November 23, 1S71. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



391 







WEEKLY 



CALENDAR, 















Day 



Day 





Average Tempera- 



Rain in 



Sun 



Son 



Moon 



Moon 



Moon's 



Clock 



Day 



Month 



Week. 



NOVEMBER 23—29, 1871. 



ture near London. 



43 years. 



Rises. 



Sets. 



Rises. 



S3tS, 



Age. 



Sun. 



Year. 









Day. 



Nieht. 



Mean. 



Days. 



m. h. 1 m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



Dava. 



m. a. 





23 



Th 





47.6 



34.2 



40.9 



18 



S3 af7 



3af4 



Oaf 3 



7af 3 



11 



13 29 



327 



24 



P 





47.4 



31.7 



39.5 



14 



34 7 



4 



17 3 



18 4 



12 



13 12 



328 



25 



S 



Law Michaelmas Term ends. 



48.4 



S3.7 



40.0 



22 



36 7 



58 3 



34 8 



28 5 



13 



12 55 



329 



26 



SnN 



25 Sunday after Trinity. 



47.2 



82.9 



40.0 



23 



87 7 



57 8 



57 3 



39 6 



14 



12 36 



830 



27 



M 



Princess Mary of Teck Boen, ISSS. 



47.0 



83.6 



40.3 



20 



89 7 



56 3 



22 4 



47 7 



O 



12 17 



831 



29 



Tn 



Length of Night 15h. 45m. 



48.1 



33.9 



41.0 



22 



40 7 



B5 3 



B5 4 



53 8 



16 



11 57 



332 



29 



W 





61.3 



33.8 



42.5 



20 



42 7 



55 3 



35 5 



53 9 



17 



11 36 



883 



Prom obaervations taken near London during fortv-thres years, the average day temperature of the week is 47.9° 



, and its 



night tem- 



peratm-e 38.4'. The greatest heat was 62", on the 25th, 1863 ; and the lowest cold 9', on the 25th, 1858. The greatest fall 



of rain was 



1.21 inch. 







SMALL FARMS— HOW THEY CAN BE MADE 



TO ANSWER.— No. 1. 



By Sev. William Lea, Vicar of St. Peter's, Droitwich, and 



Hon. Canon of Worcester. 



[We most emphatically ask for our readers' attention to 

 the series of communications of which the following is the 

 first ; we ask for such'an attention as will result in aiding 

 to realise the writer's convictions — convictions the results 

 of experience. We are emphatic in our advocacy, because 

 our own observations and our own experience quite coin- 

 cide with those of the writer. His position and known 

 character are guarantees of his sincerity, truthfulness, and 

 singleness of purpose, and that purpose is connected inti- 

 mately with the internal peace and prosperity of our native 

 islands. Political advocacy has no abiding place in our 

 columns, but the consequences of the gradual annihilation 

 of small farms have long rivetted our attention, and been 

 a theme of regret. Most justly did the Patriarch deprecate 

 as the worst of visitations the " washing away the things 

 which grow out of the dust of the earth, and the destroy- 

 ing of the hope of man," and such a washing away and 

 such a destroying of hope are results from the entire 

 expunging of small farms. " I am emigrating because I 

 cannot win from being a labourer here " — " I leave because 

 the squire has added my bit of land to the Home farm " — 

 were replies from two of the steadiest men in one parish. 

 On a property with which we are acquainted there are 

 three small holdings varying from twenty to forty acres 

 each. These are models of good cultivation and domestic 

 comfort. They serve as nurseries for a superior class of 

 household servants and farm bailiffs, and as fast as these 

 attain the necessary age they are eagerly sought after. If 

 once the country is cleared of such tenancies as these, we 

 shaU lose a valuable element in om- social scale. — Eds.] 



HE very title of these papers may sound 

 paradoxical. Political economists have long 

 decided that small farms will not answer, 

 and apparently they are right ; for, as while 

 small farms have disappeared from the mid- 

 land counties years ago, there were in most 

 parishes and properties several small takings 

 of from five to ten or even twenty acres each — 

 some of them were freeholds, others were 

 rented — but in the present day few such are 

 to be found. The freeholds have been bought up by the 

 neighbouring proprietor, and, with his own small takings, 

 added to the adjoining large farm, and in consequence a 

 distinct class has disappeared from the social scale, a 

 class which held an intermediate position between the 

 labourer and the farmer : and the question I would ask my 

 readers to consider is. Whether the country has not sus- 



No. 556.— Vol. XXL, New Series. 



tained a loss both socially and morally by the extinction of 

 this particular class ? and if so, whether it may not be to 

 some extent restored ? 



In all our country districts we have now as a rule three 

 distinct grades of society, separated from each other by 

 sharp lines of demarcation — the landed proprietor, the 

 large tenant farmer, and the labourer ; and the objection 

 to this state of things to my miud is this : the farmer 

 may rise to be a landowner, but the labourer is stereo- 

 typed in bis own present condition without any oppor- 

 tunity of rising in his own walk in life. It is different 

 in every other occupation. The boy who goes into a shop 

 or warehouse may look forward to be a master himself. 

 The mason may become a builder, the carpenter an em- 

 ployer of labour, his children may in future rise to the 

 highest ofi&ces of Church and State, for the Endowed 

 Schools' Commission have now made a ladder of steps 

 from the national school to the middle school, from the 

 middle to the higher school, and from thence to the Uni- 

 versities, by which any boy, whom God has endowed with 

 natural gifts and powers, may ascend. The agricultural 

 labourer now stands alone in this respect, without any 

 opportunity of rising in his own profession of cultivating 

 the land. Suppose that by diligence and thrift he has been 

 able to lay by money, it would be impossible for him to 

 lay by enough to enter upon a farm of the extent of which 

 farms are now. He might be able to take, to begin with, 

 ten or twenty acres, and then by thrift to pass on to some- 

 thing more, and leave his son in a position to take some- 

 thing larger still ; but, in the present day, there are no such 

 small iarms to be bad. Hence there is nothing but emigra- 

 tion either to some town district or to some distant colony — 

 emigration from the parish in which his fathers have 

 tilled the land for generations — for the labourer, who has 

 the will and the power to rise : and hence it is that our 

 country parishes lose year by year the stoutest and thriftiest 

 and most intelligent of their men, the very pith of their 

 population. If it were on this ground only, if it were onlj' to 

 retain the best of the men in their native parishes, I think 

 it would be the interest of all landed proprietors to keep 

 a few small holdings on their properties to bridge over 

 the gulf between the labourer and farmer, and to serve 

 as inducements to such men to remain, in the hope of one 

 day rising into the condition of farmers themselves. 



But when I advocate small farms, I do not mean that 

 all the country should be cut-up into little holdings as it 

 is in some parts of France and Belgium. The line so often 

 quoted on this subject — 



" When every rood of land maintained its man" — 

 is a mere poetical figure of speech. All I recommend is 

 that there should be a sufficient number of them to serve 

 as stepping-stones for the best of the agricultural labourers, 

 and as inducements to tlirift and industry, which are 

 sadly needed in these days of increasing pauperism, and 

 decreasing self-respect and independence in the true sense 

 of the word. If in every thousand acres, fifty or even 

 twenty acres were let in small holdings it would probably 

 meet the case ; and as land will bring a higher rent in 

 small quantities than in large, this would, to some extent, 

 No. 1208.— Vol. XLVI., Old Series. 



