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Definitions As indicated in the introduction, an allotment garden is a small plot of land, not attached to a dwelling, that is cultivated to produce food intended for the consumption of the gardener and his or her family. Under a variety of names, the practice of allotment or community gardening assumes slightly different forms all over the world.1 The German allotment historian Gert Gröning defines these gardens as a “specific expression of the human interest in the growth of plants for food and for aesthetic reasons.”2 An examination of how allotments were defined in the three countries considered here provides a stepping-stone toward establishing subtle nuances in the understanding of the concept. England In his comprehensive treatise on legislation related to allotments up to 1886, the barrister Theodore Hall wrote: The word “allotment” is generally used in this book in its popular meaning . . . a small piece of land let to a person to be cultivated by him as an aid to his sustenance , but not in substitution for his labour for wages. When the land is large enough to become the main object of the tenant’s labour, it is in the phrase of the day called a “small holding,” rather than an allotment. It is important to distinguish the two things, as their political and social import differs widely, though in point of law there is not much difference. Also by an allotment is usually meant a piece of land apart from the tenant’s cottage; that is to say an allotment is distinguished from a cottage garden, which is usually considered a better thing for the tenant, and the lack of which an allotment is intended to supply. In the Inclosure Acts the word has another and more accurate meaning, viz. a piece of land appropriated under an inclosure award; and the phrase “fieldgarden ” is used to express what is popularly called an “allotment.”3 Hall’s text indicates that the distinction between an allotment, meant as a supplemental source of support, and a small holding, intended to provide a 1 Definitions and Commonalities The Working Man’s Green Space 8 livelihood for its tenant or owner, was frequently blurred, even in official documents . Although allotments were initially believed to have the potential to retain rural workers in the countryside and stem urban migration, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that small holdings were legislated, as distinct from allotments, to encourage resettlement into the countryside in order to counter the effects of rural depopulation. Jeremy Burchardt, whose research focuses on pre-1873 England, provides a much more concise definition of the English allotment as “a plot of land, not attached to a house, in a field divided in similar plots, surrounded by a common external fence but without internal partitions.”4 For the twentieth century, the Allotment Acts of 1922 and 1950 both consistently define the subcategory of allotment garden: “The expression ‘allotment garden’ means an allotment not exceeding forty poles [a quarter of an acre or one thousand square meters] in extent which is wholly or mainly cultivated by the occupier for the production of vegetable or fruit crops for consumption by himself or his family.”5 Due to the decline of interest in allotments after World War II and the condition of those that remained, the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into Allotments, chaired by Harry Thorpe, a professor of geography at the University of Birmingham, was appointed by the minister of land and natural resources in 1965. The committee report, commonly known as the Thorpe Report, was published in 1969. It relied on the definitions in the acts of 1922 and 1950 cited above. There are five requirements for an allotment garden: 1. it must be an allotment; 2. it must be forty poles or less in extent; 3. it must be wholly or mainly for the production of vegetables and fruit for home consumption; 4. it must not be used for trade or business; 5. it must not be used for keeping pigs or any form of livestock except hens and rabbits (permitted on allotments as of 1950, although restricted by some local ordinances). The legislation provides for three types of allotments: statutory allotments, on land that is owned by the allotments authority and used for allotments; temporary allotments, on land that is either rented by the allotments authority or owned by the allotments authority but intended, ultimately, for another use; and private allotments, on land neither...

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