36 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



Worcestershire. Free cottages are given in the north, 

 and in some of the western counties. 



In the following notes Mr. Fox confirms statements 

 which we make elsewhere. He remarks : 



" Potato ground is given in some counties, but more 

 frequently it is let at a cheap rent " (we show in the Ap- 

 pendix, by more than one example, that the rent paid by 

 the labourer is by no means ' cheap '). " Sometimes the 

 employer does the ploughing, tilling, and manuring, the 

 labourer finding and putting in the seed and taking up 

 the potatoes, but the precise arrangements vary in different 

 districts. In some counties a certain allowance of potatoes 

 is given. In Northumberland, Durham, and parts of the 

 North Riding of Yorkshire, in addition to free cottages, 

 coals carted free, and straw for pigs, either about one thousand 

 or one thousand two hundred yards of planted potato 

 drill is given, or an allowance of about half a ton of potatoes 

 per annum. In Northumberland, farmers sometimes keep 

 a cow for a man for about three shillings a week all the year 

 round if he wishes it. In the winter the farmer agrees to 

 give it about two loads of hay or five cwt. of cake. If a man 

 cannot afford to buy a cow, the farmer will sometimes ' put 

 one on ' for him, that is, he buys one himself ; but this 

 custom is getting a rare one. In parts of Cheshire, a number 

 of the cottages have two or three acres of land, chiefly 

 pasture, attached. Some of them have as much as six or 

 seven acres. The men are thus able to keep cows and pigs. 

 A good many landowners have a number of these small 

 holdings on their properties, which are let out at moderate 

 rents. In certain other counties cow pastures are let at 

 low rents to labourers by some of the landowners.*' 



A hard and fast line cannot be laid round the counties 

 where allowances in kind are mostly prevalent ; but it 

 may be stated in a general way that the custom is favoured 

 in Cornwall, Cumberland, Devon, Dorset, Durham, 

 Gloucester, Hants, Hereford, Lancaster, Northumber- 

 land, Shropshire, Somerset, Stafford, Wilts, and the 

 North Riding of Yorkshire ; and, with exceptions, it is 

 not the custom in the following counties : Bedford, 

 Berks, Bucks, Cambridge, Chester, Hertford, Hunting- 

 don, Kent, Lincoln, Norfolk, Northampton, Oxford, 

 Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, and the East Riding of York- 

 shire. It is curious to note that one county, Yorkshire, 

 should be divided so far as this custom is concerned. 



