268 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS 



The Aylestone solution of the problem here presented 

 is : The co-operative tenancy, under the most econo- 

 mical conditions, of allotments which will (i) give a 

 factory worker healthy recreation ; (2) enable him to 

 supplement wages and decrease household expenses by 

 the production of fruit and vegetables, which will, at 

 the same time, give his family a better food-supply than 

 would otherwise be possible ; (3) afford him an oppor- 

 tunity, while still engaged in a factory, of gaining such 

 experience of, and acquiring such taste for, market- 

 gardening work that, when the factory failed him, he 

 would still be able to contribute to the support of his 

 family, if not keep them and himself altogether, by 

 becoming a market-gardener, instead of having to 

 depend on such odd jobs as he might be able to pick 

 up as one of the unemployed. 



The essence of the Aylestone idea is, in fact, ' Don't 

 wait until you have been scrap-heaped. Prepare for 

 another possible vocation while you still get in the 

 factory such work as you can. Secure your allotment 

 at once, and regard it as a preparatory school for a 

 possible small holding. Spend your evenings and your 

 Saturday afternoons there instead of in the public- 

 house. Let your family have from your own garden 

 vegetables fresher in quality and far more abundant in 

 quantity than you would be likely to buy from green- 

 grocer or street-hawker. If you keep your work in the 

 factory you will still gain from your allotment. If you 

 lose your factory work, or become weary of it, why, 

 you will have something else to fall back on.' 



On the soundness of these propositions there is no 

 need for me to enlarge; but there is much that is interest- 

 ing in the details respecting the particular form of their 

 application at Aylestone, and especially in the resort 

 there to co-operative principles in regard to tenancy. 



