*34 Means of enabling a Cottager to Keep a Cozv 



for the purpofe of fupplying the neighbouring towns or vil- 

 lages. Such cottagers, alfo, might certainly lend to market 

 both eggs and poultry. 



2. It is hardly poflible to fugged a meafure more likely to 

 promote the benefit of a numerous and valuable body of 

 people. The fyitem of keeping cows by cottagers, which 

 has been found fo advantageous in the grazing diltricts, may 

 thus be extended over the whole kingdom ; and, indeed, if 

 the above plan is found to aniwer, in place of four or five 

 acres employed in feeding .a tingle cow, it would be much 

 better, even in the grazing counties, to reftrict the land to a 

 fmaller quantity, under a tillage mode of management ; for 

 thus not only the cow, but alfo the cottager himfelf, and his 

 famiiV, would, in a great meafure, be maintained, by a lefs 

 furface of foil. 



5. It is of infinite confequence to eftablifh the practica- 

 bility of this fyftern, as the means of removing a mod unfor- 

 tunate obftacfe to the improvement of the country. It is 

 well known to be the only popular objection to the inclofure 

 of our waltes and commons, that, while uninclofed, a number 

 of cottagers are enabled to keep cows by the means of their 

 common rights, and that their cows difappear when the 

 commons are inclofed. But if fo fmall a portion of land as 

 3p acres, when improved and properly cultivated, can enable 

 a cottager to keep a cow even to more advantage than with 

 a right of common ; which can hardly be doubted, as he is 

 enabled to provide winter as well as fummer food, there is an 

 end to that obftacle to improvement. Indeed, if fufficient 

 attention be paid to the principles above detailed, the fitua- 

 tion of the cottager, inftead of being deteriorated, would be 

 materially bettered by the inclofure; and his rifing family 

 woujd be early accuftomed to habits of induftry, inftead of 

 idlenefs and vice. 



I mail conclude with afking, if any one can figure to him- 

 felf a more delightful fpe&acle than to fee an indubious cot- 

 tager, his bufy wife, and healthy family, living in a com- 

 fortable houfe, rented by himfelf, cultivating their little ter^ 

 ritory with their own hands, and enjoying the profits arifing 

 from their own labour and induftry 5 or whether it is poflible 

 for a generous landholder to employ his property with more 

 fatisfaction,' or in a manner more likely to promote, not only 

 his own, but the public intereft, than in endeavouring to in- 

 creafe the number of fuch cottagers, and encouraging, by 

 every means in his power, the exertions of fo meritorious 

 and fo important a clafs of the community. 



London, May ,801. JOHN SINCLAIR. 



Plan 



