433 
FIELD-GARDENING FOR 
ful application of capital, of the large farmer ? 
What is all Ireland but a country of cottage 
allotments ? And what is there in that theatre 
of disorder and wretchedness that should in- 
duce the benevolent (or those who may have 
in their eyes the immediate temptation of 
Irish rents) to make trial of any such system 
in England ? " With regard to the first point, 
relative to the keeping of pigs, every one 
must be struck with the glaring oversight of 
these witnesses in omitting all allusion what- 
ever to the value of the manure produced by 
these animals. Mr. Terry speaks of the office 
of the pig, but he forgets that it is two-fold, 
— fattening the land as well as fattening itself, 
the former being the chief inducement to 
every cottager in providing himself with this 
useful agent. In Belgium, the small peasant 
farmers take every opportunity of prevailing 
upon those who have the charge of stock 
passing in their neighbourhood, to let sheep and 
cattle rest within their premises, just that they 
may have the advantage of the manure which 
they leave ; and in order to show the value 
put upon it, I may mention that it is not 
unusual for those farmers, on such occasions, to 
contract to afford the cattle a considerable 
quantity of food as a recorupence for such ma- 
nure. So universally are pigs to be found in the 
quarter where the writer of this paper resides, 
and their agency so clearly understood, and so 
pointedly relied upon, that out of twenty of 
the owners, nineteen would be inclined to 
treat the defect in the foregoing evidence as 
wilful. On the question of large and small 
farms or allotments referred to by Mr. Whateley, 
a great deal might be said ; and it has, indeed, 
occupied the attention of almost every writer 
on rural economy. The subject is purely prac- 
tical ; and without engaging in any lengthened 
controversy to show the relative advantages 
of both systems, it will be sufficient to state 
that, however well a thousand acres in one 
farm might be cultivated, it has never yet 
been done in anything like the degree of per- 
fection obtained by the minute operations of 
the spade and fork. The chief reason for this 
difference is, that in the case of the large 
farmer the work is performed by hired la- 
bourers, who are generally employed at a very 
low rate of wages, and have no direct interest 
in the prosperity of the farm. In the other 
case, the labourer is primarily excited to ex- 
ertion. He is eager and watchful ; up at four 
instead of six o'clock ; and in order to increase 
his stock of manure, has scoured every road 
and lane in his neighbourhood before the sun 
rises. He digs his ground deep, manures it 
well, carefully inserts the seed, and fosters by 
every means in his power the crops upon 
which hedepends for subsistence. Other men's 
eyes, arms, and attention, are dispensed with ; 
for if assistance should be required, it is fur- 
nished in most cases by members of his own 
family. But setting aside for a moment the 
immediate agency exercised over a minute 
system of agriculture, the very implements in 
use under the allotment system leave the 
plough at an immeasurable distance iu the 
back-ground. The late Mr. Falla, nursery- 
man, Gateshead, practised spade and fork 
husbandry to a considerable extent, and the 
result was thirty-eight bushels of wheat by 
plough per acre, and fifty-eight and a half 
bushels by the spade. At Sherborne, in War- 
wickshire, within four miles of Leamington, 
Frederick Harris, an agricultural labourer, 
obtained by spade cultivation sixteen bushels 
of wheat from a piece of ground containing 
about one quarter of an acre. Instances such 
as these might be multiplied without end. It 
does not follow, therefore, that there would be 
any propriety in gathering the allotments 
" into a large one, a farm ;" nor does it ap- 
pear inevitable that, blessed with such returns 
as I have instanced, "the poor man must 
always be a poor master." The other subject 
touched upon by Mr. Whateley is the common 
one brought forward by some political econo- 
mists, and is full of prospective terrors. " But 
when," says he, " in the progress of popula- 
tion, there arises four times six families to be 
fed from the same soil, where will then be the 
happiness of the allotments ?" The question 
is one between the Creator of all things and 
the creatures he has made. " Dwell in the 
land, and verily thou shalt be fed," is the voice 
of Inspiration on this head ; and we have the 
experience of 6000 years to refer to in confir- 
mation, if any were needed, of its truth. Has 
not Time, therefore, weakened, if not falsified, 
this dogma of political economy ? Indeed, 
many such bugbears might be set up in the 
remote future by the very reverse of the 
position alluded to. What, for instance, it 
might be asked, would be the consequences if 
every one were to raise three crops of potatoes 
from the same spot of land, as is now regularly 
done every season by John Digby, a journeyman 
basket-maker, in the village of Buxton, in the 
county of Norfolk ? Where would the popu- 
lation be found numerous enough to consume 
the immense increase which would then be 
brought to market ? Why, nowhere ; and the 
capacious Thames, or the sea, would form the 
receptacle for the superabundance. One word 
more, and I have done with the remarks of 
Mr. Whateley. This gentleman instances 
Ireland as a country of cottage allotments, and 
asks if there is anything there to induce the 
benevolent to introduce the system elsewhere. 
Ireland may have its allotments, but certainly 
they are not cultivated ; and so long as it re- 
mains "a theatre of disorder and wretched- 
