 

 could judge, not a half-starved plant. 



The crops looked healthy and luxuriant. I missed our 

 handsome fields of sweet corn which constitute so impor- 

 tant a part of the early cropping in Essex County, and 1 

 was inclined to look with compassion on a people who did 

 not enjoy the luxury of this vegetable on their tables ; and 

 so deep was this compassion that I have ordered a supply 

 of sweet corn for seed to be sent from the Pickman farm, 

 which I suppose the whole world knoivs is famous for this 

 crop, to the Marquis of Ahsa, whose estates are in Scotland 

 and who entertained me on his yacht, the Titania, on the 



