650 Itifluence of Cottage Gardens 



of allotments being made to the extent of three and four acres, 

 and I fear these allotments will not answer in the end, if used 

 as arable, because the land will be in constant work without 

 manure. In the case of large allotments, an acre of arable 

 land is quite as much as any man can manage properly, if he 

 has any employment besides ; the remainder should only be 

 in grass, to support a cow. Upon this plan the grass and 

 arable would mutually assist each other, and might afford a 

 maintenance for a family. 



I am, Sir, yours, &c. 

 August 17. 1832. Selim. 



Art. IV. On the Influence of Cottage Gardens in promoting 

 Industry and Independence among Cottagers. By John H. 

 Moggridge, Esq. 



Sir, 

 It is a fact, the knowledge of which will not be unaccept- 

 able to those of your readers who take an interest in plans 

 for bettering the condition of the poor, that, in the village of 

 Blackwood, ripe peaches grown in a cottager's garden have 

 this season been sold at the moderate price of 8d. per dozen. 

 I need hardly say that the land producing this fruit was the 

 grower's own, that is, held under a lease for lives. In the 

 year 1817, this spot was a wilderness, and the present occu- 

 pier was one of the first adventurers in the experimental 

 colonies, founded in 1818, of which you have repeatedly 

 inserted some account in your valuable Magazine. For the 

 first settlers I cleared the ground at my own expense, and 

 some other trifling assistance was given in the beginning of 

 an undertaking then much scoffed at, and since occasionally 

 thwarted, by persons who desire to see but two classes of 

 people in the country, the rich and the poor, the master and 

 the servant, the oppressor and the oppressed. The cottager, 

 whose garden has produced several dozens of peaches this 

 year, was a rough or out-of-door carpenter, employed to put 

 up posts and rails on a farm, and to do the rough work about 

 a colliery. Before he built his house, he lived in a hovel, with 

 his wife and family, without even a garden. Since then, by 

 dint of his industry and good conduct, he has been enabled to 

 build a second and a third house, all of stone, and tiled, and 

 to bring three gardens into cultivation ; besides rearing his 

 children decently, and teaching his sons to tread in his steps. 

 He is now an old man, nearly blind, and has been unable 

 to follow his work for more than a year past : but he has a 



