XII 

 SPECIALIST FARMING POTATOES 



FROM Norfolk we again struck across the Fens, 

 crossing them on this occasion on their seaward side, 

 where the soil is silt or marsh, without any of the 

 black peat we had seen earlier. Towards Wisbech 

 there has been of recent years a great development 

 of fruit-growing ; and we passed through a district 

 of almost continuous plantations, sometimes of small 

 fruit only, but more often of small fruit overplanted 

 with apples and plums. The industry is so new in 

 this district that there are no large trees nor old 

 orchards laid down to grass. Cambridgeshire has 

 for a long time grown fruit on the " shelf land," the 

 strip of fine greensand soil which borders the fen, but 

 only within the last fifteen years or so has the capacity 

 of the Wisbech land to grow fruit was discovered. 

 The soil is a deep, stoneless, even-tempered loam, 

 very similar in character and composition to the brick 

 earths of East Kent ; indeed, the good fruit soils all 

 over the kingdom possess much the same structure, 

 whatever their origin. The land is a little higher 

 than the black fen farther west, but is still only ten 

 to twelve feet above sea-level, and standing water is 

 found but a few feet below the surface. So marked 

 has been the extension of the industry that Cam- 

 bridgeshire is now one of the leading fruit-growing 



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