Cow-Keeping by Farm Labourers. 
517 
Fig. 2. — Elevations and Plans of Outbuildings to Cottages on the Estate 
of Mr. J. D. Allcroft. 
HftY 
H 
CALTSKIT ' 
YARD 
SHED 
o 
employment. In the case of a man keeping one cow, he does 
not require a distinct dairy, but having a good cool pantry 
manages thus very well." 
Mr. T. C. Thompson, of Ashdown Park, Forest Row, Sussex, 
who has given great attention to the subject of the labourer on 
his estate, replies to my queries that milk is necessary and 
almost impossible to get. The labourers have almost ceased to 
use it. Mr. Thompson doubts whether they now esteem it 
sufficiently to buy it if they had the opportunity. Farm labourers 
have been seriously injured, he thinks, by the absorption of 
common lands, a process which is still going on in Mr. Thomp- 
son's immediate neighbourhood, where Ashdown Forest (which 
I remember a common for thirty years past) is being turned into 
a game-covert. 
Mr. Thompson observes of the quality of the butter that it 
depends very much on cleanliness, which depends in great 
measure on the kind of dwelling the labourer occupies. His 
reply to query 10 is, " This depends entirely on the dairy-woman. 
A want of cleanliness is a common fault of the peasantry of this 
immediate neighbourhood. Their houses are very often unfit 
for human habitation." The reply to query 14 is, " I have 
found by experience that nothing tends to keep a man away 
from the public-house so much as the possession of property. 
Even one cow — a man's own — gives him an interest more power- 
ful than lectures, sermons, or concerts." 
Mr. Thompson, accordingly, has enabled his farm labourers 
to keep cows, and has built for them capital cottages. As 
