THE COTTAGE ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 165 



to agricultural labourers ; its object is to increase the respectability 

 and comfort of the labourer, by enabling him to employ his spare 

 time to the best advantage, by giving him a resource during any 

 temporary loss of employment; by rendering him less dependant on 

 his daily earnings when wages are good ; and by preventing the 

 necessity of applying to the poor-rate when wages are too low for 

 subsistence. It has many advantages. In the first place it is not a 

 political regulation, to be improved by the fiat of government ; but a 

 social change, to be effected by the influence of private interest. 



The landlord suffers no loss, since the cottager pays the same rent 

 as the farmer, and cultivates his land better. 



In all parishes where wages are made up out of the poor-rates, the 

 latter will immediately be relieved by adopting this plan ; and where 

 no such practice exists, still the rates will indirectly be lessened, as 

 the condition of the poorer classes is improved. And when to these 

 considerations we add the happiness conferred on numbers now 

 struggling with poverty, surely the arguments against the system 

 should be strong indeed to counterbalance such great advantages. 



So many objections have been made to the small farmer, and these 

 are so frequently applied to the cottager, that it becomes necessary to 

 mark the difference between the two classes by a plain and simple 

 distinction. A cottager, then, is one who depends for subsistence 

 mainly on his labour for others, and looks upon his land, if he have 

 any, merely as a collateral resource a means of making up the defi- 

 ciency of his wages, or of providing himself with a few additional 

 comforts. The small farmer, on the other hand, depends entirely on 

 his farm, or, if he does condescend to work for others, it is only on 

 special occasions, and by no means in his ordinary occupations. On 

 this account the quantity of land allotted should always be small, 

 because the intention is to benefit the labourer as such, not to raise 

 him to a higher grade. 



It is not surprising, when so simple and easy a mode of relief was 

 brought forward, and success had attended every experiment, that 

 attention . should daily be more and more directed to it, and new trials 

 entered on by the more intelligent landholders. Every where we 

 hear of allotments of land in roods or acres, and always with the 

 same gratifying result ; in the south of England they are particularly 

 numerous, and as the practical benefits become better known, more 

 ground still will be devoted to the same purpose, until there is not a 

 cottage in the country without its little enclosure. But as illustration 

 is the fashion, I will relate a case in point. It has, likewise, this 

 recommendation it is true. How much happiness will be the result, 

 and how many a tale will be told like the following narrative ! 



An old couple, of the name of Baker, long occupied a small farm 

 in Berkshire, which they held on a lease for their own lives, at a very 

 moderate rent. The easy terms of the lease, and their own frugality, 

 had enabled them to accumulate more than 200/. in the bank ; and as 

 there could be no doubt that the whole of this would go, on their 

 decease, to their only child, Mary Baker was considered a good 



