56 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



men had no gardens ; and the others, who had, 

 found them periodically flooded, in consequence 

 of a defective culvert, by a brook. The men 

 patriotically proposed to dig the land after 

 labouring all day for employers. They said 

 they would dig it by moonlight if they were 

 given access to it, and they had the effrontery 

 to select for their labours a very suitable piece 

 of under-grazed land which was inside the park 

 fence close to their cottages. So enraged were 

 they with the rebuffs they received that they 

 actually proposed to take the land by force 

 under the leadership of the naval officer. But 

 the land, he said, was not his fighting element, 

 and he wae getting too old for that sort of 

 thing. The men were eager to put up pig- 

 sties, for millions of acorns are shed from the 

 oaks in the park in the autumn, and they could 

 get manure from the army camps near by at 

 3s. yd. a load. But the agent stated that he 

 did not like the site these men had selected, 

 because of the number of pheasants from the 

 park which would consume the smallholders' 

 crops ! A strange objection to advance in 

 war-time, when agricultural committees had 

 the power to appoint warreners to enter any 

 private property and destroy the pests. And 

 this objection was, to my amazement, upheld 

 by the Land Commissioner. Lord Pirrie was 

 a great man. Was he not confidential adviser 

 to the Cabinet ? Had he not built a house for 



