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with the recovery of its good name.

There are still a few garden

less villages, in Sussex and some other counties, where allotments have not been provided as substitutes, and these are the places where public-houses are most resorted to.

Continuing our history, in 1843 those esteemed philanthropists, Lord Shaftesbury and the present Lord Mount-Temple, then Mr. Cowper, were associated with many others for the promotion of allotments, and, on the motion of Mr. Cowper, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to make inquiries as to their prevalence and other matters. It appears from the report of the Committee that numerous allotments existed in all the agricultural counties, while in the manufacturing districts they were almost unknown.

According to the report of Mr. Cowper's Committee, 3,000 allotments were held under the West Kent Labourers' Friendly Society, and 800 acres were owned by the Northern and Midland Counties Artizans' and Labourers' Friendly Society, an association mainly supported by hand-loom weavers. It came out in evidence that fifty parishes in East Somersetshire were provided with allotments. There were no returns at that time of the number of allotments, but it is quite clear that the leading landowners had taken up the question with very substantial results.

With regard to legislation and the attempts of Parliament to extend allotments, that is naturally a very interesting part of our subject, since the experience of the past, and the effect of Acts of Parliament in promoting garden allotments, will enable us to form some sort of estimate of the possible extension of small farming by the same means. None can doubt the excellent effect of technical training, and that the spade is naturally the precursor of the plough, while the latter implement leads to the acme of cultivation by steam power. To what extent, then, can Parliament free the land from its "fetters," and offer a fair field to all comers, including preliminary bits of land as schools for the labourers in the form of allotments ?

The reply is that the first experiment in this direction was attempted in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1819, commonly called "Sturges Bourne's Act," which empowered the churchwardens and overseers, with consent of the vestry, to purchase or hire land not exceeding twenty acres, or to take in hand parish land, and to set the poor to work on it as a parish farm, or to let it to any poor and industrious parishioners in allotments. Any capital which might be required for the prosecution of this parochial agriculture, was to be raised out of the rates, or by loans charged on future rates. We may here say at once that if the intervention of the parochial authorities in the extension of allot

ments and little farms had proved successful, the powers thus created would not have been repealed, as they were by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1873. Unfortunately, however, all the allotments that were set out in numerous parishes under the Act of 1819, were soon abandoned, with one notable exception, at Saffron Walden, where the system proved successful, the first field which was laid out under the Act in 1829 being still in allotments, while 223 acres in 1,300 allotments are found in 23 adjoining parishes.

The success of this particular experiment seems to have been due to the active co-operation of the landowners of the neighbourhood. The nearest of these, whose parish extends to the town of Walden, was Lord Braybrooke, of Audley End, the father of the present peer, and the accomplished editor of Pepys' Diary. The services and great capacity for business of this nobleman had brought him so much power and popularity in his neighbourhood, that the success of any undertaking to which he lent his aid was usually assured; and it happened very fortunately that he was favourable to allotments. With Lord Braybrooke, therefore, as a promoter, landlords and town folk readily co-operated; all difficulties disappeared, all jealousies were avoided, and the fads and crotchets that usually crop up when people endeavour, or perhaps do not endeavour, to act together, were throttled by his lordship's wit, or charmed away by the magic of his smile. I may here, perhaps, offer an illustration of his happy, easy humour. A dinner took place. Saffron Walden boasts a mayor and aldermen, and in those days they dined as often as possible with Lord Braybrooke in the chair. It is still remembered that after dinner some tiresome gleemen sang nine verses, with a chorus nine times repeated, about "thunder, lightning, and rain"; and when his lordship closed the proceedings, he restored the spirits of the jaded audience by hoping they should meet again, but not in thunder, lightning, nor rain. He was always irresistible, and the result of his influence was that more than twenty times the Parliamentary twenty acres of land were obtained and laid out in allotments. But instead of the parochial people being allowed to muddle the business, as they had done with great facility in many other parishes, and will do, probably, whenever the experiment of employing them may be repeated, a business-like committee undertook the management of the allotment fields, and in that way their success was secured.

As to the intervention of the parochial authorities, churchwardens, overseers, or beadles, there is abundant proof of their incapacity. The Poor Law Commissioners of 1834 collected a vast amount of evidence, and were so strongly favourable to allotments, that in their report of that year (February 21) they said:

"If there were no other mode of supplying them, we think it would be worth while, as a temporary measure, to propose some general plan for providing them." But they added these very significant words in reference to management: "Where the system is carried on by individuals, it has been generally beneficial, but when managed by parish officers it has seldom succeeded."

Those who have not studied the history of the rustic labourer would be astonished at the number of Blue Books relating to the allotment system, which have recorded official or Parliamentary labours in their favour since that unhappy period when Cobbett— useful agitator as he was-commenced his Rural Rides of 1821, and praised the gardens of industrious labourers in Sussex and elsewhere. Official reports favourable to allotments would fill volumes, and there are none on the other side. An experienced witness remarked to a Committee of the House of Commons as far back as 1827: "I could load the Committee with information as to the importance of the cottagers renting a portion of land with their cottages. It keeps them buoyant, and it keeps them industrious."

As the clergy of the Established Church are the appointed teachers and care-takers of the poor, it is gratifying to quote the author of Village Politics, Mr. Stubbs, who states in that interesting volume that an Oxfordshire squire had observed the miserable character and low morality of the labourers in a village on his estate, and he determined on a liberal allotment of land amongst them. This occurred twenty years ago, and the three or four acre plots of arable land which they were enabled to occupy at a low rent, proved advantageous. We are not told by what means they acquired tenancies per saltum, which would require on the part of each labourer unusual skill and £40 as the capital of management.

I have seen a benevolent gentleman retire in disgust from such an experiment after setting up some labourers with his own capital on his own land, rent free, or rather rent not forthcoming; and, as a general rule, you might as well prop an eel and endeavour to keep it upright, as a farm labourer when he is not expected to rely on his own native pith and strength. There is no creature in the world more spoiled by petting. We must conclude, therefore, that the arrangements in Oxfordshire were conducted on sound principles, for the plan worked well. A striking amelioration of manners took place, and the public-house was very shortly closed for want of custom, while the farmers rejoiced at the change, though wages rose 3s. or 4s. per head per week. The price of corn. was undoubtedly much higher at that time in proportion to the price of wages than it is now.

Returning to allotments proper, Mr. Stubbs states that Mr. Henley, one of the Poor Law inspectors, named to him two Buckinghamshire villages, one of which was the most pauperized in the country, the other contained absolutely no pauperism, and he attributed the contrast to the liberal allotments which had been provided in one of the villages, while in the other there were none. These are important details, but the evidence of this kind is so voluminous that I can only use it here very sparingly. The reports of the assistant commissioners to the Royal Commission on Agriculture in 1881 must not be entirely excluded from this brief paper, though I can only speak of them in general terms. Without quoting largely from Blue Books, which may readily be obtained, I may say generally that the reports in question include every country and agricultural district, and that they abound in favourable references to garden allotments. I am not at present considering small farming. The Commissioners investigated the condition of small farming as well as large, and they found that both may fail. But garden allotments, like cow-plots on grass land, occupy very little time, and, as the labourers gain their livelihood elsewhere, such allotments rarely fail, never, in fact, except by accident or ineptitude. Much has been written on the size of allotments. On this point the Earl of Leicester, a recognized authority on agricultural matters, says: "I hardly know what is meant by the term allotments, but if it means that every labourer should have a good garden-say 20 or 30 poles, as much as he can cultivate with a spade-I entirely agree with it." The area of allotments differs, however, as widely as the rent. The Baroness BurdettCoutts owns several acres of land adjoining the St. Anne's Schools at Highgate, and this is let to such tenants as labourers, mechanics, and policemen, in plots of nine poles at 1s. per pole or £8 per acre, and in such a situation where small fruits, flowers, and vegetables can be readily sold, where manure can be purchased in any quantity at 1s. per load, and water can be obtained from a tank in the midst of the gardens at 1s. 6d. per annum ; the plots are cheap. Elsewhere they might be dear at one-fourth the price. Situation is everything, and the best position for an allotment is close to the cottage door, and to the pig, within easy reach of the source of the manure, whatever that may be. Lord Salisbury has remarked very truly: "It is not the labourer whose house is in a field who is in want of an allotment, because he has a garden round his house; it is the labourer in a large village or small town who has not got an allotment at an equitable rent and at a reasonable distance from his house." Nothing could be more accurate.

In writing of allotments I am well aware that a considerable number of persons ardently desire the extension of small farming in this country.

I do not desire to evade that important and attractive question, but merely to keep it in its proper place as one totally distinct from that which we are now considering. There is all the difference in the world between a small farm which may or may not prosper as the sole source of its occupier's maintenance, and a garden allotment which is not a hazardous undertaking, since it does not involve the tenant's capital, but only a little of his spare labour. Lord Tollemache happens to be a nobleman of large estate, who desires to encourage small farms because he finds them conducive to the happiness of those who dwell on his property. But the success of Lord Tollemache in the management of his estate is due to the fact that he is not led astray by theory, nor guided by mere kindly feelings, but by strong commonsense and great experience. It is necessary for a large land proprietor to proceed with caution, or he may find himself minus his rents and plus a number of small farmers who are all in his debt and doing no good. I have known a very radical gentleman who had been engaged for years cutting up great estates in his imagination, and replacing large farmers by small ones. At length he acquired an estate of no great size, and at once proceeded very consistently to divide it amongst his labourers, doing in his own case, in fact, what he had long been engaged in doing to others in fancy. He lent each man a little money to start him in business as a small farmer, and then he sat down to see the world go round according to his own adjustment. But even Jupiter fell into error sometimes, and our radical reformer soon found that his small farmers were not prospering. In the end the experiment failed miserably, the experimenter was worried by his tenants almost to death, and he found himself regarded both by them and others as a feather-brained person, who had acted in a serious matter without judgment or experience. Compared with other inconveniences, it was a very small matter that he received neither rent, interest, nor repayment of the capital advanced.

Small farming sometimes prospers, and in the course of my experience in extensive farming, and in preparing reports for the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, or for the newspapers, I may say that I have always met with successful examples of large farming with pleasure, and, as a matter of course, because they are numerous, but I have met with good and productive small farming with delight always, but I am sorry to say I have met with it rarely. Small farming holds its own only under special conditions, as in the Channel Islands, on rich, warm land, capable

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