Erroneous Principles of Cottage Allotments in Small Farms. 403 12.-Examination of the REV. THOMAS WHATELEY, Cookham, Berks,

on Cottage Allotments, and the keeping of Pigs by Cottagers.

It appears that a great part of the land of your parish is common, and that a portion of the population borders upon the common. What is the state of that population as compared with that which is too far removed from the commons to enjoy any of their privileges?-The persons who live in the immediate neighbourhood of the commons are evidently much poorer than those who live at a distance.

To what do you attribute this?—I attribute it to their depending upon a precarious and uncertain income; and I am sure, from all the observation I have been able to make, that a poor man's best subsistence will always depend upon constant work and good wages, and that he never works for so bad a master as when he works for himself. And all employments, such as attending sheep, geese, &c., besides the precarious nature of the return made by them, usually impair his habits of steady and patient industry, and frequently give him a turn for poaching and pilfering, and engender other irregular and demoralizing habits.

But may not the children of the cottager, while he is engaged in steady and patient industry, be usefully and profitably employed in taking care of a pig or geese on the common?-No. The reason which applies against the father doing so, namely, the bad desultory habits engendered, applies with greater force against the children doing so. If they are old enough to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old enough to be employed in some rural occupation for which wages would be earned. Many mistakes 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.* Nor would he be the better

Mr. Terry, who is a very extensive farmer in Cookham, and was present during this inquiry, explained this, and, in corroboration of Mr. Whateley's evidence on this point, stated that he, as a farmer, could not make any profit by growing pigs beyond a certain size. The only advantage which he had from keeping them was in using them to collect the refuse corn, which would otherwise be trodden under foot at the barn-door and rendered unmarketable; the office of the pig was to gather up this refuse, and convert it into a marketable commodity, pork. To fat the pigs beyond a certain size required more than the refuse of the farm-yard; and, therefore, would not pay the farmer. It was, therefore, the practice of the farmers to sell the pigs to the inillers, who were enabled to fat them on another description of refuse. Now if the labouring man kept a pig, as he had no farm-yard, and no refuse to feed it with, he must either buy the food or steal it. If he were honest and bought the food, his pork would, as Mr. Whateley has stated, cost much more than he could buy it for. A pig could only be kept on the produce of such a piece of land as a labourer could not well cultivate whilst he attended to his other duties. In this state of things, the temptation to pilfer for the support of the pig was considerable. Other witnesses incidentally corroborated this statement, and I found that with many farmers the circumstance of a labouring man having a pig was an objection to giving him employment. The Rev. Mr. Faithful, of Hatfield, Herts, stated, as the result of his observation, that the keeping of pigs was decidedly not profitable to cottagers; and such was the temptation to steal which their possession of pigs created, that he had known a labourer, who had a pig given to him, to steal from the donor the wood to make its sty, the straw to litter it, and the food to feed it. The farmers ridiculed the prevalent statements as to the small cost at which pigs could be kept,-statements commonly made to the gentry by roguish rustics, who profited by these delusions; a pig was not accommodating enough to fatten on less for the cottager than for the farmer.

A friend,

clothed or cheaper shod if he took the operation of the Manchester weaver or the Nottingham shoemaker into his own hands.

But may not a labourer attend to the management of pigs or cows after the hours of work?-I think not, because a good labourer usually works by the great, and has done as much as his strength will allow when he returns home; and because nothing is gained by feeding cattle upon commons, where the cattle have nothing else to depend upon. The very worst master a poor man can work for is himself.

You say that the reason which applies against the father attending to pigs, geese, &c., on commons, applies equally against the children being se, i. e., the idle habits engendered; and that if they are old enough to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old enough to be employed in some rural occupation, for which wages would be earned. Now would not the children be employed by farmers in the same sort of labour, namely, in looking after cattle; and if so, why is it that the care of cattle on the common for the other is worse or more demoralizing than the care of the same sort of things for the farmer ?-I conceive that I have answered this question before. If a farmer sends his pigs or other cattle into open fields or commons, and requires the assistance of a child to watch them, they are turned out only for a change, but are never in this part of the country kept upon the commons.

Do you think allotments of land to the labourer beneficial; and if so, what quantity may be usefully occupied by him?-I do not think allotments of land to the poor beneficial. I had rather see the allotments gathered into one 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 interest, in the share to which his undivided and greater attention and anxiety justly entitle him, that is, by a thriving farmer. The poor man must be a poor master, and he had better serve a rich one.

What do you believe would be the consequence of too large allotments of land being made to the labourers?-That the poor man could not cultivate it. The wealth of his employer is the poor man's safeguard against want. I approve of the practice of a benevolent farmer in my parish, who is accustomed to give to his labourers a headland of his field as a bonus to industry. He says he will make it worth the while of his labourers to be honest and diligent towards him, by letting them feel that they will have a suitable return from him. If what are called "ample allotments" are given, it appears to me to be a sort of wholesale almsgiving, 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

A friend, who writes from Wiltshire, observes,-"I cannot make out who it is that does fatten pigs to a profit. I asked a brewer the other day if, with his grains, he did not make it answer; and he told me that, on the contrary, he was always out of pocket, and only kept a pig for the pleasure of eating his own pork. 'Private individuals,' he added, 'feed their pigs with what should rather be called spoilt malt than grains. I cannot afford to do that; I must get out all the goodness for my beer, and then there is not sufficient nutriment left to fatten without the addition of things which I must purchase.' It is not unlikely that many persons, who fancied they kept pigs to a profit, have fed them on this 'spoilt malt,' in ignorance that they were, in fact, giving their swine valuable beer instead of refuse grains."

A gentleman, speaking of such appendages to labourers' tenements in a manufacturing district, states, Formerly most of our houses had them, but they are terrible things for getting out of repair, and we are pulling them down a good deal, and clearing the ground; for I know, from intelligent, clear-headed workmen, that the manufacturing families cannot grow their pork nearly so cheap as they can buy it. The trade in bacon is quite different to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Now it is a great business, and the quantity of the improved Irish pigs brought even into smallish cottages is very large. In such villages where yard-room is not very large, swill and manure make a terrible stink. Only such of our people keep pigs as have a fondness for it, and as a sort of hobby, but believing that it does not pay."

Arrangements of Public Walks in Towns.

405

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 population, 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 large ones) in competition before the more scientific management, economy of labour, and more powerful 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 induce 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? Are the cottiers who possess the fee-simple, the small freeholders of Ireland, in a superior condition by virtue of their allotments?-Many of the promoters of allotments doubtless intend well, and act upon the evidence of immediate benefits and satisfaction derived from them; so, probably, did the original promoters of the bread-money, scales, and the allowance system, labour rates, and the train of corrupting palliatives?

Have you had an opportunity of observing experiments in what is termed spade husbandry?—I have never seen spade husbandry; but I should wish to see it universally adopted, if the adoption of it would add wealth to the farmer, for in that case it could not fail to benefit the labourer.

It is said that farmers ought to take the single agricultural labourers into their houses, and preside at the labourers' tables as formerly; what is your opinion as to the practicability of recurring to the old system?Those who say so are very ill formed upon the subject. Farmers, who were (in manners, wealth, and education) but very little better tnan their own labourers, might formerly, with comfort to themselves and advantage to their men, receive their carters into their family, and dine at their table with them; but the habits of those times are gone for ever.

Do you think the enclosures of such parishes as Cookham beneficial to the poor?-Yes I do, inasmuch as they extend the demand for the poor man's only marketable commodity—his labour.

[Every position stated in this examination with relation to the practical operation of the theory of small farm allotments, and of the pig and cow theories, was corroborated by a large mass of evidence from every part of the country, where they had been, for any length of time, in operation.-E. C.]

13.-Arrangement of Public Walks in Towns; Plan of the Arboretum at Berby, laid out by J. C. LOUDON, Esq.

WHEN it appeared that a general botanic garden would be too expensive, both to create and to keep up; that a mere composition of trees and shrubs with turf, in the manner of a common pleasure-ground, would become insipid after being seen two or three times; and, in short, that the most suitable kind of public garden, for all the circumstances included in the above data, was an arboretum, or collection of trees and shrubs, foreign and indigenous, which would endure the open air in the climate of Derby, with the names placed to each. Such a collection will have all the ordinary beauties of a pleasure-ground viewed as a whole; and yet, from no tree or shrub occurring twice in the whole collection, and from the name of every tree and shrub being placed against it, an inducement is held out for those who walk in the garden to take an interest in the name and history of each species, its [0] 2 E