April 14. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
17 
lease was settled, so we lost it after the end of the year; but 
in the winter we got possession at a rent of £40 a year, of a 
very rough and unenclosed field of six-and-a-half-acres, not 
very far from the factory. We got this levelled and fenced 
in, and sown with grass seed, and a little bit of it laid down 
with turf. Being so large, we were able to allot out a large 
portion at the edges for gardens, besides keeping plenty for 
cricket in the middle. Almost all the boys set to work 
most eagerly at the gardens, though some of them just 
barely knew which end of the spade should be downwards 
when in use, but very many, perhaps net much short of 
half, did not persevere, but either neglected their pieces 
altogether (in which case they were reallotted), or let them 
get into a more or less slovenly state. The others, how¬ 
ever, kept their eagerness, and with some it seemed to get 
stronger, the more they worked. Even this imperfect 
attempt for a single year, has, I hope, given to some of the 
boys feelings and tastes of which they had no idea before, 
and of a nature to have a most softening influence upon 
them. Some buildings are now interfering with our present 
field, and this has made it doubtful, whether, if we were to 
try both gardens and cricket there this year, we should not 
spoil both. We have decided to give up the gardens; but 
we hope to get a separate piece for them elsewhere, for 
their effect upon those who really took to them was too 
valuable to be lightly given up. 
“ All last summer we worked hard at the cricket the three 
evenings in the week on the new cricket ground, and on the 
other evenings we gave the men the use of it. The boys 
played very eagerly, and many of them became tolerable 
cricketers. They were divided into four classes, and the 
different classes played matches with each other, with of 
course unequal numbers. But what gave the game its 
greatest start, was that some of the boys took it into their 
heads to send a challenge, that twenty-two of them would 
stand the eleven of a cricket club, formed by a few of our 
men, who, having been cricketers before coming to the 
factory, had joined themselves together to keep up their 
practice of the game, as they best could, on Kennington 
Common or elsewhere. Some of this eleven being pretty 
good players, and knowing what novices our boys were, they 
treated the challenge with great contempt; their captain 
saying, I believe, when they received it, that he would be 
happy to play the twenty-two himself. But the boys 
practised very hard till the day of the match, and when it 
came, to the great astonishment of themselves, as well as of 
all the rest of the factory, they beat the men in one innings. 
Later in the year they beat them again in a return match 
of sixteen to eleven, and in the coming summer they 
mean to try eleven to eleven. They are looking eagerly 
forward to the 1st May, on which day we propose to begin 
the cricket again, and they will I hope have a happy summer 
of it. As already noticed, it has been determined by a 
general vote of their own, to have an extra school night 
weekly, during eight months of the year, in order to enable 
them to make holiday during the four summer months, 
May to August. I am glad of this alteration, for it always 
went against one’s conscience to shut them up in the 
shook room for an hour-and-a-half on a beautiful summer’s 
evening, after a hot day’s work in a factory, and yet, till we 
got our own play-ground, and sufficient attraction in cricket 
and gardening to draw them to it, there was only a choice 
of evils, for to turn them out to amuse themselves in the 
streets, was very likely to get them into mischief. In the 
chief cricket matches we have given a prize book with the I 
score marked in the beginning of it, to each one on the 
winning side. 
“ The next thing to notice is the summer excursion. Our 
first experiment was on Saturday, the 29th June, 1850, 
when 100 went down to Guildford, starting by a train at, I 
think, half-past six in the morning, and coming back at nine 
at night. It was a beautiful day, and one of thorough en¬ 
joyment to them. Breakfast, dinner and tea were provided 
to eat on the grass. They strolled about the beautiful 
country in the neighbourhood of Guildford, played what was 
then our only cricket match of the year, the apprentices 
against the rest of the factory (for in the then state of our 
cricketing a match did not take very long to play), and in 
the middle of the day the clergyman of the little church on 
the top of one of the hills, with a lovely view round it, who 
had been begged for the use of the church, kindly came and 
did his part of the service, the boys, their books having been 
brought with them, chaunting their part as they do in their 
own chapel. I had not felt at all sure how far this might 
chime in with the other proceedings of the day, but it did so 
most perfectly, partly, no doubt, through their having had 
plenty of the running about first. The church service was a 
quiet and resting pleasure in such a place, and under such 
circumstances, between the two divisions of the active 
pleasure which was the chief object of the day. The 
country about Guildford is so really country, so absolute a 
contrast, in its quietness and extreme beauty, to all the 
common life of these boys, that one felt what a world of 
new ideas and feelings they were being introduced to ; the 
very many of them, at any rate, who had never seen any¬ 
thing like real country before. From the way they looked 
at and spoke of the country to each other when there, and 
spoke of it after returning, I am sure many of them, if 
they live till ninety, will remember that one day, and with a 
feeling more beneficial to their minds than any which 
months of ordinary schooling would be likely to produce.” 
In 1851, the excursion was “on a grander scale” to 
Herne Bay; and in 1852, by special invitation from 
the Bishop of Winchester, to his residence at Farn- 
ham Castle, each excursion being even more gratifying 
than its predecessor. The proprietors met in March, 
1852, and resolved unanimously to devote £900 a year 
to the maintenance of the educational system then in 
operation; they further resolved to devote £300 a year 
“ to provide means of public worship for such of their 
work-people as chose to avail themselves of such means; ” 
a chapel has been erected, and a chaplain appointed; 
the educational system is maintained; the cricket, the 
gardening, and the excursions are to be resumed this 
summer; and we most gratefully join in these words, 
addressed to the Company by the Bishop of Winchester: 
“Your Board will have the honourable distinction of 
being not only the first to point out, but to carry oqjt in 
detail, the true principles on which the reciprocal rela¬ 
tions of master and dependant can most advantageously 
be observed, and by attention to which the largest 
amount of mutual benefit can be derived by botli 
parties.” 
In conclusion, let us record the ennobling facts, that 
the proprietary voted that Mr. Wilson should bo re¬ 
imbursed the whole of the money he had expended, and 
that he accepted it only on condition that the entire 
sum should be employed on the erection of a chapel 
within the walls of the factory. 
Such acts as these could be elevated by no com¬ 
mentary ; they dignify all the co-operators, and again 
demonstrate that there is a course where trade is not 
altogether selfish, and how fully benefits and blessings 
may be exchanged between the employer and the ! 
employed. 
i 
COVENT GARDEN. 
Though not a prognosticator, Covent Garden Market ' 
is at least an indicator of the state of the weather. No 
sooner have we 4° or 5° of frost than all is bare, bald, j 
and desolate ; but when a change comes, and all nature ! 
is alive again, then we see the most sudden and fairy¬ 
like scenes pervading this most attractive of all gardens. 
And so it has been during the past week. There is 
now the greatest activity and bustle ; thousands of 
