Tlie Allotment System. 
99 
Mr. Tretliewy, the agent over the Earl de Grey's estate, read a 
paper last November before the Central Fanner's Club, on the 
uses and abuses of the allotment system, and adduced the history 
of Lord de Grey's allotments as his principal illustration. He 
declared it as his opinion, the result of a large experience, that 
the subject involved the comfort and prosperity of the occupier 
quite as much as of the owner of the land or of the labourer. 
" Any system having a tendency to elevate the moral character 
of the labourer and improve his condition must be worthy of 
encouragement by the farmer." Mr. Trethewy alluded to the 
special fitness of this system where labourers live in villages 
and where sufficient garden-ground cannot be obtained adjoining 
to the cottages. In choosing a field near the village, for the 
purpose of allotments, he says : — " The nature more than the 
quality of the soil should be considered, for it is astonishing how 
much poor thin land is improvable by spade husbandry, while 
strong and heavy clays are wholly unfit for the purpose of allot- 
ments, no matter how well they may be drained." 
The following are his very sensible remarks on the importance 
of confining the allotments to a manageable extent of mere 
garden ground : — 
" My experience convinces me that a rood is sufficient under almost any 
circumstances ; and the greatest en'or that has heen committed has been the 
allotting of too much land to one individual. To dwell upon the evils arising 
from such a proceeding is scarcely necessary, as it must be obvious that with- 
out sufficient capital the occupation of land cannot be attended with profitable 
results. Some instances in confirmation of this view have come under my 
own observation, and I can confidently assert that, instead of the position of 
such men having improved, it has retrograded. Occupied nearly the whole 
of their time upon their own land, they can no longer be classed under the 
head of labourers, and they actually injure regular workmen by throwing their 
labour into the market at seasons of the year when the demand for it is im- 
usually depressed. If it be argued that the restriction of the system woidd 
have the effect of preventing a labourer from improving his condition, and 
eflfectually debar him from rising in the world by his own industry, I would 
answer that I am not now discussing the relative advantages of large and small 
farms, but am confining myself to the agricultural labourer in the broad accep- 
tation of the term. Every employer knows, and every man of common sense 
must feel, that it is as important to the farmer to have his regular men at work 
at all times, as it is to the manufacturer or tradesman, and that the business of 
the farm could not be carried on without such regiilarity. I regard it, then, 
as a fatal error for the labourer to follow any pursuit that would at all inter- 
fere with the claim of his employer upon him ; for, be it remembered, that it 
is upon liireA labour that the working man must chiefly depend for his sub- 
sistence ; and any scheme that has a tendency to interfere with this his chief 
capital, must very shortly end in disappointment and distress." 
The Silsoe allotments date from the enactment of the new 
Poor Law, and the early promoters of the scheme were driven to 
it by the pressure of the poor's rates. The improvement in the 
condition of the labourer there and elsewhere is, no doubt, partlv 
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