164; 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



LABOURERS' COTTAGES. 



THE EOMSEY AND EDINBURGH MEETINGS. 



The condition of the agricultural labourer, and the con- 

 dition of the labourer's dwelhng, are questions which daily 

 excite more attention, and are originating a healthy 

 kind of agitation — a storm thai will clear, we trust, the 

 horizon of the future. This is no longer a sentimental or 

 a charitable question ; it is a question of profit and loss — 

 to the farmer immediately, to the landowner indirectly — 

 which is too real to be any longer neglected. 



Close following Mr. Scott Burn's lecture at the Central 

 Farmers' Club, and Mr. Tucker's summai^y of his statistical 

 survey of the condition of the agricultural dwellings in 

 Berkshire, two public meetings have taken place — one 

 provincial, at Eomsey, in Hants, but illuminated by the 

 presence of Lord Palmerston; one national, in Edin- 

 burgh, where the Scotch farming and lauded interest seem 

 to have been well represented. 



Lord Palmerston, as usual, was practical, and related 

 what good results had arisen, at the time the cholera 

 awakened the wealthy to a sense of their duties, from a 

 report, drawn up by a competent authority, on the sanitary 

 condition of the lower class of dwellings in Eomsey. 

 Then, as now, the chief need was accurate information. It 

 is much more from the want of knowledge than the want 

 of inclination, that landowners permit the human tillers 

 of the soil to be so discreditably, unhealthily, and unpro- 

 fitably lodged. 



Mr. Cowper, Lord Palmerston's son-in-law, and late 

 President of the Board of Health, followed, in a speech, or 

 rather lecture, which was in parts more amusing than to the 

 purpose ; for he devoted a considerable space to what had 

 been done by societies for improving labourers' dwellings, 

 in London, and in such places as Hastings and Eedhill — 

 instances in which philanthropic societies have laid out 

 money, and obtained a return for their investments of 

 from 4| to 8^ per cent. The only persons who can, as a 

 general rule, improve the dwelHugs of agricultural labour, 

 are, and ought to be, the owners of the soil the labourers 

 cultivate. The regular rent of something lilce one 

 shihing per week must be the same retui-n that is paid 

 for the stables, the boxes, or the feeding-yards of a farm, 

 unless it is possible to add to each cottage from a quarter 

 to half an acre of land, instead of giving the tenant 

 an allotment at a distance from his cottage : then, a higher 

 rate of per<centage on the value of the land may be easily 

 obtained, and profitably paid. 



The Hants landowners who met at Eomsey followed 

 Mr. Cowper's lead, and appointed a committee to form a 

 society for cottage improvement, under the Limited 

 Liability Act. Tliis will, no doubt, do good in the sub- 

 urban districts near Eomsey and Southampton, but, 

 except by stimulating agitation and collecting informa- 

 tion, will not touch the want of a due number of 

 healthy, decent cottages, on, or close adjoining, every 

 farm. 



The Scotch meeting was on a greater scale. Circulars 

 appear to have been addressed to every leading landed 

 proprietor in the counti'y, and although it was not grand 

 by the attendance of noble names, there was a very 

 encouraging atteudance of those who will have to " push' 



the movement. It was presided over by a landowner, 

 Mr. Stirling, M.P., distinguished as an author, and also 

 known as a successful shorthorn breeder ; and the reso- 

 lutions were, for the most part, moved and supported 

 by leading tenant-farmers, or gentlemen personally 

 engaged in agriculture. The main conclusion was the 

 appointment of a strong committee of inquiry. If that 

 committee does its duty, and publishes the authentic infor- 

 tion it wiU have the power of collating, as great service 

 will be rendered to England as to Scotland, for the 

 main principles of the question rest on the same founda- 

 tion in both countries — a deficiency and steady diminution 

 of the best class of agricultural labourers, in consequence 

 of the want of a sufficient number of healthy dwellings in 

 the districts to be cultivated. The letters read, and the 

 speeches, although dreadfully long-winded, as Scotch 

 speeches generally are, were full of excellent stufi' — facts 

 and figures and axioms equally applicable to our side the 

 Border. A Scotch clergyman, the Eev. H. Stewart, who 

 several years ago established a Cottage Improvement 

 Society as " a tangible peg to hang the movement on,' 

 says very forcibly, " I am glad your speakers are to be 

 chiefly farmers, for it is the farmers taking farms on any 

 terms who have caused and perpetuated the evil. If they would 

 look first to the proper housing of their people, instead of last, 

 how soon all tcould he icell ! There are factors (stewards) 

 especially lawyers, who look only to the amount of rent, 

 and ask the farmer to put up with the least possible outlay 

 in building." 



The mover of the first resolution, Mr. MacLagan, pointed 

 out that, although there is less expense in consequence of 

 agricultural improvement in raising a ton of turnips 

 than before the introduction of modern implements and 

 I)ortable manures, more labourers are required on an im- 

 proved farm, where twice, three times, four times the 

 number of green crops are grown ; the produce per acre 

 being larger, more people are required to store it, besides 

 those required to attend to the pulping and crushing ma- 

 chinery, and to the live stock fed on the increased crops. 

 And this eminent farmer goes on to describe, as the result 

 of his own experience, a picture which might have been 

 the original of what is called in many circles " Punch's 

 exaggeration ": " The great majority of cottages in Scot- 

 land consist of but one room, which answers the pui-pose 

 of the kitchen, bedroom, sitting-room, and entry, with 

 perhaps a small bed closet. A cottage of two rooms is the 

 exception, and of three very rare. And when we com- 

 pare the comfortable accommodation for the beasts on the 

 farm with the state of this cottage, with its unlathed walls 

 and earthen floor broken into holes, we may well feel 

 ashamed that, in a system of agriculture second to none in 

 the world, the labourers, who bear such an important part 

 in it, should be worse lionoured than the beasts of the field. 

 I have visited such cottages, and seen the beds occupied 

 by three or four children with the flushed face of fever ; 

 on one side the shrouded remains or the mother, on the 

 other the grief-stricken father ! If yon do not give them 

 three rooms for the sake of decency, of morality, give them 

 at least one room more, and separate the dead from the 



