A Green and Pleasant Land

by Ursula Buchan

  Anyone who has been involved in the marketing of vegetables, or bunching flowers or tying up bundles of raspberry canes will know how important it is to be able to count . . . If asked for example to pull four dozen bunches of baby beetroot – the dozen still reigned supreme at that time – the marketer would first cut forty-eight ‘strings’, short lengths to be used for tying the bunches, not too long as that would be wasteful of string, and not so short as to be fiddly and time-consuming. The ‘strings’ were then tucked into the belt and the marketer stood astride the row of beet, pulled the six largest within reach, tied them neatly and always with two turns round the necks, and dropped the bunch at the side of the row . . . The bunches were then picked up, counted and packed neatly into the wooden bushel boxes, all of which were marked with the school’s name; the produce was finally hauled up through the gardens on flat trolleys to be washed in the marketing shed sink.23

  Upwey Nurseries, near Weymouth, sold its produce directly from the glasshouses. Mrs B. M. E. Male joined the Land Army in February 1943 and was sent there to help grow tomatoes. The tomato seed was sown in old wooden fish boxes (a feature of living near the coast) and put in a propagating house; seedlings were then potted on into five-inch pots and either sold to amateur gardeners to grow on or planted out in the two other houses.

  The workers sold tomato fruits to the public every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 6.30 a.m., having picked them the previous day and weighed them into 1 lb bags. The price was fixed – regardless of whether the tomatoes were grown under glass or in the open – by the Ministry of Food, at 1s.8d per bag. Even at that time of the morning there was always a queue of people already waiting when the staff arrived for work, and they would sell 600 to 700 lbs a day.

  One year at Upwey, the glasshouse tomato plants developed a disease early in the season, so Mrs Male’s superior planted cucumbers in the glasshouses instead. ‘Of course my Boss had to go to court as he had broken the law but he was only fined a small amount. He made quite a packet from his “mistake”, well worth while and the people enjoyed the cucumbers.’24 This illustrates the insouciance with which generally law-abiding people often broke emergency wartime regulations, and how they viewed being ‘had up’ for it. That is perhaps not to be wondered at, since people’s lives were circumscribed by so many regulations, often applied in an infuriatingly bureaucratic, if not actively draconian, manner. Indeed, the rise in crime figures in the early years of the war was largely the result of there being so many more laws to break.

  Commercial market gardens tended to be one-site operations and often highly individual in their approach. Not so the Land Settlement Association, which was run co-operatively, with a number of smallholders based on one of several sites. The tenants of the LSA more than repaid the government’s faith in them, although this may have much to do with the fact that all new smallholders appointed in wartime were men with existing horticultural or agricultural skills. In a debate on ‘post-war work’ in the House of Lords in February 1944, the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine recounted to the House the results of a survey of 550 LSA tenants. He told their Lordships that after wages, rents, taxes and other costs had been deducted, each tenant made an average profit of £418 a year, equivalent to more than £16,000 today.

  The LSA’s output of important produce climbed substantially between 1939 and 1943. For example, in that period receipts from the sale of pigs, poultry, eggs and crops nearly doubled. Between 1940 and 1943, sales of tomatoes and lettuces rose more than five times, and those of onions twelve times. Even taking into account the increase in prices of vegetables during that period, these were still substantial gains in productivity.25 This is impressive considering that the smallholdings were only five acres in size, although the tenants had the advantage of being part of a large co-operative.

  Back garden and allotment growing could only ever augment the efficient commercial growing and distribution of vegetables and fruit, especially for the urban population. Commercial gardening operations had access to fuel to heat glasshouses, stronger insecticides and greater supplies of fertilisers. The varieties of vegetables grown were often not the same as those employed by amateurs, since yield took precedence over taste, and neither were cultivation methods or machinery.

  This was one reason why there were a number of large-scale seed houses – Suttons, Carters, Thompson and Morgan, and Webbs being the best known – which catered specifically for the amateur market. These concerns sold their seed through both horticultural sundries shops – of which there was at least one in every town – and hardware shops, as well as by mail order. Cuthbert’s sold much of their seed through the high street retailer Woolworth’s at 1d a packet. Other wartime seedsmen which, like Cuthbert’s, no longer exist included Dobbie’s of Edinburgh,26 Sowerbutts of Ashton-under-Lyne, Alfred Dawkins of Chelsea and Ryder and Son of St Albans.

  The larger seed firms such as Suttons sent out coloured brochures or catalogues each year, mainly in late autumn, so that gardeners could choose what they wanted during the slack period in winter. (Head gardeners often tackled this task on Boxing Day.) These brochures became very thin during the war, and what illustrations survived to illuminate the text were in black and white. In 1943, the government insisted that catalogues should only be sent out to customers who specifically requested them, in order to try to cut down on waste paper. Vegetable seed catalogues were free, but flower ones cost 1d.

  Suttons sold most of its seed by mail order, but also some through retail outlets such as Barrow’s Stores in Birmingham and Messrs E. Dingle in Plymouth, as well as the Suttons office and shop at 69 Piccadilly in central London. The company could call itself the ‘Royal Seedsmen’ because it was ‘by appointment’ to George VI. In the autumn of 1941, the foreword to the main catalogue for 194227 was entitled ‘Food for Thought – Thought for Food’, and was accompanied by a picture of broccoli being harvested in a field, with horses pulling a cart – and a formation of Spitfires flying overhead, just in case the point was missed. The foreword began:

  During the past year this island has been a fortress – a fortress which stands firm today notwithstanding the fact that the enemy has violated so many of the laws of war in his efforts to break the spirit of our people. It may truthfully be said that the spirit of England has never been more sure and steadfast than at this hour of destiny. While our brave men do battle with the enemy and the dwellers in our great cities stand up to attack, it is the bounden duty of those who have the smallest space to cultivate, to do so intensively, in order that the brave may be fed and that the life line of the Atlantic may not be unduly strained. ‘I vow to thee my country all earthly things above Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love.’28

  The use of the words ‘bounden duty’, a phrase from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, together with the quotation from a well-known hymn, gives a pointer to the religious convictions of the Suttons in the business: ‘Mr Phil’ Sutton, his son, Owen,29 and two nephews, Martin and Noel.

  A study of the 1942 Suttons catalogue reveals that a number of seed varieties which were popular then are still widely grown by gardeners today: parsnip ‘Tender and True’, radish ‘French Breakfast’, perpetual spinach, turnip ‘Early Snowball’, tomato ‘Sutton’s Abundance’, carrot ‘Sutton’s Champion Scarlet Horn’, cucumber ‘Sutton’s Improved Telegraph’ and cabbage ‘Improved Winnigstadt’. If a particular strain of a cultivar had been bred by the Suttons plant breeders, the firm was bound to add the fact to the vegetable’s name. The firm sold vegetable seed collections at a variety of prices, depending on the number of cultivars, from 8s.6d (6s. for the small garden) up to 42s. It also sold asparagus crowns, sea kale roots, strawberry plants, like ‘Royal Sovereign’ and ‘Cambridge Early’, Jerusalem artichokes, pot and sweet herbs, and seed potatoes, such as ‘Arran Pilot’, ‘Majestic’, and ‘King Edward VII’.

  Flowers were relegated to the back of the catalogue but still consisted of an extensive variety of annuals, both hardy
and half-hardy, as well as alpines and perennials. The gardener could also buy a collection suitable for an unheated greenhouse. Gardeners were advised to plant half-hardy annual seed in the ground late in the spring, on the assumption that they would have no opportunity to germinate it under glass.

  Suttons also sold flower bulbs and perennial plants. Fifteen shillings would buy twelve ‘Good varieties, our selection’ of delphiniums, while 27s.6d bought twelve ‘Better varieties, our selection’ and 54s. ‘Newer varieties, our selection’. It is tempting to think that customers were throwing good money away by buying the ‘Good varieties, our selection’.

  Suttons were substantial grass seed merchants as well, even providing a ‘Cumberland-turf mixture’ – highly recommended for golf courses – which the catalogue assured the customer would produce ‘a sward similar in character to sea-washed turf’. For the home gardener, they advertised a mixture suitable for tennis and croquet lawns.

  The list of horticultural sundries is intensely appealing to any keen gardener: serge aprons for 12s.6d while best shalloon cost 13s.6d, both requiring three clothing coupons; bamboo canes; trug baskets; metal foil bird scarers; birch and palm besom brooms; galvanised buckets; glass cloches; three types of glove (Ladies’ Gauntlet, Ladies’ Chamois and Men’s Hedgers); hydrangea colorant; wall nails; garden nets; seed sowers; wasp and fly traps, and Haws’ galvanised watering cans in three-, four-, six- or eight-quart sizes, all with both a fine and a coarse ‘rose’. It was even possible to buy sterilised potting soil at 3s.6d a bushel. However, I suspect the most helpful equipment for the urban gardener was the Universal Pump sprayer, with four feet of rubber hose, two feet of brass lance, and a spray nozzle and jet, advertised as ‘Very useful also in case of Air Raid fire’.30

  Like Cheals, Suttons boasted a garden design and construction department. ‘Customers are offered practical service of the highest standard and we cordially invite inquiries for making new gardens or for re-designing present ones to suit war conditions.’31

  As with so many other horticultural operations, these seedsmen became heavily dependent on female labour. One employee was Lillian Harbard, a city girl who had worked for the matchmakers Bryant and May in Bow, east London; this unpleasant occupation was made much more so by the bombing of the East End. In early 1942 she joined the Land Army, since, understandably, she wanted to leave London to work in the country. She was sent to work for Suttons Seeds at their Slough trial grounds, growing vegetable plants for seed. (She put on three stone in weight and was much healthier as a result.) The gardeners harvested the plants in the autumn, using billhooks, then laid them out to dry. They threshed the bigger seed with a small machine in the field, and the small seed with old-fashioned flails in the barn. Then they bagged the seed up and sent it to the Reading headquarters, where there were cleaning machines. They also grew flowers on the trial grounds and collected the seed, but only enough to keep the strains going until the war was over.

  In order to try to minimise the damage bombing might do to the company’s site, Suttons had a number of contingencies in place before the war started. By May 1939, twenty-four volunteer firemen, sixteen air-raid wardens, eight decontamination officials and sixteen first-aiders had been recruited from the workforce. In this regard, Suttons was very similar to thousands of other medium-sized businesses situated in provincial towns. The firm’s patriotism extended to storing 1,000 tons of coal for the Ministry of Fuel on part of the company’s sports ground, between the bowling green and the workers’ allotments. When Reading town centre was bombed on 10 February 1943, a secret radio station was damaged. Ten days later it was transmitting again from a small room in the glasshouse complex at the Suttons trial grounds.

  Because the Chelsea Flower Show was cancelled during the war, there were none of the magnificient displays of flowers and vegetables that had so distinguished the company in the pre-war era.32 Despite that, shortage of labour meant that Suttons was forced to try to get the seed testing done earlier in the year, so that there was not too much rush in the busy autumn and winter selling period.

  By the summer of 1942, seed itself was in short supply. Before the war, a large percentage of that sold had been imported from countries like North Africa and Italy, which had a better and more reliable climate for seed growing. British winters made it impossible, for example, to produce cauliflower seed because the heads died in cold weather. However, by the third year of the war, those countries were in the thick of the fighting. By early March 1942, Suttons had already sold out of runner bean, onion, leek, early potato and cress seed, and deliveries of other seeds to customers were taking three weeks. It was not a happy situation. However, only in the following autumn did the exigencies of trading in wartime surface openly, in the 1943 brochure: ‘Orders will be fulfilled from first-class stocks, but under present conditions we cannot undertake to handpick seed to the standard which has been customary in the past.’ For a company that began trading in the 1860s and took pride in being the Royal Seedsmen, that must have been very difficult to admit.

  The larger items, such as seed potatoes, were sent to customers in jute or hessian bags, but these became so scarce that by 1942 the customer was paying a deposit of a few pence on them: ‘It is of National Importance that sacks and bags be returned to us, when the Deposit Charge for same will be credited.’33 By the time of the next annual catalogue, the customer was reminded of this ‘Under the conditions of The Control of Textile Bags (No. 1) Order, 1943 . . .’ an example of Whitehall micromanagement if ever there was one.

  North Americans were very generous in sending seed to Britain to augment depleted stocks at home. Unlike plants, seed did not present any phytosanitary challenge, and was also easy to transport in bulk. By January 1943, ninety tons of American-raised seed had been distributed to members of the National Allotments Society. Seeds came in collections in boxes, and included the name and address of the donor, which often initiated thank-you letters from grateful recipients. Some of the seed was unfamiliar to British gardeners, and some, like sweetcorn, did not grow very well in a cooler climate. Seed also arrived from the Dominions, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and in this case it was channelled through the Royal Horticultural Society to prisoner-of-war camps in Europe (see Chapter Ten).

  The success of food production in market gardening and commercial horticultural enterprises can, at least to some extent, be gauged by the size of acreage devoted to it during the war. Between 1936 and 1938, more than a quarter of a million acres on average were under vegetables, but this had almost doubled to just over half a million acres in 1945. The potato acreage of 600,000 acres also doubled. On the other hand, the amount of fruit grown hardly changed in the six years of war. The worst affected nurserymen were those specialising in ornamental stock. Flowers and nursery stock declined from a high of 25,000 acres in 1939 to 18,000 in 1940, 14,000 in 1941, 12,000 in 1942, and 9,000 in 1943 and 1944. In other words, the overall ornamental acreage in 1942 was less than half its pre-war level.34 This was almost all as a result of the increasingly restrictive regulations issued by the Ministry of Agriculture.

  Only in 1945 did the acreage begin to climb slowly once more. By then, commercial nurserymen and seedsmen were aware that they would have to make further major adjustments, this time to peacetime conditions. But at least, after the Battle of El Alamein was won and the tide of war turned, so that the prospect of a victorious peace took on a more discernible shape, they could begin to expand, knowing that gardeners would once more be clamouring to improve the look of their flower gardens.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A REFRESHMENT OF THE SPIRIT OF MAN

  Yet shall the garden with the state of war

  Aptly contrast, a miniature endeavour

  To hold the graces and the courtesies

  Against a horrid wilderness. The civil

  Ever opposed the rude, as centuries’

  Slow progress laboured forward, then the check

  Advance, relapse, advan
ce, relapse, advance,

  Regular as the measure of a dance;

  So does the gardener in little way

  Maintain the bastion of his opposition

  And by a symbol keep civility;

  So does the brave man strive

  To keep enjoyment in his breast alive

  When all is dark and even in the heart

  Of beauty feeds the pallid worm of death.1

  VITA SACKVILLE-WEST tried her best to keep enjoyment in her breast alive at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, although its vulnerable position alarmed her deeply at times. Begun in 1939, her poem, ‘The Garden’, was the sequel to the award-winning ‘The Land’ (1926), and in it she expressed the love that she and her husband, Harold Nicolson, felt for the garden, which they were in the process of making. Nicolson was a Member of Parliament, freelance journalist and official in the Ministry of Information for much of the war, yet he found time to write a daily diary in which he chronicled his weekends at Sissinghurst as well as his working weeks in London. He received almost daily letters full of garden news from Vita, who was also a county Representative for the Women’s Land Army, about which she wrote a book in 1944. Together the Nicolsons constitute one of the most extraordinary – and best-documented – examples of a couple who managed to maintain an interest in gardening for its own sake, while still being thoroughly involved in the war.

  Kent was under very real threat of invasion in 1940, and the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies above the Tudor tower of Sissinghurst Castle. The house also stood on the path that the German army would take to London, after Admiral Raeder had persuaded Hitler to confine the proposed invasion to the coast between Folkestone and Bognor Regis. So worried were the Nicolsons in 1940 that Harold procured cyanide pills for them both from his doctor, so that they could commit suicide rather than be captured by the Germans. He had been a very vocal opponent of the Munich settlement, and suspected that he was on a German hit list. Although the invasion never happened, German bombers flew over Sissinghurst on the way to bomb London and other southern cities and occasionally crashed nearby.