Consumption of Corn in Great Britain, Sec. 313 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Gardens, Potatoe and Cow Ground for Labourers ; Produce, arid probable Effect, 

 of such Improvement in our Rural Economy. 



That every labourer who marries, keeps house, and has a family, should have a 

 garden, sufficient to supply potatoes and other vegetables for such family, every 

 one I suppose will admit; but many friends to humanity and the comforts of the 

 poor have supposed, that the addition of potatoe ground to keep a hog, and grow 

 some wheat, would greatly improve their situation, and that the addition of cow 

 ground would futher ameliorate their circumstances, and improve the condition 

 of the labourer; but the utility and expediency of this, has been controverted by 

 others. 



Respecting this question I am of opinion, that if a small portion of land in the 

 hands of a labourer can be made equally, or more productive than in the hands of 

 a farmer, and that without depriving society of any part of the industry of such 

 labourer, his possessing it must add to the comfort and happiness of his family 

 without injury to any one ; and consequently is an addition to the comfort and 

 happiness of society. An objection has been made that by having small concerns 

 of his own he will be apt to loiter his time, and neglect the employment of others, 

 to his own loss, and that of the community ; but if extra encouragement of this 

 kind were given in emulation only to the more steady and industrious labourer, this 

 would not happen, and his family might be benefited, without the community 

 receiving any injury. 



In the Annals of Agriculture, No. 256, is an account by the late Sir William 

 Pulteney of an occupation by a Shropshire cottager, Richard Milward, who with a 

 wife and six children occupied 1 acre 10 perches of land, upon which, principally 

 by the labour of his wife, the man being employed elsewhere, was raised annually 

 15 statute bushels of wheat, and 140 bushels of potatoes, of 80 lb. to the bushel, 

 over and above the seed, and from which was supported and fatted a hog of 300 lbs. 

 weight; in this case the odd 10 perch was cultivated for garden vegetables, and 

 the acre in two divisions, wheat and potatoes alternately, half an acre each; the 

 manure raised from the hog by means of the wheat straw, and potatoe haulm, bebg 

 jufEcient to support the crops. 



VOL, v. S s 



