and Cottage Economy. 199 



bute any thing towards such inducement. The cottager will soon learn, 

 even if he were formerly inclined to pilfer, that one pig, properly fatted, is 

 of more value to his family than ten starved ones j he will also soon learn, 

 from experience, that " Yeomen " are pretty sharp-sighted, and that, to use a 

 Scotch proverb, " it is no easy matter to take oats from geese." To the 

 uncharitable theory of the " Yeoman," and all such, I may be permitted to 

 oppose some experience, that convinces me of the tendency which the cot- 

 tage system has, to promote habits of honesty and industry ; and in doing 

 this I conceive I am only paying a just tribute to human nature. 



In a populous village of which I have long had the charge or manage- 

 ment, where all have gardens, where each family keeps a pig, and some of 

 them a cow, and where the garden and park of which I have the charge is 

 situate within a gunshot of that village, although there is much fruit 

 without the garden walls, much young wood in the plantations, and although 

 the villagers have at all times access to the park for grass, turnips, potatoes, 

 &c, which they purchase, I can say, that during these tiventy-one years 

 I have not lost a sixpence-worth of fruit, nor have I had the smallest reason 

 to complain of any depredations in the plantations or fields. Their rents 

 are most punctually paid half-yearly. The conditions of their tenure are 

 honesty, sobriety, cleanliness, and industry ; and I have only had to remove 

 one tenant for a breach of these conditions. In order to inform their minds, 

 I established a village library eighteen years ago, which, by the small sum 

 of 6d. quarterly from each member, now contains upwards of three hundred 

 volumes. To diffuse a taste for flowers and the finer vegetables, I esta- 

 blished a " Village Gardening Society," which has been productive of 

 much advantage, and which has, even to the aged, opened up new sources 

 of innocent pleasure ; in short, I treated the villagers as rational beings, 

 and I have received corresponding treatment in return. The parish school 

 being distant, they have established a subscription school in the village, 

 and there is not a child in the neighbourhood, of ten years of age, who 

 cannot read, write, and cast accounts. Such habits it may be easily infer- 

 red, save us from any thing like assessment or poor's rate. So far is the 

 cottage system from having any tendency, in my opinion, to produce dis- 

 honesty, that in all my intercourse with mankind I have found that state of 

 moderate competence which it affords, generally speaking, most favourable 

 to genuine piety, to excite a greater dread of breaking the laws of an Om- 

 niscient Being, and an humbler and steadier dependence for daily support on 

 his bounty, amongst those who had " neither poverty nor riches," than in 

 the state of that man who could " say to his soul, Soul thou hast much 

 goods laid up for many years." 



Assuming, then, that the " Cottage System " has nothing in it hostile to 

 the purest morality, I shall attempt to enquire to what extent it may be 

 carried, and endeavour to show that its general adoption would prove more 

 favourable than injurious to the " Yeoman." 



All farms, to be managed with profit, should be of such extent as to be 

 fairly wrought by one, two, or more ploughs. On black lands a pair of 

 horses, with one plough, will, or ought to, work about 40 Scots, or 50 

 English acres, arable land, in a six-course shift ; in clay lands, 10 acres 

 less : but, as I woidd wish cottage gardens chiefly to consist of what is 

 generally termed " black land," it is to this description of soils that I will 

 refer in my following remarks, keeping in mind that on clay lands spade 

 culture will be in the ratio of three to four, and the crops less certain. A 

 farm of three ploughs of black land should contain 120 Scots, or 150 Eng- 

 lish, acres. More would prevent the work from being properly performed, 

 and less would be a loss, as the farmer could not proportionally diminish 

 his annual expense of farm servants, or horses' keep. I would propose 

 that over and above such extent of ground for each plough, a breadth 

 equal to 5 per cent of arable land should in the first instance be laid off, or 



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