Again, a young Cornishman who had hitherto scarcely left his
native parish, was taken to London and shown over Covent Garden (that distributive centre which has ruined so many producers). The splendour of the strawberries was pointed out to him, but he thought little of them. "We can grow better at home," he said ; and returning to the South- west he foitnded a considerable industry that has flourished ever since. On the larger scale our cultivators in general have divided up Britain into districts suitable for this and that crop : a certain stretch of Norfolk for barley, of Essex for seed growing, of Bedford and Lancashire for market garden produce, of South Lincolnshire and many parts of Scotland for potatoes, of Kent, Cambridge, and Worcester- shire for fruit or hops, of Leicestershire for grass. And more than this, within these and other areas the quality of different fields and parts of fields is well known locally. Now this skill in selection was never better tested than in the present harvest. Whatever statisticians may say of the several harvests, of this year, it is scarcely disputable that they are good in every one of these specialized areas, whether barley, wheat, fruit, potatoes, hops, or sugar-beet or other roots is the crop in question. * * * *
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