THE URBAN EXODUS. 257 



lent dairy holdings of thirty or forty acres 

 might have been worked with success. 



A much more interesting experiment in 

 providing land for the town dweller is thatwhich 

 has just been started at Leigh, three miles out 

 of Reigate. This land was purchased to meet 

 a specific demand ; that at Cud worth, before 

 the demand was made. At Leigh 194 acres 

 with two cottages have been bought by the 

 Surrey County Council for the reasonable sum 

 of £4500, and this land has been let by the 

 Council to the Reigate Small Holders, Limited, 

 at a rent of about 21s. 6d. an acre. The low 

 rent shows the advantage of small holders 

 forming themselves into a co-operative society, 

 the members of which are almost all residents 

 in the towns of Reigate and Redhill. The 

 occupation of nearly all of these men is garden- 

 ing, and each of them, I am told, intends to 

 gain his entire livelihood out of holdings vary- 

 ing from five to thirty acres. At the same 

 time, I am informed that most of these men 

 possess a little nest - egg elsewhere. The 

 County Council have built six cottages this 

 year, which they let at a rent equivalent to 

 5| per cent on the capital expenditure. 



As the small holders here have a community 



17 



