Cow-Keeping hy Farm Labourers. 
519 
favoured me with a statement in which he remarks that the 
acquisition of a cow by a farm labourer may be " the first step 
on the ladder of thrift." Cows, he says, should be kept by the 
men if they can save money to buy a cow and bear the risk of 
its death. He has, in a few cases, let out cows by the week, the 
price depending on the number of quarts of milk yielded by 
them, the hirer paying on an average about 2>s. 6rf. or 4a'. a week 
per cow, including the keep of the cow. A cow may be returned 
when it ceases to pay the hirer, but without any pledge that 
another cow will be supplied unless it be convenient. The cow 
runs in a park. The man has to buy further winter food if he 
wants it. He is encouraged to grow cabbages and roots for 
winter consumption, hay being an expensive food in the district. 
In some other cases Sir T. Acland has allowed the run of a 
cow in a park, or on open ground or on rough pasture in a wood, 
to a gardener or a trustworthy woodsman or drainer. This has led 
in one case to the man saving money and, on being in a position 
to rent 3 or 4 acres of land and to keep more than one cow, selling 
milk to the neighbouring hamlet, or making butter for the market. 
One or two of Sir T. Acland's tenants let their foremen have 
the milk of a cow as part of their earnings. 
Sir Baldvvyn Leighton, Bart., M.P., whose father established 
an elaborate system of " small takes " on his estate at Loton 
Park, Shrewsbury, replies to my queries to the effect that the 
cow should be kept hy the labourer, not /or him. On his estate, 
from 2 to 4 acres of pasture adjoining the cottage are allotted to 
the labourer for that purpose, and both are hired of the owner of 
the land. The skim milk is consumed at home ; the butter is sold. 
The cost of the cow-house which is necessary to enable the 
cottager to keep a cow has been from lOZ. to Ibl. ; or less when 
the labourer has himself erected it. The land for the cow should 
be regarded as a prize for thrifty workmen who have saved 
money. Sir Baldwyn has been good enough to send me his paper 
read before the Social Science Congress at Plymouth, in 1872, 
to which he has referred me for replies to some of the queries I 
had addressed to him. He there states that pauperism had been 
virtually exterminated in a certain district where, for forty years 
past, the interests of the labourers had been intelligently cared 
lor, more especially by selecting the most thrifty to hold small 
plots of land where they could keep a cow. " It would be 
incredible," Sir Baldwyn Leighton observes, " to some of those 
who have never offered to the labourers a means of rising by 
holding land, to see the way in which men will slave and save 
to obtain these small prizes ; and the amount of self-respect, 
education, and comfort which their acquisition, wisely conceded, 
will produce." 
