Part 5

The seed-beds are prepared in January and early in February, of leaves or manure, or any kind of heating material at hand. We learn from a communication by Mr C. M. Brewin, of Bawtry, that the earliest crops are ready for taking up the first week in September, and realise from two to three shillings per dozen roots retail price. The crop is worth from fifty-five to sixty pounds per acre, often more for very good crops; later crops from thirty-five to forty-five pounds per acre. The number of plants required per acre is sixteen thousand. Cost of labour in producing earliest crops on the ground: Average rent from thirty-five shillings to two pounds per acre; rates, taxes, and tithe, ten shillings per acre; manure, from nine to ten pounds per acre; labour, ten pounds per acre; carting to stations, four pounds per acre: leaving a profit for the best early crops of twenty-eight to thirty-two pounds. For late crops, labour is two pounds less, bringing a profit of ten to twenty pounds per acre. There are some failures, which are generally in the first year. The average quantity sent away weekly from various stations in the neighbourhood is two hundred tons.

Several labourers, very poor men, have started with small plots, and worked them in early morning before their ordinary day’s work began, and in the evenings, with the assistance of their wives and children. These men have now, some one horse and cart, and others two, and grow from two to five acres each.

SPRING’S ADVENT.

I looked forth on the world to-day, As waked the rosy morn, And every budding leaf and blade Proclaimed the Spring was born. The southern wind’s seductive wiles My footsteps lured along Far from the town’s unlovely ways, Far from its madding throng.

O sweet the first glad greeting is With nature, when the Spring Is spreading forth her tender charms, And flowers are blossoming! O sweet to tread the soft green earth When fresh the breezes blow, Untrammelled by a thought of care, And free to come or go!

The lambs were bleating on the hills Where farmsteads nestling lie, Safe sheltered from the rude fierce blasts That storm the hill-tops high. The swallow’s glanced on flashing wing; Dear birds of promise they, That speak the reign of winter past, Dawn of a brighter day.

Down from the heavens the poet-lark His numbers madly flung In liquid notes of purest joy, That through the valley rung; And leaping streams, from winter’s yoke So glad to be set free, Took up the jocund minstrelsy, And bore it to the sea.

In sportive glee the children trooped The meadow-paths along, And carolled forth, in happy voice, A careless snatch of song. Ah, well they know the sunlit spot Where first the primrose sweet Looks out upon the wooded copse The waking earth to greet.

O happy children! life to you Is full of light and flowers; Athwart whose skies of tender blue No threatening storm-cloud lowers. I wonder, do ye ever think Of children far away, Who only see through vistas dim God’s glorious light of day!

Whose lives are spent in narrow streets, Or alleys foul with sin; Where squalor, poverty, and death, Alas! are rife within. No fresh pure winds their tresses blow, Green fields they never trod, Or plucked the nodding flowers that grow Fresh from the hand of God.

O little children! young, yet old In life’s excess of woe, I dread for you the dreary ways Your faltering feet must go. O little eyes, that never yet Beheld a lovely thing, I wonder what your joy shall be Through God’s eternal Spring!

CHARLES H. BARSTOW.

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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

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