WALK IN RURAL ENGLAND. 21 



of their holdings. Most of them are still wood- 

 men spending the winter months at work in the 

 woods, where each buys a few acres of under- 

 wood and cunningly makes of these as many 

 hurdles, wattles, sheep-cribs, and bundles of 

 faggots to sell as his skill can contrive. The 

 holdings, though, give them work throughout 

 the summer, work independent of employers, 

 and a roof over their heads free of the whim of 

 an employer-landlord ; and on this rather poor 

 and very exposed land I found one holder who 

 gained his entire living from his eight acres. 

 There is but little intensive culture practised, 

 but the working result, as a whole, has been a 

 success, not as measured by cash returns, but 

 in the more intimate sense of achieving a 

 greater measure of freedom. There is no other 

 village community in either Hampshire or 

 Wiltshire which lives so secure of a roof, and 

 of a livelihood to be won, independent of the 

 large farmer. 



A good deal more might have been gained 

 from the land, so it appeared to me, if the 

 men had been equipped with more capital and 

 practised co-operation. But in spite of their un- 

 economic individualism, I found some interest- 

 ing examples of how men work the land on 



