426 MIDLAND MARKET GARDENING 



of mangold seed, a speculative business, but the heads 

 had filled well despite the rainy year ; he was also 

 about to transplant the young seedlings for the coming 

 year's crop. 



For all this intensive cultivation a good deal of 

 labour is required, and everywhere we got a bad report 

 of the quality of the men to be obtained in the district. 

 Labourers received 2s. 6d. a day, but most of the work 

 was done by the piece, and the average earnings were 

 about >i a week. The land under market garden 

 cultivation, especially the smaller pieces, let at 2 to 

 5 os. an acre, though the larger farms on the outskirts 

 of the intensive cultivation still were rented at no more 

 than 2Os, an acre. We saw no stock in the fields, and 

 many of the farms have little or no accommodation 

 beyond storage for their baskets and very often an 

 open shed in which the onions for seed can be spread out 

 to dry. Our host, however, specialized in pigs large 

 White Yorkshires, which were kept under model 

 conditions of cleanliness and had learnt to walk round 

 before visitors with the docility of house pets. 



Towards Sandy the farming becomes more intense 

 and the land is very much cut up ; we were told that a 

 market gardener with an increasing business may often 

 have to work eight or nine separate holdings to attain 

 to 20 acres. The land is still the same thin gravel 

 until at Sandy one comes upon the belt of Lower 

 Greensand which runs across Bedfordshire and gives 

 rise to even lighter soils. Just east of Sandy this 

 formation rises into a ridge clothed with pine and 

 chestnut; as we drove up the road in the brilliant 

 October sunshine, jays flashed across the openings with 

 their wild scolding cries, a sure indication that game is 

 of no great importance in the neighbourhood, and red 

 admirals fluttered above the sandy banks, making the 



