Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

INTRODUCTION

THE Farm of Mayland, Essex, is the enter­prise of Mr. Joseph Fels, an American, who for the past seven years has spent part of his time in England. It is one of many efforts on Mr. Fels's part to bring the people back to the land, with the view of reclaiming the land for the people. What inclines him to this is not far to seek: Hungry people on the one hand and countless acres held out of use on the other. Multitudes of men and women with energies cramped, unused, and debased, all for want of work and the necessaries of life; and in face of this fact untold possibilities of de­velopment and yield in the world of nature and the commerce that comes of it. Children imprisoned and enslaved in factories, and otherwise confined within walls, while they should be free for development and growth.

The solution Mr. Fels sees is that the people must get at the land, if this debasement and destruction of human life is to be arrested. The land, he urges, was made for man, to sustain life and exercise his powers. So, for his part in this restoration, and to arrest and engage the attention of others, Mr. Fels began to buy tracts of land, which he offered to public bodies in the interest of the people whom they have in charge. He bought the Hollesley Bay estate of 1,300 acres, with many

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excellent buildings, and offered to the London Central (Unemployed) Body the free use of this for three years, with the proviso that at the end of that time, if they found the experi­ment worth continuing, they might buy it from him at the purchase price, free of interest or rent. The offer was accepted, and a large number of the unemployed were at once set to work there. The place proved excellent for its purpose. The Government bought it from Mr. Fels at the end of two years, and has sent there large numbers of its unemployed ever since.

The Committee in charge drew up a plan for the proper training of the men, with the view to eventually settling selected ones (with their families) on small holdings, thus placing them permanently in self-supporting relation to the land. But the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. John Burns) was not of their mind--or feeling--and thus their efforts in this direction could make no head­ way. Since the work cannot go forward it goes backward, and Hollesley Bay, after its splendid inception and fine promise, threatens to degenerate into another Workhouse, or something scarcely better.

Mr. Fels had previously offered a smaller farm at Laindon, Essex, and this had been accepted for the paupers of Poplar; but it has become a "Branch Workhouse."

Meantime, Mr. Fels found that it is not only masses of paupers and the great army of the

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unemployed--many of them about to become paupers also! for whom the land is urgently needed, but that it is wanted as well for in­numerable people, neither pauper nor unem­ployed, whose land-hunger makes them yearn for the country, there to live and work on small holdings of their own. Many of these have money enough to rent and work a little land, but cannot realize their simple desire because of the land conditions that prevail in England.

Mr. Fels determined to layout small hold­ings himself, in order to show what ought to be done at Hollesley Bay and throughout the country generally. In the summer of 1905 he bought a farm of over 600 acres on the river Blackwater, in the parish of Mayland, Essex. On the frontage of this farm twenty­ one small holdings were laid out, each with five or more acres of land. A good five-roomed house and a complete set of out-buildings were built on each. Before any holding was let, two acres were well cultivated, manured, and planted with fruit trees and bushes, Good roads were made. Every holding was fenced and protected from rabbits. As there was no water on the estate, an underground brick and cement rain-water tank, was attached to each holding. This has since been supple­mented by mains from a deep artesian well, and a full supply of excellent water is now in every house.

A wharf where barges can discharge manure,

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etc., has been constructed, and every small holder has access to it.

A school-house has been built and is used to good purpose. Buildings for an open-air school are now being added, following plans adopted in several progressive places in Ger­many, and by the London County Council, but with this important difference, that ours is to be for children in normal condition while the others are for the defective only. Shower and wash-baths and school gardens, form part of the equipment of the open-air school at May­land.

To facilitate co-operation among the small­ holders, a large building was erected for their use, comprising spacious packing shed, storage room, and stables. A Co-operative Society and Store with Post and Telegraph Offices are in active operation; and there is a Social Club with a small Lending Library attached, which is well attended during the winter months.

The rents of these holdings are based upon interest at 4 per cent. upon the capital outlay, and they average £24 per year; or, since the addition to each of a further acre of fruit trees and bushes, an average of £25 10s.

Mr. Fels, in his desire to do all that can be done to help men to help themselves, has adopted a scheme for graduating the rents to meet the necessities of the less productive early years. This provides that no rent is paid the first year, only half the second, three-quarters

Introduction xxvii

the third, and full rent only in the fourth year; in the fifth and following years the unpaid rent of the first three years is paid in quarterly installments, plus 4 per cent. simple interest. This arrangement gives to every man the opportunity to bring his holding into a productive condition before his available capital is entirely exhausted.

The estate apart from the holdings has been turned into a Dairy and Fruit Farm, with large orchards and experimental gardens. Good roads have been made; workmen's cottages built; buildings repaired; fences and gates renewed; and worn-out land restored to productivity.

When the farm was purchased the only per­sons employed continually were three men and two boys. Now the wage bill, apart from the earnings of the small holders, is well over £3,000 a year. It is safe to say that the whole estate now maintains 400 persons--men, women, and children--and its development is only yet at the beginning.

A small adjoining property of 13 acres had been bought with the farm. It is on these 13 acres that the most interesting experiments, from the growers' point of view, have taken place.

Essex soil consists largely, and in this par­ticular neighborhood entirely, of very heavy clay, and it is probably because of this that so many acres have of late years lain derelict. But the land can be used to grow fruit and vegetables, and should not be suffered to de-

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generate into a nursery for docks and thistles, and the hunting ground for rabbits that so much of it now is. That it is quite capable of yielding the former produce has been abundantly proved. A piece of very poor, weedy, wet land was drained, manured, and cultivated; and this is now, in the third year, convincing proof of the good possibilities inherent in such land. Apples, plums, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, peas, beans, let­tuces, cabbages, and cauliflowers--these have all been grown there this season to perfection, and the whole plantation is in a healthy and vigorous condition. Some glass-houses have been built adjoining it, and there tomatoes, cucumbers, and chrysanthemums are grown.

After a time in the course of this work for the reclamation and utilization of the land, Mr. Fels instituted French gardening at May­land, that this object-lesson might show still more amply the thing needed in England. An expert maraîcher was brought from Paris. The garden was started later in the season than is advisable, but the results were nevertheless satisfactory. Soon it became evident that the space allotted was too small to occupy all the time of the expert, and so justify the salary paid him. On the advice of the expert himself it was decided to enlarge the garden to two acres, this being the utmost that one maraîcher could effectively supervise; and the increase was accomplished during the autumn and

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winter of 1907. Two or three years, however, will be required to put it into thorough con­dition. Still, the results for this first season have been so good that there is every reason to believe it will prove a commercial success as well as an effective object-lesson. The crops and prices have been good, and a high quality of everything has been maintained. Melon­ growing in particular has proved a great suc­cess. Many growers thought it impossible, and some scoffed at the idea of growing such tender plants in frames in England; but now it is acknowledged that the melons we have grown are, both in appearance and quality, quite equal, and possibly superior, to the far­-famed French ones. That the public who eat our melons think so may be seen in the fact that they have brought this season a higher price, on an average, than the imported ones.

We have the drawback of our melons, under the maraîcher system, not ripening before the end of June, when prices have fallen. Those from the South of France come several weeks earlier, and thus command the higher prices. We are taking measures to produce ours earlier next season. We see other ways besides this in which, as we think, the French system may be altered or modified with advantage to the English grower. Experiments in this direction are accordingly being made. Before, how­ever, presenting these improvements to the public we must have proofs to show them in actual effect. THOMAS SMITH.