100 Cottages and Cottage Gardens. 



"b 



threatened to hire labourers from other parishes, and stop the labourers' 

 head-money. The price of labour at Drinkstone, for a married man, is 

 9s. per week : the rest, where there is a family, is made up from the poor's 

 rate, and receives the name of head-money. These threats have had a 

 tendency to deter some of the labourers from becoming occupiers. The 

 land is staked out, and some of it, perhaps the greater portion, is let. 

 When the labourers are convinced they have a permanent interest in the 

 land, and have got over their fears, it will all be let. Mr. Rust is not 

 only anxious that the labourers should possess land, but that they should 

 be assisted in erecting cottages upon them, free from manorial dues. 

 The rent arising from the land the labourers occupy, being left for their 

 benefit, may judiciously be expended in erecting cottages. The land is, 

 the greater part of it, good. Mr. Rust is fully disposed to do all the good 

 he can, and I have no doubt he will ultimately succeed to the utmost of 

 his sanguine expectation. 



I had not been an hour at Drinkstone before the Rev. Mr. Jones arrived 

 (to my surprise) from Pakenham. He went with us to examine the land ; 

 and we conversed with several labourers that we found working in the 

 field, to whom I was introduced as a friend to, and one that had had much 

 practice in, cottage allotments. One man has been in possession, for some 

 time, of about two acres, near his cottage ; it was very foul when he took 

 it ; he was getting in his wheat. I could not perceive either a biennial or 

 perennial weed in his allotment: he has a large family; is as cheerful as 

 a black-cap ; and does not receive head-money. Nearly all we saw were 

 invited to come to Mr. Rust's in the evening, where, after conversing with 

 them, they were ordered to go and make themselves comfortable in the 

 kitchen. Mr. Jones requested that I would spend a day or two with him., 

 and see what had been done at Pakenham. He came over for me the 

 next day to Mr. Rust's. I shall ever entertain a grateful sense of Mr. 

 Rust's and Mr. Jones's kindness to me, to merit which I had not done 

 anything but eat and drink; for both these gentlemen are so well ac- 

 quainted with the system, and enter so heartily into it, that they stood 

 in no need of any advice or information from me more than they had 

 received from the Peasants Voice. At Pakenham the greater part of 

 the tenants occupy acres ; their wheat crops were up, and looked beautiful ; 

 most of their land is near their cottages. Mr. Jones went with me to 

 all the allotments, introduced me to a number of the tenants, to whom 

 he said, they might thank me for the land they occupied ; for, if he had 

 not read my book, he should not have thought of letting them have it. 

 There are four allotments for cows on land which, before it was drained, 

 was but of little value ; a river runs through it, and it is drained by a tun- 

 nel made under the river, and a dike cut 3 or 4 ft. below the bottom of 

 the river, at some little distance from it. Here my plan is realised ; and 

 from the information I gained from the tenants (the wife of one of whom 

 said they had had 40 sacks of potatoes from a quarter of an acre), and 

 from nine years' observation in my own parish, I am fully confident 

 that it will realise all I have ever said in favour of the system. I feel 

 pleasure in adding, that, at Pakenham, the labourers are not pestered with 

 a long list of rules and regulations, or of conditions : they pay their rent 

 quarterly ; in every other respect they are treated the same as a person 

 occupying 100 acres. At Barton, also near Bury St. Edmunds, I hear 

 it is adopted. Mr. Jones read me a letter from a gentleman who is tra- 

 velling the country, who informs him, that, wherever the plan has been 

 tried, it has fully answered the end proposed. I left Suffolk, highly grati- 

 fied in my personal feelings, and not less so at what is doing and has 

 been done for the labourers in the above-mentioned parishes. I wish all 

 those who possess the means would imitate the praiseworthy example of 

 the above-named gentlemen. By so doing they would not only raise the 



