424 MIDLAND MARKET GARDENING 



shrewd business instinct serve his purpose, and his 

 farming had been governed by two north country 

 maxims " If tha never puts nowt on tha'll get nowt 

 off" ; " If tha does owt for nowt do it for thyself." 



The land under ordinary farming conditions would 

 have been deemed of little value, a thin hungry loam 

 underlain by gravel, and so stony that a plough 

 requires three shares a day for the first ploughing, 

 quickly parching in the summer, and liable to lose 

 much of its manure by washing out in the winter. 

 But it is all on the flat, is easy to work in any weather, 

 warm and early, and London is not far away, whence 

 the Great Northern Railway brings the stable manure 

 which alone can make such a soil productive. London 

 dung and the railway facilities for sale northward and 

 southward have made the district. 



Large as the farm was, our host followed no rotation, 

 taking in fields as they came convenient and regulating 

 the cropping according to his expectations of the 

 market. In this district Brussels sprouts form the 

 most important crop, until it seems inconceivable that 

 the country can consume so many Brussels sprouts in 

 one short winter. The sprouts are either drilled and 

 then singled out, or raised in a seedbed and then 

 transplanted, which latter method gives better results, 

 more thickly set stalks and firmer sprouts. We did 

 hear of fields marked out in squares and seed dibbled 

 at the intersections, so as to simulate a transplanted 

 field, but doubtless the buyers too are fully acquainted 

 with such tricks of the trade. The sprouts are sold 

 on the field, and the merchant has to pick them. The 

 price ranges from 9 to 19 an acre, according to 

 quality, and the field must be cleared by March in 

 order to enable spring corn to be sown. Three 

 pickings are made, beginning, as a rule, early in 



