[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—There is one point
to which neither you nor your correspondents allude, and that is the working man's garden. Why does no one seem to think a working man wants his garden round his cottage P Is there some magic virtue in the word " allotment " P I don't think your garden would give you much pleasure if it consisted of a strip twenty yards by one hundred yards in a ten-acre field half a mile away, especially if one neighbour kept chickens and another a donkey of a vagrant disposition. (This is the complaint I have lately received from an allotment holder.) You may think my appeal unnecessary, as it would seem obvious that where a garden is obtainable near the dwelling it is the best, and the allotment is only an expedient when cottages are crowded and no land is to be had near them; but the following episode shows the attitude of a Government which makes such a point of allotments and small holdings. A. is a small market town, mainly agricultural. The Rural District Council advertised for land on which to build cottages. There are a good many owners, but Mr. B., who is the largest landowner, was the only one who offered to sell. He offered land almost anywhere at agricultural price, plus his costs. A Committee of the Council fixed on the best field in the parish, near the middle of the town. Mr. B. did not want to sell, but consented to take £50 a rood and his costs. An Inspector of the Local Government Board was sent down to hold an inquiry and fixed on this site, taking only one rood for the six cottages to keep down the expenses, to make the cottages self-supporting, if possible, and said a man did not want a big garden. Thus £50 worth of rich accommodation grass land will be nearly covered with bricks and mortar, when the same money would have bought enough excellent land to provide each man with a good garden. There is a good water supply which could easily be conveyed to the other sites.—I [We hold that in a rural area it is something like a crime not to add a garden to every new cottage. Whenever we write of the building of rural cottages we always write subject to the assumption that "cottage" means "cottage and garden." The model cottage at Merrow described in our issue of to-day has, of course, ground for a garden attached.—ED. Spectator.]
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