STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 169 



It was perhaps fitting that a county which is stained with 

 the history of the Tolpuddle deportations, and where the 

 pessimism of Thomas Hardy luxuriates, should plan a Small 

 Holding Scheme, which but for the indomitable industry 

 and pluck of the small holders themselves, was doomed to 

 fail. After repeated applications from countrymen accus- 

 tomed to farm work, this Council took over an entire farm 

 of some 780 acres at Winterborne Zelston, on a thirty-seven 

 years' repairing lease. Approved applicants received the 

 following good news from the offices of the County Council : 



" I am desired to remind you that the farm comprises good 

 arable and pasture land, and that the holdings will be let at from 

 303. to 403. per acre, and the sum payable on entrance for tillage, 

 etc., will be light." 



Such were the words of the alluring legend written in 

 July, 1909 ; and it was with high hopes that many a poor 

 countryman read this statement in a letter sent to him. In 

 1912 I received a letter from a resident in the county beg- 

 ging me to come and look at the estate and exercise any 

 influence I possessed to improve matters for the wretched 

 tenants. 



I motored past an estate enclosed by miles of wall, broken 

 only by gilded gates where massive lions seemed to defy 

 entrance to tillers of the soil. Then suddenly I came upon 

 a congerie of mud cottages, dilapidated thatched roofs, 

 and tumble-down outbuildings, lying in a hollow through 

 which runs a stream. This was not a congested district in 

 Ireland, but Winterborne Zelston, in the county of Dorset. 



All cottage doors were thrown open to me. This I knew 

 was the outward sign that the tenants were in the depths 

 of despair, for no class objects to strangers entering their 

 houses more than the peasant class. 



Inside the first cottage I entered, a thistle seven ft. high 

 had sprung up from a floor rich in plant food, in the room 

 which was intended as a parlour. Though living amid 

 tragic circumstances the tenant had evidently a sense of 

 humour. He had tied it to the damp decaying wall with a 

 piece of bass, as though it were a precious hothouse plant. 



