Page:Agricultural labour.djvu/8

 many of the small holdings of twenty or thirty acres which although not always maintainable economically were still of great value to the thrifty rising agricultural labourer, and created a grade in the social ladder which had its use. (One word here to improving landlords and agents. Don't be too hasty in improving away all these small places, especially on indifferent soil. Be careful whom you put into them; let the tenant be a rising energetic man, and always have some other mode of living than starving on the place; such for instance as keeping a machine, hauling, contracting for road making or draining, or some trade.) But a more serious oversight in agricultural improvement was the doing away with those two or three acres of meadow land or common attached to cottages, and devouring "the poor man's bit" in our green lanes, which gave the labourer the opportunity of keeping a cow. One reason for merging these was that the tenants were so ill-selected that they were constantly getting ruined; but these places should be held out as prizes to the thrifty and hard-working labourers, and such people never get ruined.

(2.) Then as to his home: (and altogether apart from improved cottages, the necessity for which need hardly be dwelt on here). It was formerly the custom as it still is in many parts for the labourers to live mostly in the farm houses, boarding with the farmers; and this has the advantage of providing them with better food, without their feeling the cost of increased prices, it also makes the service more permanent, generally lasting for a year at least. But the want of a separate home has its disadvantages, and probably a well regulated cottage with a longer engagement and a fair notice to quit is on the whole the best, except for the boys and young unmarried labourers; but the system of the capitalist farmer with all his men living in cottages has caused some special difficulties. It has