"GROW YOUR OWN FOOD."

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, It is with regret I see that the correspondence started by Mr. J. W. Scott on the possibilities of allotments has " fizzled out." In the country village where I live it is not

unknown—owing to the prevailing scarcity of gardens—for a cottage wife to have to buy vegetables in the nearest town,

so that the questionrin our case at any rate, is not an academic one, and seems worth a very determined investigation.

I have not yet been able to consult City Homes on Countrg Lanes, but in a book published some twenty-five years ago,

Reminiscences of a Radical Parson, by the late Rev. Tuckwell, there is an account of an experiment in allotments which might

throw some light on the subject. The amount of land required to feed an average family must, of course, vary in different localities; but the statistics I am about to quote would at least serve as a basis of comparison in computing present possibilities for the same district to which they apply—viz., Waltham, Lines :—

" The Glebe Farm was let out in allotments of 4 to 2 acres. As the ground was very foul, the holders were only required to pay rates and taxes the first 2 years, 7s. 6d. an acre the third year, then the full £1. . . . When the wheat was threshed out in the following autumn, it was found that on the best cleaned, best manured, beat hoed land, an acre yielded all the bread, pig- food and potatoes that a family of six cd. require. Next year the yield in all the holdings had risen fairly to this level ; in some much above it.

First Year's Budget.

£ a. d. £ a d.

On bread at 3 0 2/10a week 7 7 4 1 2 0 „ Potatoes .. 2 3 4

1 0 9 10c1.

„ Bacon .. 5 4 0

17 0t f 2/- Rent • .

Rates ..

Pig bought.. Manure .. Grinding corn ..

Outlay Sarin 14 14 8

Gain for the year, £11 12s. 8d.

I was able to state before the Liberal Federation in Birmingham that while the average yield of wheat for the year (1886) on farmer's land throughout England had been 29f bushels per acre, the average on our allotment-land had been 40 bushels per acre, and that one acre had repaid its cultivation with 60 bushels. And the men had learned the secret of allotment profit ; that they must grow for consumption, not for sale. . . . When prioes fall so low that the cost per acre of raising food is greater than the prim per acre for which it can be sold, the farmer is ruined ; but the fall of prices does not touch the labourer. . . . In 1893 I left the village • our final estimate of profits showed that in that closing year £800 had been taken out of 200 acres and poured into the cottages. (To convince critics) I bagged the Allotments Association to send down an expert who might view the farm. . . . His report proved my assertion that an acre, wisely handled, means a profit of 4 /- a week, to be rather below than above the truth."

This promising scheme was wrecked, if I recollect right, by the fact that Mr. Tuckwell's successor did not continue to let the glebe for the purpose of allotments—which points to another factor of the problem, viz., the urgent importance of some security of tenure. If a man has spent much labour on getting his land into a good condition. it is discouraging,

3 2 0 even if he is given some compensation, to have to start over again on a new piece of ground.—I am, Sir, &c., C. A. E.