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believe it will be found that I am right in my statement, and, if necessary, I
could substantiate it by evidence, that the usual term for a nursery is 14 or
21 years. Now I am either right or wrong in that. I believe I am right.
I put it before you that I am right, and I believe I could prove it. These
gentlemen have had this land for nearly 16 years. Now the City proposes
to give them 14 years more. I say that that is an entirely exceptional time
for nursery gardeners to occupy. Now I think that is a point really worth
a great deal of observation and consideration. Of course, the same ideas
occur to intelligent minds at the same time. Before Sir William Har-
court made his speech I had put down several items upon which I was
going to address you, and one of those was that it may be all very fine for
the public to have the privilege of walking up and down between rows of
rhododendrons or rows of roses; it may be very nice and very pleasing, but
at the same time, when the soil becomes worn out and unsuitable for the
purpose, there is nothing to hinder the Messrs. Paul from growing ordinary
green stuff, as Sir William Harcourt has very properly put before you,
which would be of no value to anyone at all to walk through; or they
might even grow cabbages; and the term cabbages occurs to me because I
paid £100 for a field of cabbages worth about £5 in Mr. Chilton 's case.
Therefore, I do know a little about cabbages. Then, also, it was said by
Mr. Driver that it might be used for mangold wurzel, and things of that
sort. I say that it is utterly against all reason and common sense that the
commoners and myself should be kept out of our land for grazing or other-
wise, whilst this land is growing mangold wurzel or cabbages or ordinary
green stuff—plants worth 6d. or 9d. a-piece, and so on, which, in point of
fact, you can see from the roadside any amount of. I thought it proper
just to bring that matter before you, not to waste your time, but just as
showing a point which, in my opinion, deserves a good deal of attention.
Now really I have not the slightest unfriendly feeling towards these
gentlemen, the Messrs. Paul. I hope very few have, because I very, much
admire their profession ; but I object to its being carried on upon my land,
or upon land nine-tenths of which belongs to me. But there is a tree in
Australia, where I have been, which lives for ever. I believe it does not
come to maturity in a thousand years. If our friends get a few trees of
that sort they might present a case for the possession of this land in
perpetuity or on lease of a thousand years because the trees would not
come to maturity within that time. I think the arguments deduced in this
direction are weak as respects logic, and weak as respects practice. The
practice of market gardens—I hope they will pardon me for calling them
market gardeners—of course they are not that, but it is their ordinary
custom to sell off, and to be constantly selling off. There is one thing
which I wish to ask. Something has been brought forward about stools.
I do know something about plants and gardening, and I know something
about stools. They do not last for ever. They are used in a way winch is
always draining them, and in the course of a few years are worn out.
Now some gentlemen seem to regard it as a fearful thing that this
land should go back into the waste. I do not like to hear anyone make
irreverent remarks with regard to the waste. We are fond of the waste of
our Forest, and all we have to say to people of this sort is, "Keep your
hands off it." That was our guiding principle. I think you may wander
far over England before you will find such a beautiful piece of country as
Epping Forest, which is called the waste. There is no evil that can occur