this year though—the soil is of course
occupied by other crops during that time. The
shoots grow rapidly in the season, and are cut
every other day for five weeks. The "grass"
is removed to the yard in baskets as fast as it
is cut, to be washed and tied in bundles for
the market. I learn that the long, hard,
white stem—which the eater rejects for its
earthy and watery flavour—is produced by
earthing the shoots, or "blanching," which is
a mere waste for the sake of appearance. By
simply removing some of the mould the shoots
would grow up with five or six inches of
eatable top, instead of that half inch of purple
sprout, which would tantalise anybody but
that morbidly carnivorous lady in the Arabian
Nights. So long, however, as the public prefer
the purple tip and tasteless stem, and the
greengrocer refuses to buy a wholesomer
kind, the market gardener is compelled to
earth up, and blanch, and make pretty
looking bundles. Some labourers are sprinkling
lime-dust here and there, which I take
to be manure; but my friend corrects me.

"The only remedy for slugs. A dust of
lime when the dew is on spreads all over
leaves, and kills everything without injuring
the plants. These insects puzzle us. Look
at these scarlet beans just coining up, and all
eaten away." While I am looking at them,
my conductor pulls out a microscope in a
brass tube, and begins to inspect a leaf
minutely.  We have been watching this,"
he continues—screwing up one eye, and
wrinkling his forehead like a Scotch kale—
"We have been watching this for a week
past, and can't find what it is. There is a
disease among cabbages called 'clubbing,'
which looks like the ravages of insects; but
it comes from over-manuring: for you may
manure too much. Some say the disease in
the potatoes and cucumbers, as well as in
several other vegetables lately, is from the
same cause."

"Are you much troubled with vermin?"

"Well, we keep a sharp look out to burn or
fumigate them before they've time to spread.
Field mice eat our seeds. We take care to
frighten all birds away with scarecrows, but
I doubt whether we don't do more harm
than good, by preventing the birds from
eating the insects, with which we are always
more troubled than farmers are. I am
tempted to make a bonfire of all our Guy
Fawkeses one day. A friend of mine keeps
young bantams, who peck up worms and
slugs like barleycorns: they scratched a good
deal among the crops, at first; but he got
over that by putting their feet in socks."

A bantam with his feet in socks is so
difficult to imagine, that I am suspicious that
my friend is mystifying; but I find him quite
serious. "This little insect that rolls itself
into a perfect black ball as soon as you touch
it," he continues, "is one of our most troublesome
visitors. A woodlouse will eat anything,
sweet, sour, or bitter. They can't have any
sense of taste; or if they have, it is the
reverse of ours. They will greedily devour
a leaf that, to us, has the most nauseous
flavour imaginable. I have seen three young
bantams peck up a hundred of these in two
minutes by the watch. Our plan for killing
them in the greenhouse and cucumber frames
is with toads."

"Toads!"

"Toads. We buy toads: I have paid as
much as six shillings a dozen for toads."

There is considerable bustle in an adjoining
field, where a number of women are pulling
gigantic rhubarb stalks, and loading barrows.
I observe a considerable difference in the
rapidity with which some do their work;
and my conductor confirms my observation.
"That young Irishwoman, yonder," he says,
"with her gown pinned up behind, and her
bare arms, as brown as mahogany, will get
through twice as much work in a day as
some of our people. We give her two shillings
a day; most of them get only a shilling or
eighteenpence. How are you, Molly?"

"Very well, sir, thank you" (without
pausing in her work).

"Here's the shilling I promised you three
women." Molly protests she "never thought
he meant it:" but constitutes herself, at once,
a trustee for the other two; and deposits the
shilling in a large, heartshaped pocket, hanging
at her side.

"How old are you, Molly?"

"Thirty, sir."

"Married?"

"No, sir. Nobody won't have me."Molly's
face would certainly not be deemed equivalent
to a fortune in the matrimonial market.

"She's a good deal better off single, sir,"
says an old woman. "I know that to my
cost."

Molly won't look us in the face, but she
keeps to her point, and honestly confesses her
matrimonial inclinations.

"Ah !" says another—a young woman
looking very flushed and heated with her
work. "I never used to work half so hard
as I have since I got a master. Molly oughtn't
to say a word: she's better off than any of
us."

But Molly is very stubborn; shakes her
head, and goes on with her work; evidently
convinced that the married women have
entered into a compact to dissuade the single
women from matrimony.

I learn that about fifty of these women,
with about twenty men, do the whole work
upon a hundred acres of land in the busiest
season. In the winter time, half that number
only are employed. Women are strong enough
for almost any kind of labour required, except
trenching and the like. A number of
supernumeraries (all women) are employed in the
strawberry season, who earn five shillings a
day by carrying the fruit to market on their
heads. No other kind of carriage answers.
Some of the best hands are retained all the