32S 
Management of a Suburban Farm. 
immediate neighbourhood of every "town small portions of land 
can be let for large annual rents, from four to five pounds per 
acre higher than those paid for the same class and quality of 
land some seven or eight miles further off. These rents are 
given gladly by gentlemen for the purpose of keeping their cow or 
pair of horses ; by butchers for a lair lor their stock till the killing 
day ; by nurserymen and market-gardeners, and many others, who 
use the land merely as a part of the premises necessary to carry 
on their retail trade. Of these the* market-gardener makes the 
nearest approach to being a farmer, but differs from him in that 
he makes his profit (and consequently his rent) not by the pro- 
duction of the crops he grows, but by their retail delivery — of 
which more hereafter. I shall exclude these, as also cattle- 
dealers and small milkmen, who keep a cow or two for the supply 
of the shop, or to carry round milk, &c, to their customers, for 
the same reason ; reckoning as farmers those only who make a 
living by the land they cultivate, and get a sufficient return from 
it to live as farmers — employers of labour, not labourers them- 
selves. Again, as regards the returns or profits of the method of 
farming I recommend, I think I shall best avoid a very uncer- 
tain and unsatisfactory discussion by giving, not the actual 
figures of a balance-sheet, but the extra results arising from 
improved methods, which any one experienced in farming can 
add to the average prices of his own neighbourhood, and compare 
with the different values of land and produce which there prevail, 
according to soil, climate, and situation. The reader will thus 
be enabled to adapt my suggestions to his own individual position, 
and will not so readily take exception to figures which, however 
correct in my case, may be quite inapplicable in another's, or 
to profits which may be as unreasonably large in one man's 
opinion, as they are small in that of another. I shall also assume 
(as the Chancellor of the Exchequer does) that a sum equal to 
half the rent is a fair annual profit for a tenant. 
Nearly thirty years ago I was forcibly impressed with the 
fact, that land let to a farmer on one side of a boundary-hedge 
fetched about 30s. per annum, and the adjoining land, in 
precisely the same circumstances, was taken by a market- 
gardener at 5/. ; while the latter was making money, the farmer 
could barely get a living. I therefore determined to try for 
myself whether, without losing my position and independence as 
a farmer, I could not realise some advantage from having a 
large body of consumers in my immediate neighbourhood, and, 
luckily, began with a few acres at first to learn my lesson and 
put my ideas to the test of practice. My first efforts were, as is 
usual with young beginners, unsuccessful. I endeavoured to 
grow vegetables for sale, supplied straw to butchers and horse- 
