116 RECONSTRUCTION 



obtainable. Is it to be wondered that the 

 skilfully advertised opportunities for individual 

 effort and for individual success offered by our 

 industrial towns and by our colonies have 

 attracted the younger generations of rural 

 workers to desert their native surroundings ? 



But at Winterslow a reconstruction has 

 taken place. The introduction of a few 

 hundred pounds of capital safely invested at 

 5 per cent, has entirely changed the prospects 

 of its inhabitants. Whether a tradesman, or 

 agricultural labourer, or a civil servant, a 

 common interest lias been begotten in which 

 all directly share. The surrounding fields are 

 no longer colourless or without significance, 

 for each man returns after a day's work to a 

 field which is his own, and whose successful 

 cultivation adds materially to his income and 

 not a little to his happiness. The increase in 

 population, the solution of the cottage problem, 

 are in themselves a complete vindication of the 

 experiment. The indifferent soil and natural 

 conditions show how an acre or so of even 

 poor land is an invaluable asset to inhabitants 

 of a rural village to own and occupy and work 

 in conjunction with other employment. 



