XV 

 MIDLAND MARKET GARDENING 



THE fame of the market gardening of the Evesham 

 country or of North Kent is widespread, but one hears 

 curiously little about the strip of light land which is 

 cultivated with equal intensity in Bedfordshire in the 

 neighbourhood of Sandy and Biggleswade. We 

 entered it from the north on one of those brilliant 

 mornings in early October, the St. Luke's little 

 summer, with which 1912 made amends for its dripping 

 August. The market gardening begins by St. Neot's 

 in the broad valley of the Ouse, a dull country with- 

 out hills or any large shapely outlines in the contour 

 of the land. The villages straggle untidily along the 

 roadside, but are alive and fully occupied, indeed, in 

 many parts there is a great dearth of cottages ; the 

 only beautiful features in the landscape were the well- 

 grown elms just exchanging their green for gold. 

 Half-way to Sandy we called upon one of the larger 

 farmers of the district, dealing with 400 acres on the 

 same system of cropping as his neighbours with from 

 three to 30 acres, but farming higher and getting more 

 out of the land. He was not a native of the district, 

 but the son of a salesman in the Manchester vegetable 

 market, who had invested some of his money in land 

 and then had set his son to grow the produce he could 



continue to sell. If not bred a farmer, he had made a 



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