In some countries, where there are nu merous small landholders, and it is usual for the estate to be divided on the death of the head of the family, the tendency must be, and is, to carry this division further than is profitable either to the community or to individuals. But in such case the evil may correct itself: a man can sell what it is not profitable to keep, and turn his hand to something else. The man who has been long attached to a small plot as a tenant, and mainly or entirely depends on it for his subsistence, will not leave it till he is turned out.
The allotment system, when limited to the giving a labourer a small plot of garden ground, presents many advantages. But the object of making such allotments is moral rather than economic : the culti vation of a few vegetables and flowers is a pleasing occupation, and has a ten dency to keep a man at home and from the alehouse. In many cases also, a small plot of ground can be cultivated by the labour of the wife and the young children, and a pig may be kept on the produce of the garden. The agricultural labour of young children is of very little value, but children may often be em ployed on a small plot of ground. Such
employment is better than allowing the children to do nothing at all and to run about the lanes ; and if their labour is well directed to a small garden, it cannot fail to be productive, and to add greatly to the supply of vegetables for the family.
Any extension of the allotment system beyond what a labourer can cultivate easily at his leisure hours, or with the assistance of his family, may be for a time a specious benefit, but in the end will be an injury to himself and to others. If a man is a labourer for hire, that is his vocation, and he cannot be anything else. If he becomes half labourer and half cultivator, he runs a risk of failing in both capacities ; and if he becomes a cultivator on a small scale, and with in sufficient capital, he must enter into com petition in the market with those who can produce cheaper than himself; or he must confine himself to a bare subsistence from his ground, with little or nothing i to give in exchange for those things which he wants and cannot produce himself.