that any defaulter would find himself in the County Court at an early date. The rules seem rather numerous, but, of course, every contingency must be provided for. Broken mugs, for example, must be paid for, cost price. A broken head, or a blow tending in that direction and delivered in club-room or field, would cost the inflicter 5s. It is necessary that these matters, and many others, should be set forth clearly, in rules numbering thirty-one. But the legislation of successive committees is not held to have been oppressive, and its graver penalties have very rarely been inflicted. So far as my own observation is concerned, in many localities it has always happened that allotment clubs or labourers' readingrooms, and similar institutions, have proved most successful when they have been managed by the labourers themselves. The success of the Rothamsted allotments, and certainly that of the club-room, may be attributed to the popular system of management. At any rate the number of candidates for plots has always exceeded that of the vacancies, and in 1883 nine additional acres were, accordingly, distributed among seventy-eight occupiers. One eighth of an acre has proved a convenient and a sufficient quantity of ground for the growth of vegetables for a family of average size. But I have now to notice a recent experiment in connection with the village of Harpenden, close to Rothamsted Park. As Harpenden is a populous village with a railway station only twenty-five miles from London, it was thought that some of the lesser tradespeople and others might, perhaps, prefer allotments of larger size than those just described, and in 1885 twenty additional acres were offered close to Harpenden station, and immediately let at 40s. per acre, the value of the land being quite £200 per acre. The plots in this case have been divided according to the wishes of the applicants, and fourteen of them, consisting of about an acre each, have been let to such persons as carpenters, a hat-blocker, a platelayer, and a blacksmith, some of whom own horses and ponies. Meeting the blacksmith on the ground, I remarked, "You can't afford to work out here." "I do, though, of an evening," he replied, "and take a pleasure in it." In this reply it seems to me that he went to the heart of the allotment question so far as the larger areas are concerned. Wheat from India might cost less than that grown in allotments as a rule, but they may, nevertheless, be desirable when farmed for pleasure, or with the aid of otherwise unused forces. It is no doubt true that allotments are desired, and are turned to good account in some neighbourhoods and not in others, and, perhaps, this may be due in some measure to the manure supply. At Harpenden manure is readily obtained from London; elsewhere the large amount of manure which the successful cultivation of garden vegetables requires, must necessarily be made on the spot, as at Helmingham, where the cottagers, holding half an acre each and growing corn as well as vegetables, fatten pigs largely. Under favourable circumstances, allotments probably would be readily accepted in the immediate neighbourhood of any populous village, and, if we may judge from the experience of certain midland towns, they would be eagerly accepted by town populations, if the very difficult problem of distance can be solved. The 1,500 allotments owned by the corporation of Nottingham are paid for at the rate of £14 an acre by those who hold the land in small plots. Unlike the occupiers at Harpenden, where vegetables are abundant, and flowers are not in demand, they sell a good deal of produce; and if we assume that this can always be done in the larger towns, and that £14 is the amount of rent they can afford, the nature of the problem to be solved by the authorities of large towns in the provision of allotments becomes apparent. Those who would hold allotments must be got beyond the reach of the high-priced building-land of a large town by aid of the railways and trams, or the town offering land for allotments within the belt of highpriced building-sites must incur a heavy loss. Nottingham has more experience of the influence of allotments on the labouring part of a population of 240,000 than any other town, and I believe it contemplates at this moment taking action which will increase the number of allotments, though it can only do so at considerable loss. The greater the town, the greater the difficulty of providing allotments. But, on the other hand, the good which might be done in the great towns is incomparably greater than in the case of the rural districts, because so little has been done for the towns at present, while in the country comparatively little remains to be done. Some years since a very active agitation was carried on by persons living always in towns, who advocated the improvement of labourers' dwellings in the country. They seemed quite unaware of the rookeries at home, and that there were 500 overcrowded and indecent dens in towns for one indifferent cottage in the country. The allotment question now presents the same aspect. It is rare to meet with a town allotment, in spite of those I have named, and it is quite an exception to find a gardenless parish in the country. It is impossible to withhold sympathy with the remark of the late Mayor of Burton-on-Trent, at the Farmers' Club. Mr. Sydney Evershed, who has become M.P. for his division of Staffordshire mainly by the suffrages of the working classes, said: "It seems to me, indeed, almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of allotments to townspeople, who have not usually the same means as country-people of cultivating simple habits and pleasures, and who, for want of amusement, are often driven to places which it is not desirable that they should frequent. I think that the development of the allotment system in connection with towns is likely to produce an immense effect on the moral and social wellbeing of the labourers who live in towns." As more than half the population is assembled in towns, it must be in the last degree important that a general movement should be inaugurated for supplying the towns with gardens. One would like to see a great and wealthy town like Birmingham, for example, emulating Nottingham; and although one welcomes sympathy and aid, it seems to me extremely inconsistent that Birmingham should have been made the centre of an agrarian agitation, and head-quarters of an association for the extension. of allotments, having the late Mayor as its president, when Birmingham itself is unprovided with them; and that the same gentleman should have introduced into Parliament an Allotment Bill applicable to the country only, when a Bill for Birmingham is what is really wanted. My own view has always been that the authorities in towns, and especially in small towns, might have their hands strengthened in regard to the allotment system with far more effect than in the case of the rural districts, where the local authorities are more scattered and less likely to work well together for a common object. There were in 1886, 386,000 allotments detatched from cottages, 250,000 of them consisting of less than a quarter of an acre; 140,000 measuring between a quarter of an acre and one acre. Mr. Ritchie was probably not far wrong when he said, in introducing the Government Bill, that the 800,000 farm labourers in England are already nearly all provided with allotments. The extension of this system lies mainly with the towns, and the Government measure, so far as allotments, not cow-plots, are concerned, will probably be chiefly useful outside the rural districts. HENRY EVERSHED. 40 WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE. I. THE old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here; Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near. His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet. Surely the heart that read her own heart clear Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget. We that with vagrant soul his fixity Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith wrong; Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee. To misbegotten strange new gods of song. Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf Far from her homestead to the desert bourn, The vagrant soul returning to herself Wearily wise, must needs to him return. To him and to the powers that with him dwell :— The mystery we make darker with a name; The Somewhat which we name but cannot know, His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show II. Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave! When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then?" To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave, The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men? Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; Not Shakspere's cloudless, boundless human view; Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine; Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew. What hadst thou that could make so large amends From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze, Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower, III. I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still; If less divinely frenzied than of yore, In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill To simulate emotion felt no more. Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made No word-mosaic artificer, he sang A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang, He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth, Impassioned? ay, to the song's ecstatic core! |