URBAN GARDENERS.
Quite apart from this particular experiment, homecrofting .
in some form is peculiarly necessary in an industrial country ; and I should say that our urban and semi-urban population
excels any other in the world in its affection for the garden, especially the potager. Town allotments never flourished as they flourish to-day in the Midlands, though rural allot- ments are falling into disuse. In the thousands of allotment gardens in and about such towns—to speak of what I know— as Leicester and Wolverhampton, vegetables are grown as well as in the model gardens of our great seed firms, much better than in the gardens of most country houses. Londoners are as keen as Midlanders. Of the urban gardeners I have met, the most lyrical were a policeman in Battersea, a barber in Fleet Street, and a printer from Tanis Street. It goes without saying that a garden attached to the home, if feasible, has a score of advantages over the crowded allotment at a
distance. * * * *
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