WORKSHOP PLUS LAND. 247 



says, " our gates of cleft wood that yield to 

 a horse's easy pressure, instead of the factory 

 planed laths that snap?" Basket - making 

 business might be easily revived with a little 

 encouragement from the Government. It 

 is with pleasure that I notice the Welsh 

 Industries Association have applied for the 

 grant from the Development Commissioners 

 of £2000 per annum for five years to en- 

 couraoe the iijrowth of osiers in South Wales. 

 Even the silvery birch, so delightful to view 

 from the aesthetic standpoint, can be turned 

 to good account with the axe by the making of 

 clogs for the factory-workers in the Midlands. 

 Indeed, in the north corner of Yorkshire a 

 large rural industry in clog-making goes on in 

 the woods where the silver and green birch 

 stand in plantations twenty years old. No 

 town factory has yet encroached upon this 

 purely rural handicraft. It is only when the 

 soles of the clog fashioned out of the birch 

 have to be fitted with leather uppers and 

 straps that they come under the factory system. 

 Unfortunately the Small Holdings Act of 1908 

 disallows land being taken for any other in- 

 dustry but that of agriculture. This should 

 be amended, for as it stands it stultifies the 



