98 Cottages and Cottage Gardens, 



one, every morning, and set down on a bench, under a shed, or, when the 

 weather is fine, in the sun, where they remain, almost in a state of torpor, 

 being unable to help themselves, and having no one to attend to them, till 

 they are led or carried, one by one, back again, at the time appointed for 

 their next meal. What a picture of human desolation ! If, instead of 

 being placed upon benches, with nothing to gaze at but a brick wall, these 

 persons were led into a garden, where they could see numbers of their fel- 

 low inmates at work, breathe the fresh air, see and smell the flowers, and 

 hear the birds and other rural sounds, their miserable lot would have some 

 little alleviation. A number of them could perhaps assist in some of the 

 lighter garden operations ; the most infirm could scare away birds, or pre- 

 pare gooseberries, and shell legumes for the kitchen. This might enable 

 them to measure their time as it passes, and would afford some kind of 

 amusement to divert their minds from incessantly dwelling on their own 

 forlorn and hopeless situation. Is it too much to say that something would 

 be gained for the happiness of the human kind, if all men were agreed that, 

 wherever there was a habitation, whether for an individual family, or for a 

 number of persons, strangers to each other, such as hospitals, workhouses, 

 prisons, asylums, infirmaries, and even barracks, there should be a garden. 

 In our opinion, a dwelling without a garden ought not to exist. 



At Aylesbury, Chester, Lancaster, and some other places, we found gar- 

 dens of more or less extent attached to the prisons, in which the prisoners 

 were allowed to work, in some cases as a recreation, and in others as 

 labourers for the governor of the prison. We found the gardens in excel- 

 lent order, with abundant crops of useful vegetables, or richly ornamented 

 with flowers, and we were informed that the prisoners were much human- 

 ised by their culture. We have no doubt that, as a means of prison edu- 

 cation, gardens might be turned to good account by humane and pains- 

 taking governors and gaolers • and we could wish they were appended to 

 every gaol and penitentiary. 



To the large County Lunatic Asylum, near Lancaster, which we visited 

 on the 9th of July, 1831, there is a garden of several acres attached, and 

 we were informed that many of the inmates took delight, some in cultivat- 

 ing particular spots as their own gardens, which were pointed out to us, and 

 others in assisting in the general operations of the garden. In the private 

 Lunatic Asylum of Spring Vale, near Stone, so admirably managed by Mr. 

 Bakewell, the operations of gardening and farming are made to serve as 

 exercises and recreations for several of the invalids. From what we were 

 informed by Mi*. Bakewell, we are led to consider a garden as even a more 

 important appendage to an establishment of this kind than it is to a 

 workhouse or a prison. 



With respect to cottages, we are extremely anxious to bring into prac- 

 tical use the two inventions of Mr. Frost before mentioned (p. 60.), by 

 which fire-proof cottages, of endless duration, and warmer than those of 

 either brick or wood, might be constructed, we believe, at the ordinary 

 expense. We wish much that some individual, who has a few hundred 

 pounds to spare, and a suitable situation for a few cottages, would take 

 Mr. Frost by the hand, and show what can be done by his inventions. One 

 great advantage of his cement and tubes is, that they are of easy transport; 

 and we are persuaded that, if their application were once fairly understood 

 they would be much in demand for the West Indies, North America, and 

 Australia. These inventions are even still better adapted for town-houses 

 than for cottages, the former being so much more liable to fire. The 

 great impediment is, that this mode of building is at variance with the in- 

 terest of timber merchants, carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, paviors, and 

 slaters : no small proof of the importance of the invention. 



The Letting of Land to Labourers in Suffolk and in Cambridgeshire. — Sir, 

 The remarks in your last Number (Vol. VII. p. 706 — 709.) on cottage gar- 

 dens and gardening have considerably interested me • and, had I leisure, I 



