squitch," which he was laboriously breaking up with a fork to expose
it in big clods to a baking sun, I asked if he had taken it. "Well,"
said he, "I don't know whether I've taken _it_ or it's taken _me_!"

These men, by unceasing labour and self-denial, were just beginning to
turn the corner; they had cleaned the land, ameliorated its mechanical
condition by application of soot and by deep digging with their
beloved forks, and, having discovered how wonderfully asparagus
nourished on this deep, rich soil, had planted large areas, as well as
plum-trees and other market-garden crops, and the well-merited return
was coming in increasingly year by year.

Sir Richard Temple did not understand the difference between the small
holder, growing corn and ordinary crops in less favoured parts of the
countrymen the one hand, and market-gardeners in the Vale of Evesham,
with its early climate, splendid soil, and railway connection with
huge artisan populations, delivering the produce with punctuality and
despatch, on the other. He considered that small holders could not
make an economic success where the farmers had failed, and had made
his views well known in the constituency, but he did not distinguish
between the small holder and the market-gardener.

The men of Badsey felt aggrieved, they knew better, and at a meeting
he held in the village they gave him a rather noisy hearing, with
interruptions such as, "Keep off them steel farks," "Mind them steel
farks, Sir Richard," and so on.

Sir Richard came to ask for my support and assistance in our village,
and, as I was not at home, my wife entertained him in my absence, with
tea and wedding-cake. She innocently asked if he had come to canvass
me; her straightforward query surprised him, but, after a moment's
hesitation, he replied cautiously: "Well, something of that sort."

He was eventually returned, and the men of Badsey continued to
flourish on asparagus-growing in spite of his warnings; new houses
sprang up in every direction, and available labour grew scarcer and
scarcer. Those splendid asparagus "sticks" or "buds," as they are
called, tied with osier or withy twigs, which may be seen in Covent
Garden Market and the large fruiterers' shops in Regent Street, are
grown in and around the parishes of Badsey and Aldington. They command
high prices, up to 15s. and 20s. a hundred for special stuff, and this
year (1919) I see that L21 was realized for the champion hundred at
the