The Allotment Si/stem. 
97 
rivalry of this kind — whether by the award of inspectors for the 
best cultivated plots or by prizes for specimens of produce annually 
exhibited — an essential part of his management. Mr. Richard 
Westbrook Baker, of Cottesmore, near Oakham, has for many 
years paid much attention to the letting of small pieces of ground, 
not exceeding a rood, to agricultural labourers to cultivate as they 
pleased. The imperfections, however, in such lettings induced 
him, so long ago as the year 1830, to establish an allotment 
system ; to this he has adhered with great success, and now can 
show more than 200 of the best cultivated allotments in England. 
He too lias for more than a quarter of a century had an annual 
examination, and prizes are awarded in various parishes in 
Rutland in the last week in July or the first week in August. 
He appoints three gentlemen as Judges to make the awards, 
taking them round the country himself. 
The Rev. Professor Henslow has probably had more experience 
than any other person, of the effect of competition and of the 
annual exhibition of produce on the character of allotment culti- 
vation and the consequent success of the allotment system. It is 
hardly compatible with my present limits that 1 should attempt 
even a mere resume o{ the large mass of papers with which he has 
been good enough to favour me on the successive annual horti- 
cultural and allotment shows and village gathering-s of Hitcham for 
many past years. A feature of comparatively recent occurrence 
in these shows must, however, be specified. The competition, till 
lately confined to the cultivators of the immediate locality, has 
latterly been extended, and the annual report now declares the judg- 
ment of Messrs. Steel and Ramsay, of Battersea, on the onions and 
potatoes sent to them by allotment tenantry from the parishes or 
Jiamlets of Hitcham (Essex), Bramborough Pool (Cheshire), and 
Whitfield (Gloucestershire) respectively I . Rivalry, anyhow and 
with any one, is, no doubt, a great incentive to effort ; and these 
competing allottees, though in these cases so widely separated, 
doubtless benefit themselves and one another in their efforts 
to excel. The results, too, of a competition of this kind give a 
wider interest to the reports which annually emanate from 
Hitcham, so that distant parishes are brought under the influence 
of Professor Henslow's admirable example in every kind of effort 
for the well-being of a country population. Meagre as is this 
reference to the allotment system of Hitcham and the neighbour- 
ing parishes, it will, 1 hope, suffice to whet the curiositv of 
inquirers into this subject, and induce a more particular examina- 
tion of the successful management adopted there. 
The remainder of this short paper must be devoted to an 
account of the system as carried out on an enormous scale and 
under a less detailed superintendence on the estates of Earl De 
Grey in Bedfordshire. 
VOL. XX. H 
