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124 ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 
linguish his allotment, by giving six weeks’ notice to 
the committee, who shall accept a new tenant, and 
cause a valuation to be put upon the crop, to be paid 
by the incoming tenant; that if the rent of any allot- 
ment be in arrear fourteen days after the time fixed 
for payment, the committee shall be at liberty to 
“resume the occupation of such allotment, paying the 
occupier the value of the crops, after deducting the 
rent due; that the quantity of land let to any person 
be at the discretion of the committee, yet shall in 
no case exceed a quarter of an acre; and that if any 
occupier be a drunkard, or in the practice of fre- 
quenting publie-houses or beer-shops, and shall per- 
sist in such habits after having been reproved, he 
shall not be allowed to continue to rent his allotment 
after the end of that year. 
In 1844, or only thirteen years after the so- 
ciety’s formation, no fewer than 100,000 families 
are supposed to have obtained allotments or field- 
gardens, through the instrumentality of the La- 
bourers’ Friend society. The advantages realized 
by this great body of population have been many 
and great; and the additions which, in conse- 
quence, have been made to the national wealth, 
the general improvement of society, and the ad- 
vancement of knowledge and morality, are far 
from being inconsiderable. The mere money 
profit obtained per acre from the lands under 
allotment, has been estimated by Sir Henry E. 
Bunbury, who has had part of his estates in field 
gardens for twenty-eight years, at from £7 to 
£10; by Mr. Harris Weatherly of Basingstoke, 
who gave allotments to seventy-five families dur- 
ing the years 1830-32, at £10 and upwards; and 
by several of the most extensive and experienced 
promoters and observers of the system—particu- 
larly by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who has 
500 allotments on his own property, and by Cap- 
| tain Scobell, who testifies to upwards of one thou- 
sand allotments—at from £20 to £25. Many, per- 
haps most, of the occupiers themselves have readily 
concurred in these high estimates of their pro- 
| fits; and not a few have declared that, in indirect 
methods, and by industrial and moralizing ten- 
dencies, additional advantages have been gained, 
of a kind even more valuable than the direct 
money profits. The landlords have obtained as 
regular and ample returns of rents as from any 
other class of tenants; the farmers have found 
their labourers steadier, manlier, and more in- 
telligent and active ; the parish officers have found 
pauperism and the prevalence of dissolute habits 
very materially decreased; and general society 
have been delivered from a large amount of nui- 
sances, petty depredations, juvenile delinquen- 
cies, and degrading immoralities. In one parish, 
the influence of the allotment system, combined 
perhaps with the influence of contemporaneous 
circumstances, reduced the poor rates in a few 
years from £2,074 2s. 8d. to £649; in another, 
from £206 8s. to £4 12s. 6d.; and in another, in 
the course of one year, from £3,200 to £2,000. 
“The moral effects of the system,” remarks Mr. 
Doyle, “cannot be disputed. The honesty, so- 
briety, and industry, the emulation in cultivat- 
| 
1 
ALLOTMENTS OF LAND. 
ing the land, the punctuality in the payment of 
rent, the good feeling created between the land- 
lord and his tenant, and the improved attention 
of the latter to his social and religious duties, 
are amongst the beneficial effects which are ap- 
parent in some hundreds of villages in different 
parts of England. In the publications of the 
Society, many interesting instances are given of 
an entire moral reformation of character having 
been effected by means of an allotment of land, 
of men of vagrant, dishonest, and immoral habits 
—some of whom had been guilty of grievous 
penal offences—becoming steady, industrious, and 
respectable members of society.” Much of the 
distinctive character of the allotment system de- 
pends on the restriction of labour to the use of 
the spade. See therefore the article Spapz Hvs- 
BANDRY. 
In July 1843, a Parliamentary committee ap- 
pointed to inquire into the results of the allot- 
ment system, reported favourably of it, and re- 
commended the following arrangements and re- 
gulations in conducting it : 
1. As it is desirable that the profits of the allot- 
ment should be viewed by the holder of it in the 
light of an aid, and not of a substitute for his ordi- 
nary income accruing from wages, and that they 
should not become an inducement to neglect his 
usual paid labour, the allotment should be of no 
greater extent than can be cultivated during the leisure 
moments of the labourer and his family. The exact 
size which would meet this condition must of course 
vary according to the nature of the soil, the strength 
and numbers of the family, and their leisure time; 
but one quarter of an acre is the size usually adopted, 
and best suited to the average of cases. 
2. The allotment should also be near the dwelling 
of its occupier; much of its benefit depends upon the 
facility afforded to the man, his wife, and his chil- 
dren, of devoting spare moments to the care of their 
ground, and being able to visit it frequently without 
fatigue. 
3. Though the land will yield larger profits under 
this mode of cultivation, than under the usual me- | 
thod of tillage, the proprietor who wishes to benefit 
the poor man should not exact more rent than he 
could expect to receive if he let it out to be farmed 
in the ordinary way. 
4. Tithes, parochial rates, taxes, and all other 
charges should be included in the rent, and paid by 
the owner and not by the occupier, for the purpose 
of saving trouble in the collection, of preventing the 
accumulation of arrears, and of guarding the tenant 
against frequent and sudden demands for payments 
which he might not be prepared to meet. 
The rules adopted in places where the allotment 
system has been most successful, have insisted upon 
spade culture, have forbidden all underletting and 
working on Sunday, and have required that all causes 
of forfeiture, viz. non-payment of rent, gross mis- 
conduct, or wilful neglect of the land, should be 
embodied in the agreement signed by the tenant. 
The rotation of crops has sometimes been enjoined 
in the rules; but that is a matter which may well be 
left to the discretion and experience of the cultivator. 
ALLOTMENTS OF LAND. The sections or 
proportional parts into which an enclosed com- 
mon is divided. They belong to the parties who 
possessed right of commonage; and ought to be 
proportionate to the respective extent of claim, 
