THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



505 



of the last ten years they would find the price of the 

 labourer's tea and sugar and other leading articles of 

 food and wearing apparel materially reduced In price ; 

 his condition had been improved partly by the reduction 

 made in the cost of necessaries, partly through the in- 

 creased demand which had arisen for his labour on 

 public works, and partly through emigration. He 

 thought that when the observations of preceding speakers 

 were circulated, as they would be, throughout the 

 country, they could not fail to produce important 

 eflfects ; and those gentlemen who sometimes tried in 

 eloquent speeches to set class against class, and more 

 especially to set the agricultural labourers against their 

 employers, would llud that in discussions like these ths 

 best answer to their assertions. 



Dr. Ellis said as regarded the parishes of Ham and 

 Petersham, he was happy to be able to state that it was 

 not the custom of the wealthier inhabitants of that dis- 

 trict to spend Sunday at such places as the Star and 

 Garter ; they went to church or some other place of 

 worship, and it was London gentlemen who went to 

 Richmond to break the Sabbath (Hear, hear). 



Mr. W. Gray (Courteen Hall, Northampton) said he 

 had witnessed the satisfactory working of the allotment 

 system in a parish in fluntingdonshire, where he lived for 

 some years. In referring to that parish, it was necessary 

 for him to go back for a few years. No doubt many in 

 that room well recollected the agricultural disturbances, 

 as they were called, of 1830. At that period the burning 

 of machines and corn-stacks was the order of the day ; 

 and after the law of the land had quelled the disorder, 

 it was considered necessary to do something to prevent 

 a recurrence of it. Accordingly a meeting was con- 

 vened, and it was there suggested that the allotment 

 system might do something towards correcting what was 

 wrong. The parish was at that time rather notorious 

 for badly-conducted labourers, and it was proverbially 

 said in Huntingdonshire of any bad district, " It 

 is as bad as the parish of Alconbury." The 

 late Bishop of Durham, Dr. Maltby, happening 

 to have some land contiguous to the parish, he offered 

 it to the churchwardens, to be let out in allotments j 

 and it was offered at the rate of 35s. per acre free from 

 parochial charges. The applications were very nume- 

 rous, and there was some difficulty in making a selection. 

 The system soon got into working order ; the men 

 seemed pleased with their occupations, and it was de- 

 lightful to observe what industry the system seemed to 

 bring into the parish. He had heard strangers ask, 

 " What are all those children doing with their wheel- 

 barrows ?" There you would see twenty little children 

 picking up manure, and it was not merely the value of 

 the manure that was to be considered in such a case — 

 the children were acquiring industrious habits. (Hear, 

 hear). Well, the thing worked well, and there was a 

 great improvement among the labouring population. 

 He did noi; mean to say that that was the only means of 

 regenerating the parish : the poor-law of 1834 gave the 

 finishing stroke. He himself left the parish, he believed, 

 in 1835 J but he kept up a connection with it, and in 

 yisiting the parish he was very much pleased to witness 



the improvement which had taken place amongst the 

 agricultural labourers. His having twenty poles of land 

 set apart for his cultivation had taught the labourer 

 that there was some one who cared for him : it had 

 raised him in the scale of ambition ; and it had given 

 him ideas which he never had before. There you saw 

 the man and his wife well dressed, and attending church 

 with their children. Moreover, the children were sent 

 to school to a far greater extent than was the case pre- 

 viously. There was hardly anything, indeed, which had 

 more struck him through life than this — that when once 

 you had improved the condition of the labouring-man 

 you found him. desirous of having his children educated. 

 (Hear, hear). Now, what was the result of all this? 

 Why, he had no hesitation in saying that at present the 

 parish of Alconbury, the population of which was from 

 twelve to fourteen hundred, would bear comparison 

 with most other parishes of the same kind. The men 

 went round the district sweeping away the prizes for 

 hedge-cutting, draining, and so on ; and there could be 

 no better proof of their usefulness as labourers. He 

 would now come a little nearer home. The parish in 

 which he resided at present all belonged to one pro- 

 prietor. There the allotment system had been cairied 

 out also. The labourers paid 6d. a pole for land 

 which was honestly worth the money (they paid no 

 rates), and which was all fenced in and drained. Col- 

 lecting the rents, as he did, once a year, he had never 

 had sixpence left unpaid. At Michaelmas he went 

 round the allotments, and he saw one pig at least — in 

 some cases there were two — in every sty. It was, he 

 might remark, very soon discovered that if you gave a 

 man an allotment you must also give him a pig-sty, and 

 hence pig-sties were attached to all the allotments. 

 He did not consider it essential that there should be 

 white crops on allotments. In his own parish, indeed, 

 labourers had no conveniences for growing such crops. 

 The practice was to take one-third potatoes, one- 

 third mangel wurzel, and one-third beans. The 

 beans and the mangel fed the pig, and the 

 potatoes the labourer and his family ate with the pig. He 

 had always been an advocate for the allotment system ; 

 and from what he had seen of its working, he was con- 

 vinced they could do nothing more likely to improve the 

 agricultural labourer than the giving him a small quan- 

 tity of land to cultivate. He thought twenty poles were 

 sufficient. He had always been on his guard against let- 

 ting the labourer have too much land. If they did that, 

 they turned a good labourer into a bad farmer. When 

 the labouring man had one or two acres of land, he be- 

 came powerless. He would mention a case which would 

 serve to illustrate this. A noble duke, who was a very 

 charitable man, was told by some labourers on his estate 

 that, if he would let them each have an acre of land, they 

 could live upon it. The duke yielded to their request ; 

 but what was the result ? Why, entire failure. One 

 day he (Mr. Gray) went to one of the men on his allot- 

 ment, and said to him, what was the fact, " Why, my 

 man, you seem to have your land in very poor condi- 

 tion." " Yes," was his reply, " I'm beat sir— I can't 

 doit" (Hear, hear). They all knew how much profit 



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