668 
Allotments and Small Holdings. 
and Cambridge the allotments exceeding a quarter of an acre are 
uearly twice as numerous as those below that area. 
The counties showing the largest number of allotments are 
Northampton with 26,229, Wiltshire with 23,723, Leicestershire 
with 23,396, and Nottingham with 21,253. An examination of the 
details now supplied indicates that many allotments are in urban 
parishes, and presumably occupied by artisans. 
The mining counties of Durham and Glamorgan show a remark- 
able increase since 1886, their allotments appearing to have been 
more than doubled in the last four years. Large increases also 
appear in Kent and Stafford. In Devon, Essex, and Warwick 
comparatively little change is reported. In only four English 
counties is any decline apparent. In Cornwall the collectors ascribe 
the diminution as partly due to the removal of country labourers 
to more remunerative railway work. In Hereford, Northumberland, 
and the East Riding of Yorkshire, there appear to be also fewer 
allotments, some of those returned in 1886 having been improperly 
included under that title, while in other instances plots then oc- 
cupied as allotments have been required for building and other 
purposes. 
Increase in small holdings. — A comparison between the total 
number now shown of holdings not exceeding 50 acres in Great 
Britain, and the number accounted for in earlier enumerations, 
shows that the small holdings, other than allotments, appear to have 
increased as under : — 
Years Small Holdings 
1875 389,941 
1880 391,429 
] 885 392,203 
1889 409,422 
In this instance also the returns appear to show a considerably 
enhanced rate of increase in the last four years as compared with the 
ten preceding. 
General returns of 1886 and 1890 combined. — Although it has 
not been deemed possible to extend the inquiry of 1890 into the ques- 
tion of cottage gardens or the various forms of secondary allotments, 
which it was attempted to include in 1886, the imperfect data then 
collected may nevertheless be referred to in general terms as show- 
ing, along with figures now published, at all events the minimum 
number of cases in which land is held in small plots. 
To the 409,000 small holdings and 455,000 separate allotments 
now enumerated, and collectively representing 864,000 areas, it may 
be permissible to add those special allotments ascertained four years 
ago to have been granted by railway companies, and in which no 
change is believed to have occurred. If we further include the so- 
called garden allotments attached to cottages, which found a place 
in the 1886 returns, and the quoted cases, admittedly incomplete, in 
which cow-runs and potato grounds were stated to have been pro- 
vided for labourers— all points in respect of which it is generally 
recognised no diminution, at all events, has occurred since 1886-»- 
