344 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
October  8,  1903 
We  fancy,  in  spite  of  all  the  talk  about  enlarging  our  Wheat, 
area  so  as  to  be  better  provided  with  food  in  time  of  war,  the 
Wheat  area  next  year  may  be  considerably  less.  Another 
bad  result  of  a  late  harvest  will  be  the  backwardness  in 
sowing  the  crop  for  next  year :  there  are  great  arrears  of 
work  to  make  up,  and  the  days  are  appreciably  shortening. 
We  are  not  surprised  to  see  that  the  value  of  English  Barleys 
is  some  2s.  less  than  it  was  last  year,  this  for  the  third  week 
in  September.  The  quantity  sold  was  5,977  quarters,  as 
against  96,768  quarters  of  foreign,  jorincipally  from  Russia 
and  Persia.  These  two  countries  supply  us  with  a  vast 
amount  of  grinding  qualities.  There  is  a  good  demand  for 
foreign  malting  sorts,  and  it  remains  to  be  §een  whether  the 
foreign  Barleys  have  suffered  as  much  from  the  weather  as 
our  own.  As  far  as  we  can  see.  Europe,  as  a  whole,  has 
experienced  an  excessive  and  prolonged  rainfall.  In  France, 
Germany,  Austi’ia,  and  Hungary  the  crops  have  all  been 
damaged. 
We  may  be  wrong  in  our  surmise,  but  we  fancy,  with  so 
much  second-rate  corn  about  and  with  the  prospect,  or, 
indeed,  the  fact  of  there  being  so  many  diseased  Potatoes, 
there  will  be  a  great  demand  for  pigs.  Whether  there  will 
be  pigs  enough  to  “  go  round  ”  is  another  question.  We  say 
advisedly  diseased  Potatoes,  for  accounts  from  all  the  great 
Potato  growing  districts  are  bad.  When  we  consider  how 
many  hundreds  of  acres  have  been  under  water,  the  marvel 
is  that  there  should  be  any  good.  Pigs  seem  to  fatten  on 
almost  anything,  but  even  pigs  do  better  if  the  corn  is  of  fair 
quality.  They  resnond  to  generous  treatment  and  give  quick 
returns  for  a  liberal  diet^ 
Before  we  leave  the  harvest  season  of  1903  for  ever  alone 
we  will  just  for  a  moment  take  a  leaf  out  of  Sir  Walter 
Gilbey’s  book.  Not  a  year  passes  but  that  excellent  man 
pleads  with  a  never-tiring  zeal  for  a  little  help  for  those  poor 
farmers  who,  having  suffered  shipwreck,  are  wearing  out  the 
remnant  of  their  days  in  quiet  backwaters,  and  finding  it 
difiicult  to  get  the  wherewithal  for  food  and  raiment.  The 
Royal  Agricultural  Benevolent  Institution  does  good  work,  and 
if  only  a  little  can  be  siiared  let  that  little  be  given  without 
grudging,  to  bring  some  sort  of  ease  and  comfort  to  those  who 
have  seen  better  and  brighter  days.  A  little  help  is  worth  a 
great  deal  of  pity. 
Small  Holdings. 
There  is  an  association  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  at 
modei'ate  prices  small  holdings  to  persons  suited  to  their 
cultivation.  Those  who  buy  land  are  expected  to  pav  down 
10  per  cent,  of  the  price  of  the  land  (hitherto  from  £18  to  £30 
per  acre),  and  the  rest  by  half-yearly  instalments  extending 
over  from  ten  to  fifteen  years,  with  interest  at  five  per  cent. 
N.B.  ;  No  law  charges.  Purchasers  are  required  to  reside  on 
their  holdings,  and  failing  their  ability  to  erect  dwellings  for 
themselves,  the  association  will  do  it  on  the  same  terms  as 
that  on  which  the  land  is  bought.  The  trustees  are  Sir 
James  Blythe  and  Mr.  T.  H.  Whitley,  M.P..  l^rofessor  Long 
managing  director,  Harold  C.  Long  secretary.  The 
first  farm  purchased  (and  that  only  a  short  time  ago)  was 
Cudworth,  in  Surrey,  367  acres,  and  of  that  already  200  acres 
have  been  sold.  Cudworth  is  two  and  a  half  miles  from 
Holm  Wood  station,  and  six  miles  from  Dorking.  The  idea 
is  to  grow  fruit  both  inside  and  out,  and  there  will  be  much 
erecting  of  glass  houses  ;  poultry  rearing,  dairy  woi’k,  fatted 
pigs  wdll  be  among  the  objects  attempted.  As  one  might 
naturally  expect,  there  has  been  a  tremendous  number  of 
land  applicants  (1,040),  many  totally  unsuitable  people  with¬ 
out  the  slightest  knowledge  of  agriculture  or  horticulture 
and  entirely  without  capital,  and  who  fondly  believed  and 
hoped  the  association  would  lend  money  to  take  the  holdings, 
and  stock  them  for  nothing  ! 
The  most  likely  people,  we  think,  to  get  on  and  make  a 
living  will  be  those  who  have  graduated  on  a  farm — foremen 
and  superior  labourers,  who  have  knowledge  of  technicali¬ 
ties,  are  not  averse  to  hard  work,  and  who,  above  all,  have 
the  necessary  capital.  It  appears  that  on  one  holding  of 
twenty-five  acres  two  men  who  have  bought  the  land  con¬ 
jointly  have  built  their  own  cottages,  at  a  cost  of  £220  each. 
One  of  the  men  who  in  early  life  was  a  fann  labourer  took  up 
later  with  bricklaying,  and  he  is  responsible  for  the  build¬ 
ings.  Handy  men  of  this  sort  will  always  thrive.  It  appears 
there  is  a  brickyard  not  far  from  the  farm.  London  fruit¬ 
growers  have  bought  several  lots,  and  with  management  this 
land  may  be  paying  sooner  than  an  outsider  would  expect. 
Strawberries  planted  now,  if  the  plants  are  good  and  full  of 
fibrous  roots,  will  yield  some  fine  fruit  next  summer — quality 
if  not  quantity — and  we  fancy  that  forward  Gooseberry  trees 
would  do  the  same.  How  the  man  with  four  children  is 
going  to  make  butter-making  pay  with  seven  acres  passes 
our  comprehension.  We  should  not  dare  to  undertake  the 
job.  There  is  one  thing  greatly  in  favour  of  this  project 
at  Cudworth — proximity  to  good  markets,  both  London  and 
local  In  the  report  wTiich  we  read  the  land  is  said  on  the 
whole  to  be  good — loam  over  subsoil  of  weald  clay.  A 
similar  enterprise  was  started  fifteen  j^ears  ago  in  Dorset  by 
Sir  Robert  Edgecombe,  with  the  gratifying  result  that  only 
one  of  the  thirty  holders  has  failed  to  make  his  undertaking 
pay. 
Cheshire,  too,  through  the  good  offices  of  Lord  Tolle- 
mache  and  Mr.  Tomkinson,  has  its  small  holdings,  and  the 
occupiers  have  done  well. 
It  will  be  some  years  before  any  decided  judgment  as  to 
success  or  failure  of  the  Cudworth  experiment  can  be  pro¬ 
nounced.  If  the  promoters  exercise  due  care  in  their  selec¬ 
tion  of  occupiers,  we  ourselves  should  have  no  fear  for  the 
future.  If  they  are  hard-headed,  practical  men,  they  will 
choose  such,  and  only  such.  Many  a  man  in  country  districts 
has  given  far  more  per  acre  for  moderate  land,  and  then  had 
all  the  expense  of  conveyance  beside,  and  still  made  a  living 
for  himself.  The  difficulty  is  to  get  hold  of  suitable  land 
wTthout  having  to  imy  a  fancy  price  for  it.  By  “  suitable  ” 
we  mean  of  fair  quality  and  not  miles  from  everywhere.  We 
were  only  speaking  of  a  first-rate  farm  the  other  day  which 
will  be  in  the  market  shortly  to  a  farming  friend.  He 
acknowledged  all  its  good  qualities,  even  praising  it  more 
highly  than  w'e,  but  wound  uo  by  saying,  “How  could  any¬ 
body  go  and  bury  themselves  in  such  an  out-of-the-way 
spot  ?  ”  There  is  a  growing  distaste  to  isolated  farmsteads. 
The  master  and  mistress  find  it  lonely,  and  labourers  are 
equally  averse  to  banishment  from  village  pleasures.  Even 
good  land  and  the  promise  of  bumper  crops  will  not  tempt 
men  to  become  (in  a  measure)  modern  Alexander  Selkirks. 
P.S. — We  have  just  seen  in  a  daily  paper  an  account 
of  extraordinary  land  letting  in  small  lots  near  Holbeach. 
Here  are  men  giving  from  £3  to  £5  4s.  per  acre  per 
annum  !  What  a  pity  these  men  could  not  be  put  in  the  way 
of  acquiring  the  land  permanently  at  a  moderate  and  reason¬ 
able  rate.  How  is  it  possible  to  make  a  living  and  pay  such 
enormous  rents  ? 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
During  the  past  week  two  items  of  interest  have  claimed  all 
our  attention,  viz.,  threshing  Wheat,  and  the  Potato  market. 
The  latter  is  for  the  present  quite  disorganised ; '  merchants  are 
shy  of  buying,  and  the  majority  of  farmers  do  not  care  to  sell. 
The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  extreme  moisture  and 
warmth  of  the  past  fortnight  have  encouraged  the  growth  of 
disease  of  a  most  virulent  type,  and  the  mischief  has  not  only 
done  immense  damage,  but  is  still  spreading.  Dealers  will 
only  buy  by  the  ton,  which  does  not  suit  farmers  at  present 
prices.  Very  few  have  been  marketed,  in  fact  the  land  is  too 
w'et  for  lifting  at  present.  The  haulm  has  died  off  so  rapidly 
that  lifting  wdll  become  general  as  soon  as  the  weather  improves. 
All  the  less  affected  fields  will  be  stored  for  keeping,  for  nothing 
but  exceptional  imports  can  prevent  a  high  range  of  i^rices  after 
Christmas. 
Both  Wheat  straw  and  money  were  wanted,  so  the  thresher 
has  been  at  work,  but  the  damp  warmth  has  been  unfavourable 
to  good  condition  of  the  grain,  which,  though  fairly  dry,  handles 
rather  clammily.  The  price,  27s.,  is  di.sappointing,  still  it  might 
have  been  worse,  and  we  are  selling  some  water,  at  any  rate. 
The  conditions  have  favoured  the  ploughing  of  seed  land,  and 
except  M'here  late  harve.st  operations  have'  interfered  there 
is  little  more  to  plough.  A.s  a  fact,  the  area  of  Wheat  after 
.seeds  is  gradually  diminishing  as  regards  this  district,  as  well  as 
others  we  could  name,  and  few  farmers  sow  more  tha.n  one  or 
two  fields,  devoting  the  others  to  Potatoes,  Oats,  or  Barley. 
As  Wheat  invariably  follows  Potatoes,  the  Wheat  acreage  is 
fairly  well  sustained.  Wheat  is  yielding  well,  which  is  encourag¬ 
ing  to  .sow  it,  and  our  favourite  variety.  Squarehead’s  Master, 
wil  take  a  good  deal  of  beating,  but  we  have  seen  a  small  field 
of  Barton’s  White  Monarch,  which  has  much  taken  our  fancy, 
and  if,  when  threshed,  it  fulfils  exiiectations,  we  shall  certainly 
give  it  a  trial. 
Lambs  here  are  doing  well,  but  we  hear  of  serious  trouble  not 
far  away.  When  a  lamb  is  worth  considerabl.y  more  than  a 
quarter  of  Wheat,  farmers  cannot  afford  to  lose  them.  It  is 
generally  where  sheep  are  most  depended  on  that  the  greatest 
losses  occur.  Clover  is  plentiful,  and  nothing  is  better  for  lambs 
in  autumn,  especially  when  they  are  perforce  on  insufficiently 
I  ripe  Turnips.  Just  now  it  is  much  cheaper  than  cake. 
