20 Condition of the Agricultural Labourer, with 
country ; and this consideration, irrespective of the profit which 
would accrue from it if properly conducted, affords a strong reason 
for extending its cultivation.* 
4th. — To provide Cottage- Gardens. 
It is not here proposed to discuss the question of allotments, 
or what is called the allotment system, about which there are 
conflicting opinions, some contending for its advantages, whilst 
others denounce it as injurious, and as being calculated to change 
the position of the English labourer working for wages, into that 
of the Irish cottier subsisting on his modicum of land. Into this 
aintroversy I will not enter, but will merely remark, that whatever 
serves to divert the labourer from a reliance upon his daily wages 
as a means of support, must tend to derange the natural rela- 
tions between him and his employer, and will eventually prove 
injurious to both. The followmg observations will therefore be 
strictly confined to the subject of cottage gardens, which are not 
open to this objection, and with respect to which there can 
scarcely be any difference of opinion ; for that the cottager ought 
to have a garden of some sort attached to his dwelling, has, it is 
believed, never been denied. 
In a work published last year, expressly for the use of the agri- 
cultural classes, it is stated that " the possession of a quarter of an 
acre of garden-ground may, and often will, make to the labourer 
and to his family the difference between want and sufficiency, 
between privation and comfort, between a contented mind and the 
cheerful fulfilment of the duties of his station, and a mind soured, 
hardened, and dissatisfied, prepared to yield to vicious prompt- 
ings, and to rush recklessly into breaches of the law."| 
If, then, the attaching a garden to the labourer s dwelling is, 
and is generally deemed, so desirable, why, it may be asked, has 
this not been more generally done ? The only answer we can give 
is, that the omission may possibly be owing to the difficulty of so 
fixing the attention and working upon the convictions of the land- 
owners and employers of labour, as to arouse them to exertion 
with sufficient earnestness for overcoming local impediments; 
and thus it is, that this general admission of the expediency of 
providing cottage-gardens has failed of leading to the accomplish- 
ment of an object allowed on all hands to be so desirable, so 
necessarv. 
Where the owner of the surrounding land is likewise owner 
of the cottage, local impediments can be readily overcome by the 
♦ See a work recently published, entitled ' On the Cultivation of Flax, 
the Fattening of Cattle with Native Produce, Box Feeding, and Summer 
Grazing,' by John Warnes, Esq., of Trimingham, Norfolk. 
+ ' The Farmer,' published by Charles Knight, 1844. 
