60 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



rather high standard of intelligence there, I 

 certainly incline to the township occupied by 

 agriculturists with a wide belt of cultivable 

 land extending around it. 



Particularly do I favour this plan for the 

 women, who often have to lead such lonely 

 lives in the country. An Evesham agent told 

 me that he himself was once a believer in the 

 small holder having a cottage built on his land, 

 and accordingly he had half a dozen detached 

 cottages built on one, and two, and three-acre 

 lots. He then found it extremely difficult to 

 let them, and to-day they are not occupied 

 by those who rent the holdings, but by men 

 who work elsewhere as labourers ! 



The objection to them chiefly comes from 

 the wives of the small holders. 



One can easily understand the feminine 

 revolt ; for when a woman is placed on a 

 holding, there are, apart from the large horned 

 stock, invariably the ducks, and the chickens, 

 and the pigs to be fed by her, besides a man 

 tramping in and out of the house all day long 

 in muddy boots. 



It must not be supposed that because farm 

 lands have been let on easy terms to gardeners 

 that rent in the form of unearned increment 



