COTTAGES AND RENTS. 43 



and nasty cottage soon gets out of repair, and the 

 owners being unwilling or unable to spend much on 

 them, it is no wonder they comparatively soon get into 

 a disreputable condition. Good landowners often prefer 

 to keep their cottages in their own hands ; but the 

 firmer-tenants frequently stipulate to have the letting 

 of some of them, especially for their carters and cattle- 

 men. It is somel lines customary to call the landowner's 

 houses " free rot luges," whilst those let by the farmer 

 BK styled "tied cottages." 



Not infrequently, very good cottages are built upon a 

 Inr.e estate, and " thrown in," or included in the rent 

 without especial calculation of their additional value, 

 in order to obtain a superior class of tenant. Some- 

 times a feeling of pride in an estate will lead to more 

 money being spent on peasant dwellings than is at all 

 likely to be remunerative ; and occasionally a rich 

 owner may be a philanthropist, and desire to do his best 



ii respective of cost to himself to promote the health- 

 fulness, morality, and general well-being of his tenants' 

 labourers. 



When the farmer has the disposition of a number of 

 cottages, it is really to his advantage, and in order to 

 attract the best kind of labourers, to let them at low 

 rents. But this, in the past, has been by no means the 

 i n!< some of the very worst descriptions of rack-rented 

 dwellings belonging to the farmers. 



The question of the amount of rent ordinarily paid 

 in tli- I ii! lish counties for farm labourers' cottages is 

 an interesting one, and the average amounts have been 

 asm lained by the Board of Trade, as the result of 

 nsive inquiries made of Rural District Councils, 

 la i mers, land-agents, landowners, and of a large number 

 ol agricultural correspondents. The questions put for 

 answer were : First, the highest rents ; second, the 

 lowest rents ; third, the rents most usually paid by 

 farm labourers in the districts where inquiry was made ; 



