I was born at No - The MAN & Other Families

50The Man family in Guernsey circa 1901. James Adam is seated on the far right with Katherine Dennisonon his knee. Beatrice is standing behind looking down.A few months after our arrival Jack was born. We had a very good English nurse whomwe had engaged in England to look after the children.There was a great deal to be done on the fruit farm. We used to send over to Englandevery year about forty tons of tomatoes, besides grapes cucumbers and melons, all grownunder glass. Besides these we used to send over hundreds of boxes of flowers; in theSpring arum lilies; in the Fall all kinds of bulb flowers, daffodils, etc. and in the wintercrysanthernums. This meant a great deal of work. The tomato seeds were raised inhundreds of boxes and transplanted into pots. When they were grown sufficiently theyhad to be tied up with binder twine to overhead wires and to be constantly trimmed andwatered. When ripe they had to be picked, graded and packed in baskets.The grapes, melons, etc. required great care and attention and so did the flowers. Whenthe daffodil season arrived I used to employ over a dozen women picking, bunching andpacking them and the average number of men I employed throughout the year was ten,though in the very busy season it was sometimes double that. There was no let-up in thewinter, as all the heating pipes had to be painted with a mixture of sulphur and milk tokill the green fly, and endless repair and painting jobs had to be done. I used personally totake part in all except the heaviest of these jobs. I began the day by driving the vanloaded high with fruit and flowers to the wharf in town, a distance of about 2.5 miles tobe shipped by steamer to England. On return I worked in the greenhouses all day.All went fairly well the first year. I had a good crop and prices were fairly good. Nextyear however a great catastrophe fell on the fruit-growing industry in Guernsey. Thepeople in Brittany just opposite, found they could grow tomatos in the open air and justas early as we could under glass in Guernsey. This meant they could do without coal,which was our greatest expense. They also did not have to go to the expense of buildinggreenhouses. The consequence was that they were able to undercut us and from that date