SMALL HOLDINGS 177 



experienced both ideal weather for its development 

 and an excellent market, but July had not permitted 

 the later vegetables or the succession crops to make 

 any headway, and the fruit had now come to a 

 standstill. Apples were plentiful but remained small, 

 and were then beginning to drop; plums were less 

 abundant and would not swell ; some were being 

 picked to sell in the unripe state to the jam-makers, 

 and so by lightening the burden on the tree to give 

 the rest a chance. A general brown look on the trees 

 told of the ravages of " red spider," and among the 

 plums in particular plenty of trees were seen to be 

 dying outright, while all newly planted trees were 

 evidently being kept alive with difficulty. Growers 

 were very gloomy about their prospects, but their 

 operations are so varied that it is almost impossible 

 for all the crops to go wrong together ; generally 

 something makes a hit good enough to carry the rest, 

 and last year's plum crop and the asparagus this 

 spring have left a good deal of money in the 

 district. 



Though a check in the progress might be expected 

 from the dry season, one could see in every direction 

 that the industry had been extending rapidly ; wherever 

 a farm could be broken up there was an eager demand 

 for areas of from 5 to 40 acres, and fruit-planting 

 has been proceeding apace during the previous winter. 

 The Evesham country is in some ways classic ground 

 for the advocates of " small holdings," and they can 

 point to the enormous increase both in the output 

 of the land and the men it can support, that has 

 taken place since what was but second-rate grass 

 land has become available for division and intensive 

 cultivation. Thereabouts one did find a definite 

 feeling against the large farmer as a monopolizer and 



