14-s5 Cottage Husbandry and Architecture. 



comfort is by far the best security for prudent conduct in the passing 

 generation *, not only of the poor, but even of those who are better off; and, 

 for that generation which is in progress, our safeguard is comfort joined to 

 high and equal education. (See Parochial Institutions, &c, Gard. Mag., 

 vol. v. p. 692.) 



Having shown the necessity and advantage of attaching land to all cot- 

 tages whatever, we shall next endeavour to ascertain what quantity ought 

 to & be attached. For this purpose we shall first enumerate the different 

 objects to which the land may be applied, and we think these for the de- 

 pendent or labouring cottager may be reduced to the first four following, 

 and for the independent or proprietor cottager to the succeeding three. 



1. To supply the cottager's family, including pigs and poultry, with vege- 

 tables and potatoes. 



2. To supply the cottager's family, including pigs and poultry, with vege- 

 tables, potatoes, and faggots for his oven. 



3. With vegetables, potatoes, fuel, and barley for his malt. 



4. With vegetables, potatoes, fuel, barley for his malt, and the keep of 

 a cow. 



5. With vegetables, potatoes, fuel, barley for his malt, the keep of a cow, 

 and bread corn. 



6. With vegetables, malt, a cow, and bread corn. 



7. With vegetables, malt, a cow, bread corn, and mangold wurzel for his 

 sugar and spirits ; fruit trees and vines for his cider, perry, and wine ; tea 

 and coffee, or substitutes for these articles ; tobacco, opium, and the ordi- 

 nary family medicines. 



8. All these objects, with flax or hemp for his linen, and wool for stock- 

 ings, flannel, and upper clothing. 



On the last three objects we shall for the present say little, as they are 

 not so applicable to this country as to other countries less advanced in the 

 division of labour ; and especially as they would entail on the cottager 

 labour which might interfere with his regular employment, instead of 

 recreative labour to be performed in his mornings and evenings. The first 

 four objects may all be attained by the labour of any able-bodied man with 

 the occasional assistance of his wife and children, in hours which would be 

 otherwise spent unproductively, or perhaps viciously. 



1. For the first object it seems to be allowed by almost all the writers on 

 the cottage system that one rood is the average quantity that will suffice. 

 It has been shown by some of our prize competitors that less will do ; but 

 this proceeds on the supposition that every process succeeds and produces 

 a full crop, which is never the case in even the best-cultivated gardens. 

 There may be cases, however, as in those of yearly farm-servants, in which 

 the potatoes are grown by the farmer, and in that case the quantity of land 

 may be reduced we think one-half, i. e. to 20 rods, f 



2. and 3. For the second and thud objects, that is the whole or a part 



* " The idea that a certain degree of comfort causes an increase of 

 population is visionary ; to prove the fallacy of it, we need only look at the 

 numerous progeny of our half-starved labourers ; and to compare it with 

 the progeny of those who spend more for a dinner and wine on a market- 

 day than they give to support the family of a labourer for a week ; some of 

 whom have not even a child to inherit their property." {A Peasant's Voice, 

 $c, p. 19.) 



\ John Denson is decidedly of opinion that no cottage ought to have 

 less than an acre, because less than that quantity, he says, will be insuffi- 

 cient to employ the labourer and his family during leisure hours. (A Pea- 

 sant's Voice, p. 25.) 



