The crops are: potatoes, four cabots per perch — that is, three-quarters of a ton of early potatoes from the greenhouse; and tomatoes, in the culture of which Mr. B. attains extraordinary results. He puts in only 1,000 plants thus giving to his plants more room than is usually given; and he cultivates a corrugated variety which gives very heavy crops but does not fetch the same prices as the smooth varieties. In 1896 his crop was four tons of tomatoes, and so it would have been in 1897 — each plant giving an average of twenty pounds of fruit, while the usual crop is from eight to twelve pounds per plant.
The total crop was thus four and three-quarter tons of vegetables, to which the cach crops must be added — thus corresponding to 85,000 lb. per acres (over 90,000 lb. with the catch crops). I again omit the money returns, and only mention that the expenditure for fuel and manure was about £10 a year, and that the Jersey average is three men, each working fifty-five hours a week (ten hours a day), for every acre under glass.
The Scilly Islands. — These islands also give a beautiful illustration of what may be obtained from the soil by an intensive cultivation. When shipping and supplying pilots became a decaying source of income, the Scillonians took to the growing of potatoes. For many years, we are told by Mr. J. G. Uren (Scilly and the Scillonians, Plymouth, 1907), this was a very profitable industry. The crop was ready at least a month in advance of any other source of supply on the mainland. Every year about 1,000 tons of potatoes were exported. “In its palmy days the potato harvest in Scilly was the great event of the year. Gangs of diggers were brought across from the mainland,” and the prices went occasionally up to £28 a ton for the earliest potatoes. Gradually, however, the export of potatoes was reduced to less than one-half of what it was formerly. Then the inhabitants of the islands went for fishing, and later on they began to grow flowers. Frost and snow being practically unknown in the islands, this new industry succeeded very well. The arable are of the islands is about 4,000 acres, which are divided into small farms, less than from fifteen to twenty