530 On Gardens far 



quantity, I am persuaded that a labouring man in full em- 

 ployment cannot cultivate land with any profit to himself, if 

 it obliges him to " lose time," as they term it ; and this is the 

 opinion of all the sensible persons among the working classes 

 whom I have spoken with upon the subject A man, there- 

 fore, who is in constant work, should have a less portion of 

 garden ground than one whose time is not fully occupied ; 

 and, in most parishes, there are generally many persons of the 

 latter description, who stand most in need of the assistance of 

 a piece of land. In the county of Wilts the labourers may 

 be divided into three classes. In the first place, there are 

 men employed the whole year by one master ; such as 

 carters, shepherds, and threshers, or day labourers. Of 

 these, the carters and shepherds have very little spare time, 

 especially in the spring. A large garden would, therefore, be 

 an inconvenience to such men, and moreover unprofitable, 

 inasmuch as they must hire assistance, or else cultivate their 

 ground very imperfectly. Again, there is a class of men 

 employed as thatchers and hedgers, or general workers in 

 wood, who are not always engaged by one master ; conse- 

 quently they have, occasionally, much unemployed time, 

 which would enable them to cultivate more land than the 

 carters and shepherds. And, lastly, there is a class of 

 labourers who generally work by the piece at turnip-hoeing 

 and bean-setting, and other jobs of that kind; these men, 

 from the nature of their employment, must be frequently out 

 of work, and consequently would have leisure to cultivate, 

 and would indeed require, a larger garden than the two former 

 classes. In apportioning land, therefore, to a labourer, the 

 first thing to be considered is, how much leisure time he 

 has over his regular employment; always bearing in mind 

 that regular employment with a master is the most profitable 

 occupation to a working man. The next thing to be con- 

 sidered is, how much can he manure; for the land would 

 very soon become unprofitable to him, if cropped yearly with 

 potatoes for instance, unless it has the assistance of manure. 

 Now, a clever managing person, who is enabled to grow as 

 many potatoes as would assist in feeding a couple of pigs, 

 and who collects carefully all the refuse of his garden, the 

 produce of his sinkhole and ditches, and what he can pick 

 up on the roads, would, with his wood ashes, raise a consider- 

 able compost heap in the course of twelve months. The 

 question is, would he raise nearly enough to cover half his 

 land every year ? If he did not, he has more land than he can 

 profitably cultivate, and therefore more than he ought to 

 occupy. In judging, then, as to the quantity of land that a 



