382 Glimpses of Farming in the Channel Islands. 
the usual price for digging potatoes, tliougli this season many 
of them got only 20s. to 24s. A man often earns 5s. a day at 
this work. When employed by the day, the men get 2s. 6d. 
with food and cider, or 3s. Qd. without food. Women have Is. 
to Is. 3rf., with food and cider. Two men digging will keep 
three women employed, one gathering tops, and two picking up 
the tubers and laying them in rows. Ordinary wages appear 
to be about 12s. a week and cider in the winter, and 15s., with 
cider, in summer. 
The system of storing hay in the island is peculiar. It is 
generally tied in bundles and stored in granaries or barns, 
though some is stacked. The scarcity of straw and the expense 
of thatching render the farmers anxious to avoid stacks. The 
crops of hay, especially of clover and rye grass, are very heavy, 
as a rule. Lucerne and ryegrass mixed, too, produce great 
quantities of forage for several years. This plan of growing 
lucerne is to be recommended, as no hoeing is necessary, and as 
the mixture makes excellent food for cows or horses. 
The production of other early vegetables than potatoes and of 
fruit in Jersey is an important industry, though in compara- 
tively few hands. On the other hand, the growth of apples, 
pears, and other outdoor fruit is rapidly diminishing. The 
table of ci'op-areas previously given does not include those of 
orchards, market gardens, and nurseries. In 1887 Jersey had 
1,015 acres in orchards, 97 in market gardens, and 23 in 
nurseries ; while the corresponding figures for 1886 were 1,165, 
174, and 36, thus showing considerable decreases in a single 
year. As to bush-fruit, only 56 acres were returned as grown 
in orchards, between trees, last year. The apple orchards have 
been greatly neglected of late, and are fast disappearing. They 
are now chiefly valued for the making of cider. Pears, for 
which the island has long been famous, are still grown to a 
limited extent, but many fruit-growers have done away with 
their pear trees to make room for glass-houses. 
Small formers in Jersey do not, as in Guernsey, build glass- 
houses for the production of early fruit and vegetables, and that 
branch of industry is chiefly in the hands of a few extensive 
growers. One of these, Mr. George Bashford, of St. Saviour's, 
is deservedly famous as one of the most successful managers of 
glass-houses in the world. Everything that I saw in his 
numerous houses on each of two visits paid to him this year 
was flourishing, failure being apparently unknown to him. He 
has now nearly thirteen acres of land occupied with glass- 
houses, and the borders necessary for the vines in most of them, 
and the heating pipes he uses measure about fifteen miles in 
length. Tomatoes and grajjes are his most important cx'ops, 
