MANAGEMENT OF GA.UDEN ALLOTMENTS. 
the rest of the winter as plants at rest ; very 
little water, very little care, an occasional 
inspection to see that the draining is clear, is 
all they want. 
MANAGEMENT OF GARDEN ALLOTMENTS. 
Those who will allot ground to poor cotta- 
gers at a moderate rate are real benefactors ; 
and those who are ignorant of the means by 
which ground is made profitable should be 
instructed by a supply of some plainly written 
book, that they may read, or have read to them, 
or, to make the work of benevolence more 
complete, they should be instructed. Economy 
in the management of an estate turned into 
allotments is a first consideration, and were we 
to attempt anything of the kind we should do 
it effectually. Let us first consider, then, 
what is necessary to a garden ? First, good 
ingress and egress by well-made paths and 
roads ; second, a supply of water within reach. 
We will suppose fifty acres of land to be 
adopted, from its situation, for the use of the 
cottage population of a village or town, and 
that the ground is worth 3/. per acre as a 
rental. To this fifty acres of land there 
should be a road or roads, so that there might 
be no difficulty of approach in bad weather. 
The number of allotments should be two 
hundred, which would allow of forty rods to 
each person, and the holding should be limited 
to the forty rods until a man could show the 
managers or the owner that his family was 
large enough to render him a proper object for 
more. The forms of these allotments should 
be, as near as may be, ten rods long and four 
wide, and as many of them squared properly 
as the form of the entire space will allow. Of 
course, some will be w r orse than others. We 
would have a range of pig-styes in the most 
convenient part, for the purpose of being let at a 
trifling rent to such allotment holders as choose 
to keep pigs, that they might have on the spot 
the means of using their waste profitably, and 
supply themselves with manure. There could 
be no difficulty in this arrangement, and many 
ways there are of carrying it out. On these 
fifty acres there should be placed a creditable 
man, whose cottage should overlook the whole 
plot, and who should have the following duties 
to perform : — He should keep the public roads 
in order, that is to say, the main roads that 
lead to all the allotments, but not the private 
paths ; he should be an inspector, to see that 
each allotment holder does not damage or 
infringe on his neighbour, or commit any nui- 
sance, or suffer weeds to seed in his ground 
and blow over other people's ; he should collect 
the rents weekly, and keep a record of all the 
occurrences of note ; he should keep a supply 
of appropriate seeds, purchased wholesale by 
the managers, and retailed at cost price to the 
holders ; and he should be in authority, as 
constable, to apprehend any trespasser or 
person committing wilful damage ; he should 
also keep spades, rakes, hoes, and other useful 
garden tools, bought wholesale and sold at the 
cost price to the allotment holders, or for a 
weekly payment instead of money down. We 
reckon this office at a cost of 20s. per week, 
or less, including his rent. So that let us 
charge the roads and repairs, and the pro- 
viding of proper wells or supplies of water 
at 1/. per acre, the overseer at 11. per 
acre, and the land 31. per acre. Let the 
charge for each allotment be 6d. per week, 
or twenty-six shillings per annum for each 
quarter of an acre, being at the rate of 
five pounds four per acre. The effect of 
allotments like these would be like magic on 
a rural population ; for it cannot be denied 
that in too many cases the prices have amounted 
to extortion. Five pounds per acre is enough, 
in all conscience, for a poor man to pay : but 
in scores of places there is more than double 
the rent charged ; in some places it has 
amounted to twelve pounds per acre. Here 
we have the means of providing two hundred 
poor men with each a garden large enough for 
his family purposes for sixpence a week; and it 
should be the study of the managers to draw 
up such rules as might prevent the holders 
from extravagance or waste by restricting 
them to the articles they should grow. These 
rules might extend to an obligation to grow so 
many rods of potatoes every year, and no more, 
because the first object should be the ensurance 
of food for the family, and preventing them 
from growing too much of a lazy crop. A 
few stringent regulations as to the disposal of 
so much of the land in useful food, and ju- 
dicious restriction of the quantity that might 
be used for flowers and useless or extravagant 
crops, would be as necessary to the well- 
being of the holder as the land itself. Sup- 
pose there were none, a man naturally idle 
might plant all his plot with potatoes, leave 
them to take their chance till earthing up 
time, and then leave them till the time for 
taking up, when, having more than he can 
possibly use, he would have to sell them, and 
the money might possibly be expended badly; 
whereas, if he were obliged to have different 
crops in about the proportion that families 
consume vegetables, he would be obliged to 
work at his garden continuously, and provide 
wholesome changes in the vegetable diet of his 
family, and sell the surplus if he please. We 
have especially mentioned potatoes, because we 
should not like to see our rural population 
become lazy. Ireland gives us too fatal a 
result for us to adopt potato culture as the 
