Fortunes for Farmers 



This is the more interesting as it bears out our 

 ideas on the rural labourer. He is the best small 

 holder, and the more easily he can obtain a few 

 acres, the better all round. The ideal system was 

 the ancient one when the land of England be- 

 longed to the people, and each villager cultivated 

 a share. This is not a Socialist's dream, it is history 

 of olden times and incidentally what happens in 

 parts of Russia to-day. Later when England became 

 more settled there was a large area of common 

 land left around every village which belonged to 

 the people, so that they had a free small holding 

 or free pasturage for their poultry, or geese, or 

 pigs. This was their mainstay and salvation, and 

 during that period England was at her happiest — 

 in fact she was known as Merry England. 



In those days the villagers had regular sports 

 on the village greens, mostly on Sundays, when 

 they met for games, archery competitions, bowl- 

 ing, wrestling, fencing, racing, dog fighting, and 

 dancing. They danced and sang and played, old 

 as well as young, and if you look at a picture of 

 that period such as a Maypole or Morris Dance 

 you see that the artist has shown them all merry 

 and jolly. But you do not see the labourers and 

 their wives dancing nowadays; there are no more 

 general festivities of the common people; the 

 grown ups do not laugh and sing at their work 



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