PARSONS AS FARMERS.
The Commissioners are harder and better men of business than the clergy. The glebe is often much less profitable, as well as less usefully employed than it should be, because the parson does not know what to do with it. He is not a fanner and as a rule does not appreciate the opportunities as landowner—for the freehold is his. He often finds the letting of the land a rather profitless burden ; and he would doubtless benefit in purse and in peace from the Marquess of Lincolnshire's proposals. But here and there where a farming parson is happily found the glebe is used for smallholdings. One of the best sorts of smallholding I know, called the Cow- Pasture Association, was started on a Midland glebe; and was kept going largely by the personal interest of the parson. A part of this glebe was grazed in common by the villagers, who were advanced money for the purchase of cows, and strips were personally reserved for laying down to hay. There are many parishes, especially in the Midlands, where the system might be fruitfully imitated. In a neighbouring parish some part of the glebe was let in allotments, to the greater benefit of the allotment-holders than of the clergyman, for he had quite excessive difficulty in screwing himself up to the point of being cruel enough even to ask for rent.
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