4.32 
FIELD GARDENING FOR 
Now, the results are as just detailed ; and 
I shall merely premise that the individuals 
were not by any means selected with a view 
to give a more favourable result than the 
general facts of the cases warrant. I have, in 
every instance, retained the figures as fur- 
nished to me, merely arranging them in such 
a way as I think will enable the reader at 
once to see clearly the result, both in the 
aggregate, and as to individual benefits con- 
ferred. 
Thus, independent of all the other blessings 
which they impart, there is upon an average 
4Z. 10s. yearly added to the income of the 
poor labourer by his having half an acre of 
allotment land let to him under wholesome 
regulations. There is nothing theoretical in 
this : it is done as regularly as the seasons 
come, and is open to all the searching inquiries 
that can be made concerning the plan. The 
allottees are to the number of seventy, and 
the opinion amongst the labourers themselves 
regarding the benefits which have accrued 
to them by their having the land is strong and 
uniform. Is it unfair, therefore, to conclude 
that with these facts before their eyes, our land 
proprietors and influential gentry are so far 
responsible for a portion of the misery and 
wretchedness existing among labourers in 
other districts of Britain ? What has been 
done here can be done anywhere ; and if the 
directions for introducing and carrying out a 
proper system of allotments, as given in 
another part of this paper, are attended to, 
the matter becomes easy, and one of the most 
delightful engagements to which country gen- 
tlemen can betake themselves. If men were 
to see poverty, as I have seen it, throw off 
its rags wherever the allotment system has 
been fairly established for a couple of years, 
this plan of relieving the poor would have 
surely been adopted long before this time in 
every village and district throughout the 
kingdom. 
Fifthly. Allotments, are not only useful 
to a labouring man himself, but they contri- 
bute powerfully to the strength and prosperity 
of a nation. The prosperity of a nation con- 
sists not in indiscriminate numbers, but in 
proportion to the number of its industrious 
and virtuous inhabitants, who, as renters of 
land, have an immediate interest in defending 
the Constitution. It would be nothing short 
of burlesque to ask if the popular method of 
relieving the poor ever inspired any one with 
love for his country, or invigorated any one 
in the hour of public danger. If the expression 
may be allowed, the labourer who is invested 
with a stake of his own, sees every question 
through that little holding, and is on that 
account more unlikely to become an associate 
of the disaffected. At a time when the masses 
were interested in the soil, Latium was wont 
to raise mighty and energetic armies, but in 
the late era of Augustus, a few dispirited 
peasants only were to be found, careless about 
the honour of their country, and the results 
which they themselves might experience. The 
enthusiasm which prompted their ancestors to 
appear in the field was forgotten, and falling 
into the meanest state of vassalage, they be- 
came nothing better than slaves, entirely at 
the disposal of the wealthier inhabitants of 
Rome. In fine, the whole history of that 
empire proves that her multitudes of brave 
yeomanry were raised at a time when all, or 
mostly all, had an interest in the soil, and 
when he who grasped at more than a few 
acres was accounted a dangerous citizen. 
When a labourer can multiply his resources 
in a country to which he is naturally attached, 
it ought to be the policy of the influential to 
retain him by a link of interest in connexion 
with that country, for no nation can continue 
to be great where a considerable proportion 
of its population is wretched and miserable. 
Sixthly. Allotments increase the produc- 
tions of nature. Here may be observed a 
remarkable proof of the absurdity of the new 
system, as it is called, of political economy, 
which supposes that the increase of population 
will soon press heavily upon the means of 
subsistence. Why has it not done so before 
now ? There is indeed a point at which an 
increase of labour will cease to produce a cor- 
responding quantity of food ; but the recent 
improvements in minute agriculture prove 
that this point is so very remote, that it need 
not alarm mankind for thousands of years to 
come; for after the husbandman has arrived 
at the maximum in multiplying his produce 
over a given area, he has to begin the work of 
adding to the number of times he can gather 
such produce from the bosom of the earth 
during one season. John Digby, a journey- 
man basketmaker, living in the village of 
Buxton, in the county of Norfolk, raises three 
crops of potatoes from the same piece of 
ground every season, a fact which goes far to 
overturn the whole theory of Malthus and 
his followers. In the time of Charles I. it 
was believed that the population, advancing at 
the rate it then did, "could never be governed 
nor fed ;" yet it is well known that every case 
of incomplete subsistence which may have 
occurred, did not arise from actual scarcity of 
food, but from an unfavourable combination 
of circumstances operating against the indi- 
vidual for the time. In order to show to 
what extent the productions of the soil may 
be increased, I shall mention the case of 
John Dumbrell, of Javington, in the county 
of Sussex, who occupies a few acres of land 
as a sole occupation. This person, who was 
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