.

the Common all the while besides. The bees alone were worth more annually than the Common, if it

The Common contained about were about fifteen, besides heifers 150 acres; and I found round and calves; about sixty pigs the skirts of it, and near to the great and small; and not less skirts, about 30 cottages and than five hundred head of poulgardens, the latter chiefly try! The cattle and sheep of encroachments on the Common, the neighbouring farmers grazed which was waste (as it is called) in a manor of which the Bishop was the lord. I took down the names of all the cottagers, the had been enclosed, would have number and ages of their chil- let for, deducting the expense of dren, the number of their cows, fences. heifers, calves, sows, pigs, geese, ducks, fowls, and stalls of bees; the extent of their little bits of grounds, the worth of what was

"growing (it was at, or near Mi

chaelmas), the number of apple

trees, and of their black cherry

trees, called by them merries,

which is a great article in that part of Hampshire. I have lost

The farmers used the Common for their purposes; and my calculation was, that the cottages produced from their little bits, in food, for themselves, and in things to be sold at market, more than any neighbouring farm of 200 acres ! The cottages consisted, fathers, mothers, and children, and grand fathers, grand mothers and grand children, of more than two hundred persons.

my paper, a copy of which I gave to MR. WINDHAM; and, Why, Sir, what a system therefore, I cannot speak posi- must that have been that could tively as to any one point; but, lead English gentlemen to disI remember one hundred and regard matters like these! That twenty five, or thirty five stalls of could induce them to tear up bees, worth at that time ten shi!-" wastes" and sweep away occulings a stall at least. Cows there piers like those that I have de

scribed ! "Wastes"

Give a dog an ill name.

Horton Heath a waste?

indeed!" ment! This was a barren

Was " common only three years Was it " ago!" They would not have

a "waste" when a hundred, per- thought of the two or three hun

haps, of healthy boys and girls were playing there of a Sunday, instead of creeping about covered with filth in the alleys of a town, or, at least, listening to the rav

ings of some weekly - penny hunting hypocrite? Was it a "waste?" No but, it would have been a waste, if it had been

“improved.”

dred pounds, paid to Old Rose and others to pass the enclosure Bill, nor of the expence of fencing. Nor would they have reflected, that the fencing materials, and that all the labour, brought to this spot, must have been brought from some other spot. And, as to the two or three hundred head of cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and geese, to which the bar

Small farms, compared with large, are, in a great degree, ren common afforded an out-let, what these cottage-establishments and a part-living, that would were compared with the land of never have once come into their Horton heath, if it had been en-heads; while the sweeping away closed. If the 150 acres had of the cottagers and all their probeen moulded into a farm, the produce, when all brought to one

perty would, if possible, have
been still less thought of.
It is precisely thus with the
or paper - money

homestead, would have made a
considerable show. There would large farm,

have been waggons going to mar-farm, system. It makes a show. ket with corn; there would have It pulls down several farm-houses, been barns and ricks and stables; or guts them, and turns them into and unreflecting persons, as they hovels; and it brings the materode along the road, would

rials, or the means of keeping up

have exclaimed, "what improv-repairs, and heaps them upon one

L

spot. It makes new roads and things with complacency? I am canals and fine hedges and rows sure that you cannot. It is very of trees; but, it does not add to laudable in you, and in other the quantity of human food pro-great land-holders, to condescend duced. There are many articles, to attend personally to the imwhich are the produce of care provements in agriculture; I mean only, poultry and honey especi- improvements in the true sense of ally. Poultry, indeed, must have the word. It is a mark of good some corn; but, they need com- taste, and it is a pursuit attended paratively little, and geese want with more pleasure, perhaps, than none for the far greater part of any other. But, if the thing pur

the

2

year. It is care that chiefly sued cannot be accomplished withcreates poultry and eggs; and out producing the fall, the degraas to honey, it is wholly the pro-dation and the misery of millions, duce of care. But, remove the it is not improvement. The land care from the scene whereon it is may, and will, look finer, and to be employed, and, of course, the country may present a bloomits effects cease. Hence it is that ing face; but, the nation is in

t

honey, formerly so great an ar-state of decay.

make Metheglin the object of an important tax, is now produced in quantities comparatively contemptible. The Metheglin, which used to cheer the farm house and the cottage, has been abolished, and, for fifty who used to have that, there is now one who has

3

a

ticle of produce in England as to To enumerate the moral evils of the rise of large farms woudl require the pages of a very large volume. There were always some large farms: it was not only natural but beneficial. There ought to be ranks and degrees in husbandry as well as in trade and in all the other classes and callings which make up a community. The

11

port wine.

And, can any man look at these greatest farmer ought to approach

nearly to a gentleman, and the which contains a compulsion to least nearly to a labourer. But, work without a moral possibility we have now a thing out of order, of saving something for old age, out of nature, a thing created is slavery, call it by what name by a monstrous cause, and mon- you will; and, one of the conse strous in itself. Instead of an quences of such a state of things, agricultural population connected, is, that a large standing army is the highest with the lowest, by required in time of profound links almost imperceptible, and peace. The social tie being having interests and feelings in broken; the tie of content being common, we have now a few mas- no longer in existence, its place ters and a great number of slaves, must be supplied by force. Hence each having an interest directly our two armies, the army conopposed to that of the other, stantly on foot, composed of Laand as distinct, to all intents and bourers who have sought bread in purposes, as the Virginian, or the ranks; and the army of farmJamaica, farmer and his slaves.

ers, Landlords and traders, who are called yeomanry, and one of whom has recently openly avow

I shall be told, perhaps, that many large farmers treat their labourers very kindly, and even take care ed, in a printed letter addressed to see, that they are supplied with to the Prime Minister, that, if a sufficiency of food and raiment. the government will give these I believe this, and I have heard, yeomanry high prices, they will that your estates are remarkable still be at their post, ready to chop for this kindness and benevolence. down the ". disaffected."

Here we have the cause, the

But, Sir, the Jamaica farmer does the same by his slaves. From a real cause, of the existence of different motive, perhaps; but he these immense armies. And, does it. This renders slavery less therefore, it is nonsense to comcruel; but, still, a state of life plain of the amount or the ex

་

of these armies, without caused all these things. And, pence complaining of that state of things there is no return to` happy days which has produced the necessity for England, but through the exof having them. It is little better tinction of the cause. PITT than cavilling to make motions boasted of "prosperity" when and speeches about the armies, he saw big-manufacturers and as long as that system exists of bankers swelling into Barowhich these armies essentially nets and Lords; and Mr. CURorm a part. Out of this system, WEN boasted of “ prosperity' this false system, this dazzling when he met five hundred big and degrading system, have also farmers at a Holkham-Sheep arisen the Police and the Secret-Shearing. Neither seems to have Service departments. These are reflected, that it was false glare, novelties in England. Can it have and that it engendered Police, been "prosperity" that gave Secret Service and Army Estarise to these and to all the new blishments as necessarily as pu

66

prisons, with governors", in- tridity engenders maggots. It stead of jailors? Can it have was the painted sepulchre; and been "prosperity" that caused this is what neither seems to have votes of a million of money out thought of. If we approve of of the taxes to build and support large farms and all the glare of a single "penitentiary"? Can the system; if we call those it have been "prosperity " that proofs of prosperity, we have no has filled England with mad-houses right to complain of the other upon the palace-scale? Can it parts of the system. Paper-mohave been "6 prosperity" that has ney is the common parent of the caused a thousand volumes to be whole brood, large farms, enclopublished on "prison discipline?" sures, fine houses, cotton lords, Ob, no! It was paper-money, anvil lords, banking lords, army, co-operating with taxation, that yeomanry cavalry, police, secret