From Lord Ducie [1853-1860]

Dear Mr Henslow

Had it been in my power, I should have made a violent effort to attend your Exhibition, but the exigencies of the time have compelled me to alter the day of my own affair to the 17. ^th Sep. ^r

Can I anywhere procure any short treatise on allotment cultivation? Has such a work been written in a concise and simple form? The reports which I hear of the value of an allotment to a labourer, and of the money, and money’s worth which he can get from half an acre are quite astonishing—

My bailiff took in hand an allotment which had been ruined by bad cultivation and the other day threshed out the wheat which he grew on it this season. It is at the rate of about six and a half quarters to the acre. My own farm ,which is by far the best cultivated in the neighbourhood, does not, I fancy, yield an average of much more than 4 quarters. This shows that much more may be extorted from the Earth, than we have as yet found to yield

Believe me | yours very truly | Ducie