and Gardens to WorJchouses, Sj-c. 377 



the best and most useful crop, you are aware, cannot be planted year after 

 year on the same ground. Land should be laid down, and be in repose, at 

 times, unless it is a garden well manured ; and how is that to be supplied 

 to the labourer ? The ashes, the manure of the pigsty, and other et ccetera, 

 which the labourer could heap together, would be too trifling. Cabbages, 

 onions, &c., are such things as the little garden, whicii every man should 

 have about his cottage, would give him ; though how seldom is it used for 

 such purposes ! lu France the peasantry have commonly a pot on the 

 fire, with a pound or more of meat in it, with cabbages, turnips, onions, 

 and other herbs, making an excellent pottage for a numerous family. Such 

 is not the mode of living of our peasantry, and more particularly in this 

 part of Wales ; for, from habit, they prefer butter-milk and potatoes, and 

 butter and barley bread, to meat. I state to you, from my own knowledge, 

 that butter is considered by the labourers here almost an essential j and 

 that, when good meat was threepence a pound, few purchased it, paying 

 rather a shilling a pound for butter. Whether there is a prejudice against, 

 or a supposed degradation in the poor living upon, brotli, I cannot say j 

 but I have seen and eaten charitable soups, which the poor have scarcely 

 been willing to take. I cannot but think, that, by giving a man labour 

 the year round, his time or wages would be more valuable to him than 

 the acre of land; but for poor-houses, lunatic asylums, and prisons to 

 have lands attached to them, I am clearly of opinion would be a great 

 benefit in many ways. 



I have followed a system here, whether of profit or loss I do not stop to 

 enquire, which is as follows, and which appears to me as good a method 

 of giving a helping hand to my labourers and poor neighbours as any I 

 have heard of being practised : — 



My farm is about 230 acres, and every year I plough and prepare a large 

 field for potato ground, inviting all to plant in it who choose. 1 bring their 

 manure for them, leaving my bailiff to see fair play as to the quality and 

 quantity they put in the rows, so that the land may be left sound and good 

 for the wheat crop that is to follow. The peasant has but to plant the 

 potatoes, hoe them, and keep them clean ; and he is permitted to take off 

 the entire crop without any pa3'ment whatsoever. By this arrangement he 

 loses little or no time : the planting operation is soon performed ; and 

 when the ground is to be hoed the days are long, and the labourer can 

 employ himself on it during after-hours, instead of going to the beer house 

 or political shop, a rendezvous more inimical to the interests of the 

 country and the wellbeing of the poor peasant's family, than any thing that 

 has been adopted for the last half century. 



I am not one of those who think well-intentioned people act wisely in 

 extending education as it is now progressing. When labourers finish their 

 master's work, I would have them, as in times of yore, go home to their 

 wives and children ; and should like to see them save their money, instead 

 of spending it at political clubs, or card parties, or dominoes ; or wasting 

 their time in listening to, or reading, the publications that are laid before 

 them, religious, or rather anti-religious, and political. I may be asked. 

 Would you deny them luxuries and comforts, if they could afford them ? 

 No : I would let them have their beer at home ; but chattering about pro- 

 tocols, discussing new constitutions, troubling their heads with the affairs 

 of Europe, or reading the slander and calumnies too often heaped on the 

 magnates of our land, I believe to have changed the nature of our 

 peasantry, I regret to say, most materially. — H. Wales, March 8. 1832. 

 We have never recommended any definite quantity of land to be at- 

 tached to cottages : we are clear that no cottage ought to be without a 

 garden of more or less extent ; and this is as far as we can say that our 

 ideas are absolute. All the extent of ground attached to a cottage, beyond 

 such a garden as can be cultivated dmung the leisure hours of the cottager, 



