Book II. SIZE OF FARMS. 609 



unmarried servants are preferred, as, on such farms, there is little or no employment for; 

 the families of married servants. Our limits do not permit us to enquire how far the 

 poor laws of England operate against the employment of married servants, living in 

 cottages on every farm ; but the happy effects of this arrangement are manifest in the 

 south-eastern counties of Scotland, as we shall notice immediately. 



3839. Cottage farms. The possession of land is held by some writers to be so im- 

 portant, with a view to the comforts of the laboring classes, as well as to the increase of 

 the rural population, that they have not been contented with objecting to large farms, 

 but have proceeded to recommend what are called cottage farms, for country laborers 

 generally. Of this plan we might say at once, that it must be limited every where by the 

 demand for labor; and that, wherever such small allotments are required by the state of 

 agriculture, they will gradually be formed from motives of interest, without the neces- 

 sity of any higher control. They are at this time common in many parts of Britain ; 

 and a different system has been established in other parts, for no other reason than 

 because of its superior advantages to all concerned. Yet, as cottage-farms bear a very 

 plausible appearance in the eye of speculative men, it seems necessary to offer some 

 further remarks on a question which has been so often agitated. 



3840. If every laborer had a comfortable cottage, and four acres of land at a moderate 

 rent, as recommended by some of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture, 

 there is reason to believe that his condition might be much improved for a few years, 

 supposing his demand for labor to continue the same as at present. Even the colonies 

 which this class would every year send forth in quest of new cottages might be supplied 

 for a time ; and though the wages of labor must sink very fast, still this premium might 

 enable the laborers to multiply with little interruption for several generations. At last, 

 however, the multiplication of cottage-farms must necessarily stop, and a great propor- 

 tion of the people, without land and without the means of employment, would either 

 sink into helpless misery, or be driven by despair to the commission of every species of 

 enormity. Such was the state of England at the breaking up of the feudal system, the 

 policy of which also was to increase the number of the people, without regard to the 

 means of their employment ; and such, though in a much less degree, is the present state of 

 those parts of the united kingdom in which cottage-farms are the most prevalent. The 

 whole question, we think, is capable of being most satisfactorily decided, by an appeal 

 to the plain mercantile criterion of rent. If a hundred laborers, each of them possess- 

 ing four acr^s, can pay a higher rent than one farmer can pay for the whole four 

 hundred, buildings, fences, and repairs being estimated, we can see no reason why they 

 should not be preferred ; but if this be not the case, we are greatly at a loss to conceive 

 with what justice landholders can be called upon to submit to sacrifices which no other 

 class of the community is ever expected to make. We might, with just as much reason 

 and justice, require a manufacturer to employ a certain number of hands in proportion to 

 the amount of his capital, however unprofitable to him might be their labor. 



3841. There are two sorts of cottages occupied by two distinct classes of laborers in all 

 our best agricultural counties. Of the first sort are the small agricultural villages, where 

 those mechanics and other laborers reside, who could not find full employment on any 

 one farm. To such men small farms are advantageous, or otherwise, according to the 

 nature and the constancy of their employment. The other class of cottagers, to which we 

 have already alluded, are ploughmen and other servants employed throughout the year on 

 a particular farm. To these men small possessions of land are almost as unsuitable as 

 they would be to a country gentleman's domestics. But a small garden is usually 

 attached to each cottage ; and they are also allowed to keep a cow, as part of their 

 wages not upon any particular spot of their own, but along with their master's cows. 

 Their fuel is carried home by their masters' teams, and a part of his own field, ready 

 dressed, is assigned them for raising potatoes, flax, or other crops for their families. 

 Thus, with little risk from the seasons or markets, and without any other demand on 

 their time than a few leisure hours will satisfy, these people enjoy all the advantages 

 which the occupancy of land can confer on a laborer. And there is not a more useful, 

 we may also add, a more comfortable body of men among the industrious classes of 

 society. To give this class of laborers four acres of land, along with every cottage, 

 would be to render them bad servants, and worse farmers; and either a nuisance to the 

 person on whase farm they reside, or his abject dependants for employment. The only 

 proper residence for men who do not choose to engage, or are not wanted, as constant 

 laborers, is in such central agricultural villages as we have just mentioned, and not on 

 separate farms, where they are excluded from the general market for labor. 



3842. Of all the witnesses examined before the late committees of jmrliament on the corn 

 laws, there is only one whose sentiments are opposed to the general feeling of all well 

 informed men, regarding the advantages that have resulted from the enlargement of 



.farms. We siiall, therefore, content ourselves with noticing what appears to be the 

 natural progress in the size of farms ; the circumstances wliich prevent any possible ea-* 



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