Allotment or Farm ?
The land—or so it seems to me—resembles fire : it is a good servant, a very good servant ; but often a bad master. It is good for everyone to have some traffic with land ; though it may break a man's heart to be dependent on the land for existence. The, ideal aim should be to extend the service of the land. It may or may not be true that no hope lies (as these skilful and learned historians believe) in the artificial creation of small holdings, of small farms ; but it would in any event be a sad thing if the failure of the farm were to depress the movement for bringing the unemployed or any industrial worker or labourer into a more profitable and enjoyable contact with the land. Commercial or co-operative farms of the sort now being organised in Glamorganshire, the glass gardens or small holdings now multiplying in Lancashire (round Preston, for example, and Blackpool) and yet more obviously the allotments growing rapidly under the wise and expert guidance of the Friends (co-operating with Government)—all these and other Back to the Land movements are beyond all question beneficial and may together do essential work in alleviating the worse evils of unemployment. The garden is a universal benefactor ; and for this reason it has much distressed some of unto see that in clearing country slums no notice whatever has been taken of the garden. I saw this week refurbished cottages quite robbed of natural garden space though the land adjoining them was virtually worthless. All Back to the Land movements should include the garden and allot- ment, should begin with the garden and allotment ; and perhaps end there. My plea to the politicians and statisticians is this : help us to be a nation of gardeners ; and the garden is a word generic enough to include the allotment. It is worth insisting (as a moral to the new glass gardens of Lan- cashire) that the improvement and cheapening of glass houses and frames, indeed the discovery of cheap substitutes for glass have added essentially to the opportunities of the garden. If we want statistics here is one claim of local statisticians : that the value of the produce from glass houses in Hertfordshire is greater than the produce of all the rest of the land. However crucial the emphasis on the statistical lessons of history, scientific advance may at any time entirely falsify their more obvious inferences. There was never more insistent call for a Back to the Land movement, though it need not be in the form either of a small holding or a farm.
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