16 THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF 



who have no experience of the country or 

 of any rural occupation. Of one fact we 

 are assured — that the rural labourer, with 

 very few exceptions, is not the man who 

 will occupy land, allotments excepted, either 

 under the hire or the purchase system, 

 except in a few particular districts ; but that 

 the man who really needs it is the country- 

 bred townsman, who has never lost his 

 attachment to the farm, and who has 

 acquired sufficient business experience to 

 enable him to combine with the labour 

 of cultivation the capacity to sell his 

 produce. 



Our own ideal of a Small Holding colony 

 or garden village is a compact and not too 

 expensive property, situated in a district in 

 which agriculture is not highly prosperous, 

 and in which the population chiefly depend 

 for their food upon foreign produce. The 

 land should be of a substantial character, 

 well supplied with water, adjacent to the 

 village, church, chapel, and school; drained; 

 its fields conveniently divided by fences and 

 ditches, and all accessible from good roads. 

 The houses should be at once substantial, 

 simple, artistic — for most men take a pride 

 in a prettily constructed home — and con- 



