THE ENGLISH LABOURER. 
437 
wherever I could, small entrance-gates, of 
such dimensions as should prevent the possi- 
bility of carts, and other farmers' implements 
common in use, being introduced upon them. 
To avoid, also, every chance of dispute as to 
the boundaries, small ditches, which answer 
the double purpose of fences and draining, are 
introduced between each occupation. To 
ensure general neatness and regularity respect- 
ing the clipping of the fences which surround 
the fields, one of the occupiers is selected to 
take care of them, whose duty it is to collect the 
poor-rates and pay them to the overseer of the 
parish, who would otherwise be put to unne- 
cessary trouble and inconvenience. 
" The advantages to be derived from pro- 
curing the Poor Land and Surveyor's lands for 
this purpose must be apparent to any person 
of observation who has travelled about the 
country, as they will commonly discover them- 
selves by their unimproved and slovenly 
appearance ; being, generally speaking, let to 
small farmers from year to year, at an ex- 
orbitant rent, who are unwilling to lay out 
anything upon them, in consequence of the 
uncertain tenure, to improve their condition. 
Wherever the allotment system is adopted 
upon them, and carefully attended to by some 
principal owner, or by the clergyman of the 
parish, you may depend upon it that they will, 
— to use an expression of that great and good 
man, the late Earl of Leicester, — become 
benefactors to their country in general by 
raising 'two blades of corn where only one had 
grown before,' and have the blessings of the 
poor man to crown their undertaking. 
" I am, &c. 
" PlIILIP GlJRDON." 
The soil here is a good loam resting on clay, 
and is what would be generally considered as 
well adapted for growing wheat. The variety 
here grown is the Golden crop, and from five 
to six quarters an acre is the quantity usually 
produced. Of Tartarian oats, several of the 
holders grow at the rate of ten and eleven 
quarters per acre. 
All the instances here recorded have fallen 
under my own personal observation. I have 
seen and watched the development and pro- 
gress of the system in the different districts 
detailed. I have conversed with the holders, 
who, as a class, form a new race of men ; 
their dwellings indicate a happy change in 
their condition, and I therefore unhesitatingly 
vrge the adoption of the plan, under judicious 
uml strict vianagement, throughout every 
district in Britain. 
The plan has been objected to. A word or 
two, then, with the objectors. I commence 
with an article which will be found at p. 403 
of a Report by the Poor Law Commissioners 
on " The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring 
Population ; " it is headed, " Erroneous Prin- 
ciples of Cottage Allotments in small Farms," 
and consists of an examination of the Rev. 
Thomas Whateley, Cookham, Berks, whose 
evidence is corroborated by Mr. Terry, an ex- 
tensive farmer in that place, and of the state- 
ments of two other individuals, whose names 
are not given. " Many mistakes," says Mr. 
Whateley, " are prevalent with respect to the 
profits from keeping cows, sheep, geese, pigs, 
&c, for I do not believe that any of these are 
really profitable; and though I am glad to 
see a pig as an appendage to a cottage, (if the 
cottager's employer has no reason to be sorry,) 
because the pig serves as a sort of savings' 
bank to the labourer ; for if the labourer had 
not the animal, he would not put by and out 
of his reach, from day to day, the money which 
the pig costs him in fatting ; yet, it is notorious 
that a labouring man pays more dearly for his 
bacon than he would do if he purchased it 
ready prepared to his hand." " The only 
advantage," adds Mr. Terry, " which he had 
in keeping them was in using them to collect 
the refuse corn, which would otherwise be 
trodden under foot at the barn door and ren- 
dered unmarketable ; the office of the pig 
was to gather up this refuse, and convert it 
into a marketable commodity, pork." " I do 
not think," adds Mr. Whateley, " allotments 
of land to the poor beneficial. I had rather 
see the allotments gathered into a large one, 
a farm, and the labouring man employed at 
good wages by a superintendent managing the 
whole at his own risk, and for his own in- 
terest, in the share to which his undivided 
and greater attention and anxiety justly en- 
title him, — that is, by a thriving farmer. The 
poor man must be a poor master, and he had 
better serve a rich one. * * * If what 
are called ' ample allotments' are given, it ap- 
pears to me to be a sort of wholesale alms- 
giving, attended with more than the usual 
mischiefs attendant upon most almsgiving. 
The orchard and garden before me might, if 
cut up into allotments, serve for six families 
of young labourers. It may be all very well 
to say, ' Take these, my good men, and be 
happy ;' but when, in the progress of popu- 
lation, there arises four times six families to be 
fed from the same soil, where will then be the 
happiness of the allotments ? What, I submit, 
are small farms but ample allotments ? — and 
what, when stripped of romance, is found by 
experience to be the superior condition and 
power of production of the small farmers ? 
Are they not, even where they farm their own 
lands, almost universally failing — like the 
small manufacturers against the larger ones — 
in competition before the more scientific ma- 
nag, inent, economy of labour, and more power- 
