TRUE HOMECROFTING [To the Editor of the SpEcrAron.] Snt,—I have
been vastly interested in your championship of this scheme, and The ,Itibre se sinee I have before sae- a successful experiment, if set on may Call an arringement which has stood fora_ -years: and wilS the -first and only one attempted.
I write from a corner of Africa in which progress and civilization are all but unknown. Here a broad and shallow valley is pent in by the natural defence of great hills, volcanic in origin, and here an ancient tribe lives in ease and comfort, sufficient unto themselves.
In older days this people built their homes on rocky eminences the-better:to defend them- against the not infrequeat :- deRedations of less happier tribes. Now, in the compaiStive ; safety which a stable and uninterfering Government' haS brought, they have moved down to live among their herds and crops. _
In the valley are many wells and one or two small lakes, while from the hills fall springs of sweet clear water. During the rains the low-lying land is flooded and forms an ideal soil for growing cotton from which their scanty clothes are mide. There is pasturage and to spare for all their herds, and grain grows a-plenty. From a claylike soil found in the hills they make the black "hurznahs " in which water is carried to the hoine, and from the same material they build the walls of their thatch-roofed houses. From hides they make their neat and hard-wearing sandals. In good years native beer is made from the full grain ; in scanty years they do without. The whole is ruled over by a Sultan who settles out of hand the few minor disputes that arise.
How pleasant it is here to sit for awhile among a people who ask nothing of life but: thattbey _inv.-Jive; love, and die in peace ; who know nothing:of high finance, trade disputes, Prayer Book Revision, and Leagues of Nations ; and at whose gate all men are guests !
This, -I imagine, Sir, is true homecrofting : to live on the land, by the land, for the land. And here it is drawing to-Ats close. Soon education, save the mark ! will lay its hand upon - one more contented people, and we shall find in this fair place a race of clerks, the while in England, at the other end of Progress, many of us struggle to get back to
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