Country Life
A SQUAD SETTLEMENT.
Among minor endeavours to restore farming to popularity " Hughes' Settlement " is worth some attention. Land was bought—at the absurd price of £6 an acre—at Quarley, near Andover. It was utterly barren ; but now carries a poultry farm of about 2,000 birds, two cottages, a goat farm, a rab- bitry, an apiary, a garage, a carpenter's shop and builder's yard ; and there are six arable acres. The settlement was
started, and exists, chiefly to demonstrate an ingenious squad system, and bears the more polysyllabic title of " Federative Capitalization." It interests me chiefly because it seems to be the best possible training for young people who would wish to emigrate in a " group settlement." I have never seen any effort in emigration that looked so happy and solid as some (though not all) of the group settlements, which I visited along with the author, Sir John Mitchell, in Western Australia. But there is also another point—though a minor point— worth illustrating at the moment.
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