LARGE AND SMALL
HOLDINGS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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C. F. CLAY, MANAGER

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LARGE AND SMALL
HOLDINGS

A STUDY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL
ECONOMICS

BY

HERMANN LEVY, PH.D.

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG

TRANSLATED BY RUTH KENYON
WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR

Cambridge :

at the University Press

191 1

TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND

ARTHUR WILSON-FOX, CB.

BY WHOSE EARLY DEATH

ENGLISH AGRICULTURE HAS LOST ONE

WHO HAD ITS PROSPERITY AT HEART

PREFACE

THE German edition of this book appeared in I9O41. When the
Cambridge University Press decided to publish the present
translation I realised that it would be necessary to add a considerable
amount of supplementary matter. In the historical part of the book
it was desirable to notice the publications of the six intervening years
on the question of the decay of the yeomanry, although they have
not altered my views as to the causes of the disappearance of that
class. But above all it was necessary to take the Small Holdings
Act of 1908 into consideration. I therefore went to England in the
summer of 1910 in order to study its working on the spot, so far as it
has gone at present. The statistics have been brought up to 1909 so
far as was possible. The appendix on " The Modern Small Holder "
did not appear in the German edition. It is an attempt briefly to
outline some new impressions received as to the psychological aspects
of the small holdings question. My personal study of the question was
of course mainly made in the course of 1903, when I spent six months
touring rural England with this end in view. It is a pleasant duty to
offer my warm thanks here to all those who so kindly helped me with
information. It is not possible to name them all, for if they were
numerous in 1903, they were still more numerous in 1910. But it was
a pleasure to find when I came back to England in 1910 that no one
had forgotten me, and I am proud to have had personal experience
of the English loyalty so well known in Germany. It was sad to
miss my old and valued friend Arthur Wilson-Fox, C.B., so early and

1 It was published under the title Entstehung und Ruckgang des landwirtschaftlickc*
Grossbetriebs in England, by Julius Springer, Berlin. I owe my thanks to Messrs Springer
for giving their consent to the translation.

vi Preface

suddenly carried off by death from his work for rural England. I
would offer my special thanks for the trouble they have taken on
behalf of myself and my work to Mr Henry Rew, Major P. G. Craigie
and Mr L. J. Cheney of the Board of Agriculture ; to Mr R. A. Yer-
burgh, M.P., Mr H. W. Wolff and Mr J. Nugent Harris of the
Agricultural Organisation Society ; to the Earl of Ancaster, Mr G. E.
Lloyd-Baker, Lord Brassey and Mr H. C. Fairfax-Cholmeley among
landowners ; and among gentlemen who have helped me in the most
friendly way by information of various kinds, to Mr E. O. Fordham,
Mr Montagu Fordham, Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P., Mr Josiah Wedgwood,
M.P., Mr G. P. Gooch, and Sir F. A. Channing.

The title may seem to be somewhat too comprehensive, and to
go beyond what is actually the chief point contained in the material
utilised in the book. But I would plead in its justification that there
are unfortunately no English works treating of the history and organi-
sation of agriculture as they are treated in the German systems of
Agrar-Politik : and that though the proper subject of the present
volume is the economics of large and small holdings, I have so often
had occasion to go outside its strict limits that it seemed desirable
to indicate the fact in the title. My intention, however, was to
work out this special problem of agricultural economy on the broadest
possible lines. For the history of the developments in regard of the
unit of agricultural holding in England during the last hundred and
fifty years can only be understood when looked at upon the back-
ground of the whole contemporary agricultural situation ; and a
clear statement of the question as it stands at the present day can
only be made when every important fact of rural life in modern
England has been taken into consideration.

HERMANN LEVY

HEIDELBERG

February 1911

CONTENTS

PART I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LARGE FARM SYSTEM AND THE
DECAY OF THE SMALL HOLDING

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTORY i

I. The Agricultural Revolution of the Eighteenth Century and the

Period of the Continental System 3

II. The Period of the Corn- Laws 45

III. From the Abolition of the Corn-Laws to the Development of

Foreign Competition 55

a. The Agricultural History of the First Thirty Years of Free

Trade 55

6. The Continued Extension of the Large Farm System . 61

c. The Geographical Distribution of Holdings .... 67

d. Contemporary Views and Theories 69

PART II

THE ECONOMICS OF LARGE AND SMALL HOLDINGS
AT THE PRESENT DAY

IV. The Alteration in Market Conditions and its Effect on Production . 75

V. The Unit of Holding under the New Conditions .... 88

VI. The Economic Aspects of the Revival of Small Farming . . 101
VII Social and Political Aspects of the Problem 114

a. Small Holdings as a Remedy for the Rural Exodus . . 114

b. The Problem of Landownership in relation to the Unit of

Holding 118

viii Contents

CHAP. PAGE

VIII. Legislative Action in Favour of Small Holdings . . . .125

a. The Small Holdings Acts 125

b. The Working of the Act of 1907 147

IX. The Respective Economic Advantages of the Large and Small

Holding . . . . . . . . . .154

Introductory ........... 154

A. In relation to the various branches of Agriculture . . 156

a. Corn-Production . . . . * . . .156

b. Vegetable and Fruit Growing . , . . . .162

c. Stock Farming ......... 168

(1) Cattle-breeding . . . . . . . 168

(2) Dairying 172

(3) Pig-keeping 178

(4) Poultry-keeping 178

(5) Pedigree Stock-breeding . . . . . .179

d. Summary and Conclusions 180

B. General Advantages and Disadvantages . . . .183

X. Agricultural Co-operation 187

XI. Historical Retrospect and Present Outlook 200

APPENDIX I. The modern Small Farmer and the Question of Home

Colonisation: a Problem of Sociology . . . .214

APPENDIX II. Statistics relating to the Geographical Distribution of

Large and Small Farms 223

APPENDIX 1 1 1. List of Authorities quoted 230

INDEX 243

Journal R. A. S.= Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

Report of 1 88 1 = Report of the Royal Commission on the Depressed Condition
of the Agricultural Interest, 1880-2.

Small Holdings Report, 1889= Report from the Select Committee on Small
Holdings, 1889.

Report of 1 894 ** First (Second, etc.) Report of the Royal Commission on the
subject of Agricultural Depression, 1894-7.

Final Report = Final Report of the Royal Commission on the subject of Agri-
cultural Depression, 1894-7.

Small Holdings Report, 1906= Report of the Departmental Committee ap-
pointed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into the subject of
Small Holdings in Great Britain, 1906.

PART I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LARGE
FARM SYSTEM

INTRODUCTORY

THE question as to the best unit of agricultural management has
been of increasing importance in England for the last twenty years.
Up to about 1880 it seemed that the last word on the matter had
already been spoken. The system of the large farm had made con-
tinual progress ever since the middle of the eighteenth century. It
was held to be the characteristic, and in fact the only appropriate,
method of English agriculture. It had been preached with enthusiasm
by the agricultural authorities of the eighteenth century, and those
of the nineteenth had taken over and developed the same doctrine.
Moreover, throughout the whole period from 1750 to 1880 the doctrine
seemed to be entirely justified by the facts of agricultural development.
Even as late as between 1850 and 1880 large farms proved to be
increasing at the expense of small farms. So that from the point
of view of economic policy the superiority of the large holding, so far
as regarded English agriculture, seemed to be a fact which there was
little, if any, inclination to dispute.

Nor did the matter look very different from the point of view of
social policy. The large farm certainly did not offer any obvious
socio-political advantages. But those who depreciated it as com-
pared with the small holding found that their arguments sank into
insignificance beside the actual facts of agricultural management.
The economic and technical superiorities of the large farm out-
weighed all that could be advanced in favour of the smaller unit.

From about 1880 onwards these conditions were altered. Large
farms no longer increased in number; they rather decreased. On

2 Large and Small Holdings

the other hand it began to be evident that small and medium holdings
were on the increase. Soon the dogma of the infallibility of the
system of the large farm ceased to be altogether convincing. The
whole economic theory of the unit of management, which had
culminated in the glorification of the large farm, was upset. The
astonishing change of tendency began to be investigated, and in
many cases small farming, in view of the new conditions, was praised
as vehemently as large farming had been before. Meantime those
who had always regarded the matter as one of social policy saw that
their day had come. Now that they could base their argument on
the increasing capacity for economic survival shown by the small
farm, they were able to obtain a hearing when they pointed out its
socio-political superiority.

Thus new life was given to the somewhat arid discussion as to the
proper size of the agricultural holding. Into this discussion, however,
the present enquiry does not profess to enter. For what has been
shown by the discussion, not only in England but also elsewhere, is
the necessity for a historical study of the question. Just as formerly
the case for the large farm was one-sidedly maintained because
men allowed themselves to be dazzled by the facts that were before
their eyes, so now the small holding is often championed with equal
one-sidedness, because deductions are drawn as to general laws from
impressions given by present conditions.

The changes, and the causes of the changes, in English systems of
land management can only be understood if the history of agriculture
is studied, so as to show how modern conditions have come into
existence. The first step in this direction is to describe the conditions
which brought about the development and preponderance of the large
holding in England. Although, as has been seen, the system of the
large farm has ceased to extend its boundaries, it is still predominant
in English agriculture : England is still a country of large farms. Of
the total acreage under cultivation, 42 per cent, is in holdings of 100
to 300 acres, 30 per cent, is in holdings of 300 to over 1000 acres, and
only 28 per cent, in holdings of i to 100 acres. Our problem is to
explain this preponderance of large and medium holdings. The key
to the problem will be found in the agricultural history of the
eighteenth century.

CHAPTER I

THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY AND THE PERIOD OF THE CONTINENTAL
SYSTEM

LONG before the eighteenth century there had been a period
when large farms were formed in great numbers, namely in the
middle of the fifteenth century, when the growing profits of sheep-
breeding led landlords to buy up small peasant properties and throw
them together into a few large farms. But it would be a mistake to
suppose that it was at this period that the modern system of the large
farm originated. The large holdings then formed were of quite a
different kind from those of the nineteenth century and the present
day. They were pasture-farms serving for sheep-breeding and the
production of wool. The origin of the modern large farm is to be
traced to the time when corn-growing flourished. On it were worked
out the great modern improvements in the art of corn-cultivation.
It is even doubtful whether the large farms of the fifteenth century
were not transformed again into small holdings in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, which certainly saw a reaction in favour of small
farming1.

At any rate it is clear that in the first half of the eighteenth
century there still remained a great number of small and very small
holdings. Moreover when in the second half of the century the rapid
consolidation of small holdings into large farms began, the indigna-
tion which broke out and the importance ascribed to the movement
point to the conclusion that till that time no tendency to increase the
size of farms had been noticeable.

These small holdings of the eighteenth century were of various
classes. In the first place we have very small plots, some of whose
holders were also owners, some tenants of a landlord or sub-tenants
under a farmer. In any case they were for the most part labourers
as well as occupiers ; working for such neighbouring larger farmers as
might at times need the services of day-labourers to supplement the

1 J. Rae, Why have the Yeomanry perished? in Contemporary Review, Vol. XLIV, 1883,
p. 94.

4 Large and Small Holdings

work of their farm-servants. They had before them good hope of
rising by industry and thrift to the position of a small farmer properly
so called1. The disappearance of this class of landholding day-
labourers is a constant subject of complaint with the social reformers
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries2.

The next class of small cultivators was that of the small farmer
proper, which was still a numerous one in the eighteenth century.
The whole time of the small farmer and his family was given to the
cultivation of his own holding, and the sale of its produce was their
sole source of income.

Very close to these little farmers stood the small proprietors, the
honest, industrious yeomanry whose disappearance is still lamented
by students of agricultural life3. Dr Rae has clearly shown that a
large number of them still existed in the middle of the eighteenth
century4. How they came to lose their land will be seen later. As
a rule this class too employed little outside labour, and very little
day-labour. They themselves did the work of the farm with the
assistance of their own families. Their holdings would seldom exceed
100 acres. Their yearly income in Cumberland, the classic country
of the small owner, ranged from £5 to £$os.

All these three classes were alike in one point ; they all had some
rights of common. The smallest occupiers profited most by these.
They drove their stock on the common pasture6, and gathered wood
and furze on the common and waste7; so that to them their common
rights were a very important privilege.

Agricultural writers of the second half of the eighteenth century
give some data as to the commodities produced and sent to market
by these small cultivators.

The holders of the smallest plots practically never sold corn.
They themselves consumed what amount they grew, which was
seldom sufficient even to cover their own demand for bread. Their

1 Report of the Royal Commission on the Employment of Women and Children, 1868,
\ *5>-

• E.g. David Da vies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry, 1795, p. 56; and The
Labourers' Friend, 1835, P- 3-

1 G. F. Eyre, Small Farming, Oxford, 1902, p. 18.
4 Cp. Rae, loc. cit. pp. 546 ff.

• R. H. L. Palgrave, Diet, of Political Economy, 1899, p. 685 a; and G. C. Brodrick,
English Land and English Landlords, 1881, p. 20.

• W. Hashach, English Agricultural Labourer, 1908, pp. 89 ff. and isoff. ; and R. E.
Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, 1888, passim.

7 Report on the Employment of Women and Children, 1868, loc. cit.

Agricultural Revolution 5

pigs and cows were also often destined only to supply their own
tables with meat and milk1. Whatever else they needed was paid for
out of the wages they earned when working outside their own hold-
ings. Anything which they did produce over and above what they
consumed themselves consisted in live-stock or its products. Some
of them kept two or three cows, two or three pigs, geese and poultry,
"according as they may have had success2."

The other small holders too, whether proprietors or farmers, had
for their main object the production not of corn but of live-stock. It
is very difficult to tell on what sized holding, at that time, the pro-
duction of corn for the market began. Arthur Young, in 1772,
describes the production on a small holding of twelve acres as
follows3. Enough wheat would be grown to provide the family
with bread-corn for the year. The surplus produce, which would
come to market, would be (i) in the first place dairy produce ; (2) an
acre of barley, assuming that the occupier fed no pigs ; (3) the sow's
annual litter, say ten on the average, of which eight would be sold ;
(4) two acres of turnips or pease ; and (5) the poultry that were
reared. But corn-growing was not a prominent feature even on such
small holdings as did send a little to market, either habitually or after
a specially good harvest. Even the most impassioned defenders of
the little cultivators did not attempt to claim this for them. On the
contrary, some of them admit that as a consequence of the large families
of the small holders and their often imperfect methods of cultivation,
only a very small quantity of that important article was sold by them4.
But they go on to point out the branches of production in which
the small holdings did excel : from them came quantities of beef and
mutton, pigs and poultry, fruit and vegetables, eggs, butter and milk5.

1 Stephen Addington, An Enquiry into the Reasons for and against enclosing Open
Fields, 2nd ed. Coventry, 1772, p. 33: — "Their land furnishes them with wheat and barley
for bread, and in many places with beans or peas to feed a hog or two for meat ; with the
straw they thatch their cottage, and winter their cow, which gives a breakfast and supper of
milk, nine or ten months in the year, for their families."

3 A Political Enquiry into the Consequences of enclosing Waste Lands, 1785, p. 44.

3 Political Essays, 1772, pp. 88 f.

4 J. Donaldson, Modern Agriculture, Edinburgh, 1795, Vol. I, p. 408.

9 F. Forbes, The Improvement of Waste Lands, 1778, p. 153 : — "The occupiers of small
and middling farms keep cows upon each of them, which enables them to keep hogs in
proportion; young store also and poultry ; and hence the markets and neighbourhood are
supplied with butter, cheese, milk, pigs, veal, fowls and eggs." See also J. Duncumb,
A General View of the Agriculture of Herefordshire, 1805, p. 34 : — " If they (the small
fanners) supplied the public markets with so much less corn as the increased demand of
their families required, they made amends in an increased supply of veal, Iamb, poultry
and butter."

6 Large and Small Holdings

Other representatives of the same side say nothing at all about corn-
growing, but they too dwell on the live-stock of the small farms and
their success in the lesser branches of agricultural production1. It
thus appears that Arthur Young and other champions of the spreading
system of the large farm were justified in describing the corn-growing
on the small holdings as behind the times. Instead of contradicting
them, their opponents point to the superiority of the small farmer
over the large in the production of vegetables, butter, milk, pigs,
poultry, fruit and so forth. Even at that time, therefore, these pro-
ducts were the domain of the small cultivator ; and even in the
eighteenth century the products of large and small farming were seen
to differ. The large farmers neglected both live-stock and the smaller
matters of agriculture in favour of corn-growing. The writers of the
period frequently note that the farmer's interest in corn-growing
increases as the size of his farm increases, while on large holdings all
other branches of production, with the possible exception of sheep-
breeding, are neglected2.

The care demanded by live-stock and the lesser matters which
occupied the attention of the small holders seemed to the large
farmer to be troublesome and not very profitable3. The work on
an arable farm could be done by day-labourers with superintendence
only on the part of the occupier. Live-stock and market-gardening
required intensive work, and care and attention such as could not be
obtained from hired labour, but which the small cultivator and his
family bestowed to admiration4. This was not only claimed by the
friends of small farming. Even Arthur Young, who had as a rule so
little to say in its favour, was astonished and delighted by the energy
of the Lincolnshire peasants, who, as he said, "turned sand into gold5."

The care bestowed by the cottagers on their cows was always an
object of special commendation. They were in the stable till late at

. J Nathaniel Kent, Hints to Gentlemen of Landed Property, 1775, P- Iia-
J. S. Girdler, Observations on the Pernicious Consequences of Forestalling, Regrating and
Engrossing, 1800, p. 42. The author speaks of men who possess "little farms," or some-
times only "cottages with small enclosures," "who gain a livelihood and support large
families by selling their sweet little mutton, and their calves, pork, pigs, geese, and other
poultry; butter, and eggs." Nothing is said of their growing any corn.

J See e.g. Th. Wright, A Short Address to the Public cm the Monopoly of Small Farms,
1795> P- 6 : — " The wealthy farmer's attention is engrossed by the means of producing the
greatest quantity of grain and hay."

3 Cp. e.g. Sketth of a Plan for reducing the present High Price of Corn, 1772, p. 16 ; and
Adam, Practical Essays on Agriculture, 1789, Vol. II, p. 510.

4 Forbes, op. cit. p. 157; and Kent, op. cit. p. 214.

8 Young, A General View of the Agriculture of Lincolnshire, 1799, pp. 17 ff.

Agricultural Revolution 7

night, and so succeeded in making profits out of a branch of farming
which appeared to bring little advantage when pursued on a large
scale1.

Later, as the small cultivators disappeared, writers frequently
noticed that the large farmer simply would not be troubled with
trifles like butter, poultry and so forth, and that his wife was much
too fine to go to market, like the wife of the small farmer, "with a
basket of butter, pork, roasting-pigs, or poultry, on her arm3."

It was, in fact, not only in the production of meat and the lesser
agricultural products that the intensive interest bestowed on the
work by the little farmer or cottager seemed to give their holdings
the advantage over large farms worked by wage-labour. It was
also, and more particularly, in the marketing of such products. Here
the wives and daughters of the little landholders played a great
part. They themselves took the goods to market, or to their private
customers, and their personal business knowledge and interest was
a great factor in determining the prices they obtained. The wife
of the large farmer was by no means inclined to go to market in
person, much less to go round to customers' houses : and the business
could hardly be entrusted to the maid-servants3. So that here was
another reason why the large farmer was disinclined to trouble him-
self with dairy produce and the like, which he could not sell off once
and for all as he could his corn. It would however be a mistake to
suppose that the small farmers of the eighteenth century had produced
only for the local market. In spite of the unfavourable transport
conditions, it can be shown that in the eighteenth century (though it
is true that the authorities belong to the second half of the century)
meat, dairy produce and fruit and vegetables were all produced for
central markets. Thus Forbes, in 1778, states that to London and
other large towns "provisions are drawn from all parts of the country4."
So, for example, London drew its butter mainly from Yorkshire,

1 So e.g. T. Comber, Real Improvement in Agriculture, 1771, p. 40.

8 Girdler, op. cit. p. 29.

8 One writer says that the wives of the small cultivators regarded the poultry and other
lesser branches of production as entirely their concern. See A Sketch of a Plan, etc. p. 16.
So also C. Vancouver, A General View of the Agriculture of Devonshire, 1808, p. i n : —
"It is bat common justice to say, that the industry and attention to business of the farmers'
wives and daughters, with the neatness displayed in all their market-ware, at Exeter and in
other large towns, are subjects deserving the highest praise. No labour or fatigue is spared
in reaching the market in time, be the distance what it may ; nor will any severity of weather
prevent them from their ordinary attendance." And Kent, op. cit. p. 113 : — " His (the large
farmer's) wife... will not condescend to attend the market like the wives, and children, of
little farmers." 4 Forbes, op. cit. p. 153.

8 Large and Small Holdings

Dorsetshire and Ireland ; only a small proportion was supplied by
Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex1. London was the great market
for poultry. Turkeys came to it from Suffolk, geese from Lincolnshire,
etc.2 Butter was sent in tubs weighing 56 Ibs. from the small farms
of Cumberland to far distant counties3. Westmorland, Durham,
Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Shropshire and other counties
contributed to supply Lancashire with beef and mutton4. Gloucester-
shire sent fat oxen, sheep, pigs and cheese to London3. There was
even a certain division of labour as between the various counties.
Thus Kent, the garden of England, even then supplied the northern
counties with fruit6. Cheshire sent large quantities of its cheese to
London7. London's demand for eggs, which even then is described
as being very large, was not supplied by the neighbouring counties,
but by some of those at a distance8.

Thus it appears that the means of transport were sufficiently good
to open up central as well as local markets to the agriculturists. The
improvements made in the roads9, and the extension of the network
of canals10, in the course of the century, of course contributed to this
end.

With the rapid increase of population from the beginning of the
century11, the increasing wealth of the various classes and the im-
proving means of communication, the profits of the small holders
seemed secure.

Corn prices, in the first half of the century, were low. In the
period 1692 to 1715 the average price of wheat, according to the Eton
tables, was 45^. Sd. In the next fifty years it was only 34^. I id?.12

1 J. Middleton, A General View of the Agriculture of Middlesex, 1798, p. 527.

2 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. n, pp. 150 ff.

3 J. Bailey and G. Culley, A General View of the Agriculture of Northumberland, 3rd ed.
1813, p. 244.

4 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 54.

6 T. Rudge, A General View of the Agriculture of Gloucestershire, 1807, p. 370.
8 Bailey and Culley, op. cit. p. 123.

7 H. Holland, A General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire, 1808, p. 343.

8 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 150.

9 Forbes, op. cit. pp. 153 f.

10 The importance of the canal system, and of shipping generally, for the transport of
agricultural produce to the great markets, increased extraordinarily in the eighteenth century.
Cp. Arthur Young's admiring words in A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties,
Dublin, 1768, p. 229; and also Forbes, op. cit. p. 154. For the extension of the canal
system in the eighteenth century see H. G. Thompson, The Canal System of England, 1902,
pp. 8-10.

u The population increased from 5,400,000 in the year 1700 to 8,600,000 in 1790.
« Tooke, History of Prices, Vol. I, p. 39.

Agricultural Revolution 9

Bread, accordingly, was cheap. Meantime, while this most im-
portant article of consumption1 was at a low price, wages were rising
considerably. Whereas from 1660 to 1720 a day's wage would on the
average buy f of a peck of wheat, from 1720 to 1750 the fall of price
and rise of wage were such that a day's wage would purchase a whole
pecka. IMs increased purchasing power of wages would naturally
mean an increased consumption of agricultural produce on the part of
the working classes ; and in fact the social reformers of the end of the
century show that it was not only the upper classes who had increased
their consumption of meat, butter, eggs and poultry at this period, by
their complaint that now, in face of the rise in the price of corn,
labourers could no longer afford such articles. The complaints would
have no point if the people had not formerly, at the time when corn
was cheap, been accustomed to make these animal products an im-
portant part of their consumption.

Thus it is very natural that nothing should be heard as to diffi-
culties of the small farmers in the first half of the eighteenth century.
The conditions of the market were favourable for their produce. And
the smallest holders, who worked outside their own holdings and did
not grow corn enough for their own needs, had the advantage of a
high wage, while the price of bread was lower than it had ever been
before.

The large farmers, whose chief business as a rule was the sale of
corn, found their position less satisfactory. This was obviously the
result of the fall in the price of corn as compared with the end of the
seventeenth century. It was the old story, and one which was often
to be heard again. High prices had led to the breaking-up of land
hitherto unploughed, and rents had risen. Then, when with good
harvests prices fell, the farmers were unable to continue to pay the
rents based on the higher prices. Hence between 1715 and 1765 there
were frequent complaints from them of distress and from the land-
lords of the fall of rents which they had to endure. From 1731 to
1733 and again in the years just after 1740 these complaints are
particularly audible. But they always concern only corn-growing and
the arable farmer3.

1 Wheaten bread became the most important article of food in the dietary of the labouring
classes during this period ; cp. the authorities cited by Tooke, op. cit. p. 60 ; and also M. Peters,
The Rational Farmer, 2nd ed. 1771, p. 118.

'2 Tooke, op. cit. p. 61. On the rise of wages along with falling corn-prices cp. Adam
Smith, Wealth of Nations, 2nd ed. 1817, Vol. I, p. 333; and Thorold Rogers, Work and
1885, p. 121.

1 The causes of agricultural distress at this time may be clearly traced in various publica-

io Large and Small Holdings

It is natural, again, that under these circumstances there was no
question, up to about the year 1765, of any consolidation of small
farms. Large farmers who grew corn were not as a rule in any
serious distress, but the periods of specially low prices sufficed to
prevent any great extension of the area under corn and any general
increase in the size of holdings. Although a little later Arthur Young
expatiated on the satisfactory results of William Ill's bounty on
export1, he only did so because he was desirous of showing that State
action could help to keep up prices. Certainly the price of wheat
would have fallen still lower if the home market had not been relieved
by the export of corn in years of plenty. But even the artificially
high price induced by the bounty was too low to bring about any real
increase of arable farming, improvement of poor land and the like.
Arthur Young himself said in 1774 that he had every reason to
believe that agriculture (by which he always means corn-growing) had
made practically no progress in the cheap years 1730 to I7562.

But a radical change in all these conditions took place in the
second half of the eighteenth century. From about the year 1765 to
the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 prices rose almost unceasingly,
and more especially the price of those particular commodities whose
cheapness in the first half of the eighteenth century had proved so
beneficial to the mass of the population, namely the prices of corn
and of bread. From 34^. lid. in the period 1715 to 1765 the price of
wheat rose to 45^. yd. in the period 1760 to 1790, and to $$s. i id. in
the following decade. From 1805 to 1813 the annual average price
was never below 73.?., and often over IOOT. In 1812 it reached

122S. Sd.3

The causes of this great and constantly increasing rise were
various. In the first place, the fifty years up to 1765 had been a
period of extraordinarily good harvests. According to Tooke, in all
that time there were only five bad years4. With the year 1765 this

tions. Thus W. Allen, in The Landlords Companion, 1742, p. 13, says that in the
prosperous times woodlands and sheep-walks had been turned into ploughland. These
would naturally become unprofitable again when prices fell. And even the bounty on
export did not prevent this distress, since it was never able to keep the price of wheat at
the level which would have been necessary to meet the increased rents of the arable farms.
Cp. furthei on this particular point W. Ellis, The Modern Husbandman, Month of December,
'743- PP- 96-7 a°d 98-111. Also Tooke, op. cit. pp. 27, 46, 52, and Vol. vi, p. 383-4; and
Rogers, op. cit. p. in.

1 Arthur Young, Political Arithmetic, 1774, pp. 29 ff.

» Ibid., p. 33.

* G. R. Porter, Progress of the Nation, 1851, p. 148.

4 Tooke, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 39 f.

Agricultural Revolution \ \

period of abundance came to an end. Between that year and 1791
there were very few really good harvests1. In the second place,
while the home production of wheat was thus decreasing, population
was increasing. As a natural consequence, England passed soon after
1750 from the position of a corn-exporting to that of a corn-importing
country. But even increasing imports could not reduce the price to
the low level of the first half of the century, in view of the growing
demand and the lessened home supply. On the contrary, it rose
higher and higher. Conditions became still more unfavourable with
the outbreak of the French war in 1793. In the period which followed
(1792 to 1813) the harvests were quite extraordinarily bad2, while
population was still increasing rapidly, viz. by 3,000,000 persons in
the twenty years 1790 to 1811. These two circumstances by them-
selves would have sufficed to drive up corn-prices, but further the
wars, and above all Napoleon's Continental System, hindered and
even prevented the necessary regular importation of corn. While an
import of about \\ million quarters in 1801 had not been sufficient to
stave off dearth and starvation, between 1806 and 1813 the imports
never exceeded 400,000 quarters, though the home harvests were
most unfavourable3. This conjunction of bad seasons, inadequate im-
ports and rapidly growing population seems fully sufficient to explain
the rise in prices.

The effect of the rise on the mass of the people was terrible.
After the good times they had enjoyed in the period of abundance
they now found themselves plunged into misery, privation and famine.
The increase of population seemed to be a curse. All the progress
made in the first half of the eighteenth century was lost again. The
very word "labourers" was almost universally replaced by the term
" labouring poor."

The deterioration in the position of the working classes is especially
traceable in the decrease in the purchasing power of wages. It is
true that wages did rise with the rise in corn-prices. But that rise
was insignificant in face of the fact that the price of provisions
generally had risen in a much greater proportion. The nominal wage
did indeed increase, but real wages fell lower and lower. Thus
according to the figures given by various authorities, the wages of
the agricultural labourer rose between 1760 and 1813 by 60 per cent.,

1 Tooke, op. cit. pp. 50, 81 f.

3 Ibid., pp. 84 f., 179 ff., 358 ff., 293 ff.

8 Reports respecting Grain and the Corn Laws, November 1814, p. 121.

12 Large and Small Holdings

whereas the price of wheat rose by 130 per cent1 This inadequate
rise of wages led, as is well known, to the introduction of the allow-
ance system, by which the parish bound itself to make up from the
poor-rate the amount by which a labourer's wages might fall short of
what was necessary to his existence. Wages-scales were established,
which regulated the necessary income according to the price of bread2.
If the labourer did not earn the ideal wage thus fixed, the "allowance"
made up the deficiency. The extent of the claims on this allowance
in the period of rising corn-prices is shown by the enormous increase
in the poor-rate in the years 1801 to i8n3.

Under these conditions the lot of the labouring classes became
worse with every decade. The extensive enquiries of Sir Frederick
Eden showed how miserable their condition was even as early as
I7954. There was universal complaint of the inadequate rise of wages
in face of the exorbitant price of bread5, not only in regard of indus-
trial workers, or workers in the towns, but also in regard of the
agricultural labourers. Even the landed interest, which is seldom in
the course of history found objecting to low wages, was obliged to
recognise the seriousness of the fall in their purchasing power. Arthur
Young, strongest of representatives of this class, admits it6. He did
not, however, admit that it was a disadvantage. He took the view
that low wages meant more work done, and that therefore the
deterioration in the position of the agricultural labourer was rather
good than bad. Another writer justified the fall of real wages by
saying that "the present high price of wheat being, it is hoped, only
temporary,... an advance of wages in the above proportion would

1 For further particulars see H. Levy, Die Not der englischen Landwirte zur Zeit der
hohen Getreiilezblle, Stuttgart, 1902, p. 28. In addition to the authorities there quoted see
C. D. Brereton, Observations on the Administration of the Poor Laws, 3rd ed. p. 77.

2 Cp. Levy, op. cit. p. 27.

3 Porter, op. cit. p. 90. The poor-rate rose in these ten years by about £2% millions.

4 Sir F. Eden, The State of the Poor, 1797. See Vol. I, p. 404 and passim.

8 E.g. N. Kent, A General View of the Agriculture of Norfolk, Norwich, 1796, p. 173.
In 1801, when wheat was at nor. §d. per quarter, the Rev. A. Jobson wrote in the Annals
of Agriculture, Vol. xxxvn, p. 33:— "Some farmers now pay their labourers only 9*. a
week ; some pay IQJ. 6</., which is the common rate ; and some few farmers allow 12S. per
week. Even the iis. are found insufficient to provide bread for a small and numerous
family."

6 Young, The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, 1771, Vol. I, p. 704 :— "Some
years ago they could buy bread... much cheaper than they can at present, while their earnings
were the same." Cp. also Sir Spencer Walpole, History of England, ed. of 1902, Vol. i,
p. 157; and Duncumb, Herefordshire, p. 136, and pp. 155 f., where Duncumb expresses
a desire to see a law passed similar to the statute of Richard II which regulated wages
according to the price of bread.

Agricultural Revolution 13

emancipate the labourer from feeling those effects at all, which
everyone ought to bear his share of1." As though dearth and a rise
in the price of necessaries had not always hit the labourer harder
than any other class !

It is evident that, as might have been supposed, real wages having
fallen, the diet of the great mass of the people was changed for the
worse. Even by 1773 veal, lamb, bacon and pork, poultry, butter and
eggs could be described as "dainties" or "delicacies2." But the impossi-
bility of any longer obtaining such provisions was not the worst which
the labourer had to endure. Although even by working his hardest
he was often unable to earn enough to provide himself and his family
with bread3, the attempt was made forcibly to limit his use even of
this. Whereas in the course of the first sixty-five years of the
eighteenth century the use of the more nourishing wheaten bread had
been substituted for that of black bread, the aim now was to use any-
thing else possible in the place of wheat4. The most various means
occurred to people as serving this end. Most usually beans, barley or
rice were mixed with wheat flour so as to form a pudding, or rice-
bread was substituted for the wheaten-bread which had now become
a luxury8. In some cases, for lack of bread, labourers had to content
themselves with raw peas for their dinner8. Meantime, although the
dearness of corn meant poverty and misery to the people generally,
the growers of corn found their wealth increasing rapidly from 1760
onwards.

Corn-growing, as prices rose, became a main object of the
agriculturist. The profitableness of land under wheat increased with
every shilling by which the price of the quarter increased.

On the other hand the profitableness of live-stock and dairy and
garden produce was decreasing. The mass of the people became less
and less able to buy meat, butter, cheese, poultry, or fruit ; their
consumption of these commodities had to be diminished in proportion
as the price of bread rose and wages failed to rise correspondingly.

1 W. Pitt, A General View of the Agriculture of Staffordshire, 1796, p. 158.
a (J. Arbuthnot), An Enquiry into the Connection between the present Price of Provisions
and the Size of Farms, 1773, pp. 18, 19.

3 Duncumb, op. cit. p. 137.

4 Annals of Agriculture, Vol. xxxv, 1800, p. 206 : — " I have much pleasure in in-
forming you that a great number of gentlemen, tradesmen and others in this country have
adopted the plan of having no bread consumed at one meal in the day in their families ; and
have also begun to use one-third barley, and even that with the utmost economy."

8 Ibid., pp. 19 ff., 54, and 37 ff. Cp. also Vol. XXXiv, p. 440.

8 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, 1790, Vol. II, pp. 117-8.

14 Large and Small Holdings

It was no wonder that as the profitableness of these branches of
farming decreased corn-growing gained in importance. As early as
1778 Forbes wrote of the "universal passion for cultivating wheat1,"
and Arthur Young thought it exceptional to meet, when on his
tours, a few farmers who preferred to take pasture-land rather than
arable2.

Wherever possible the attempt was made to give up the now
unprofitable pasture-farming in favour of corn-growing. A period
began in which the most beautiful pastures were broken up for
plough-land, even if they would only produce the smallest results
under wheat3. Land which was entirely unsuitable for corn, but had
made the most excellent pasture, was turned into arable in view of
the price obtainable for wheat4. The profits resulting from the growth
of corn, says a writer in 1780, "were so great and so immediate, to
landlord as well as tenant, that every other species of produce was
not only diminished, but as it were sacrificed, to the design of reaping
the superior advantages resulting from the increase of this com-
modity. For this purpose the farmer converted every nook and
corner of his land into arable ; and even the cottager forsook his one
little ewe lamb, and turned his scanty orchard into tillage5." The
gains made by the change were enormous. It was said that
individual farmers often made as much as ,£18,000 to £20,000 in

1 Forbes, op. cit. p. 185.

2 Annals of Agriculture, Vol. xxvni, 1797, p. 631.

* Cp. J. Wimpey, Thoughts on Several Interesting Subjects, 1770, p. 38: — " 'Tis
allowed on all hands, the passion for converting pastures and meadows into tillage lands
never ran so high as of late." Also M. Peters, Agricultura, 1776, p. 172 : — "The present
passion is all for tillage and to explode pasture." Arthur Young stated before a Select
Committee of the House of Commons (Report relating to the Corn Laws, July 1814,
p. 86) : — " In the cow district of Suffolk, which is extensive, where ten cows were kept
thirty years ago, there is not now more than one. The high price of corn has set the
plough to work in every farm, and I have seen the same thing in other parts of the kingdom :
whilst the price of corn was high no lease was treated for without a petition from the
tenant to break up grass-land." See also Farmer's Letters, p. 137.

4 H. E. Strickland, A General View of the Agriculture of the East Riding of Yorkshire,
York, 1812, p. 105:— "On the Wolds, a country peculiarly adapted to sheep, and from
various circumstances unfavourable to corn, particularly to wheat, a stranger would be
surprised to see at this time at least two-thirds of the land under the plough." And
p. 1 06 : — "Unfortunately those beautiful sheep-walks and pastures, which the eatage of
so many ages had rendered verdant and fertile beyond any to be met with on the other
downs or heaths of the kingdom, held out an irresistible temptation to modern avarice, and
under the plea of improvement they have been ploughed out."

8 An Enquiry into the Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from the Bills of
Enclosure, 1780, p. 73. Arthur Young reports similarly of the very small farmers in
Oxfordshire. See A General View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire, 1809, p. 23.

Agricultural Revolution 15

a short time1. The transformation of the grass-land was often carried
out in the roughest way*, in spite of the admirable instructions which
were constantly being published both by the Board of Agriculture*
and by private authorities*. The profits to be made out of the sudden
boom in wheat prevented farmers from thinking of improving their
land with a view to its future fertility*. The bad harvests, aided by
the limitation of imports due to the war, ensured them enormous net
profits. For Gregory King's law, that bad harvests raise prices to
a greater extent than is accounted for by the actual shortage, was
clearly justified at this time. Even the landed interest admitted that
it was in the years of bad harvest that they made most money out of
their corn8.

The one-sided extension of arable at the expense of all other
branches of farming in the period from 1760 to 1813 is evident from
the writings of the chief contemporary agricultural authors. Their
own ideal was a combination of arable and pasture-farming, an
improved three-field system, with a more intensive rotation of crops,
and above all a great increase in the cultivation of turnips for
feeding purposes. But all these improvements presupposed that
agriculturists would find it profitable to increase their live-stock, as in
fact later on feeding-crops were increased when pasture-farming began
to flourish. At this period the case was otherwise.

The growing profits obtainable from corn, and the worsening of
the market for animal produce, led to deterioration rather than
progress in pasture-farming. This is a constant complaint with
writers on agriculture7. But the neglect of this branch of farming

1 St John Priest, A General View of the Agriculture of Buckinghamshire, 1813, p. 249.

5 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, Vol. IX (1849), p. 96.

s Cp. Vol. ill of the Communications to the Board of Agriculture, 180*, passim.
* E.g. N. Hartley, Some Cursory Observations on the Conversion of Pasture into Tillage,
Bath, 1802.

6 T. Davis, A General View of the Agriculture of Wiltshire, 1813, p. 156:— "The tempta-
tion of immediate profit is frequently too strong to allow them to look forward to future
consequences, and more particularly those who know that they shall soon quit their farms."

6 W. Pitt, A General View of the Agriculture of Leicestershire, 1809, p. 53 : — " In twenty-
four years' experience, upon a considerable scale, I always made the most money in difficult
seasons."

7 R. Brown, Treatise on Rural Affairs, Edinburgh, 1811, Vol. II, p. 202: — "Though
horses, neat cattle, sheep, and swine, are of equal importance to the British Farmer with
corn crops, yet we have few treatises concerning these animals, compared with the immense
number that have been written on the management of arable land or the crops produced
upon it. Whether this difference of attention proceeds from an erroneous preference for the
plough. ..we shall not stop to determine." Cp. also A. Thaer, Der praktische Ac ktrbau ivn
R. W. Dickson, Berlin, 1807, pp. xxi f.

i6

was not to be prevented by the theoretical considerations adduced to
prove the technical superiority of a combination of pasture and
arable. Arthur Young wrote as early as 1771 that no doubt his
views as to the advantages of pasture-farming would meet with much
opposition, as corn-growing was generally held to be more profitable1.
And in 1808 his son wrote: "A new turn has everywhere been given
to the face of the country. The return is speedy and certain in
tillage; in live-stock it is distant and uncertain8."

Thus from 1760 onwards serious changes were in progress in the
conditions of sale and production of agricultural commodities. These
changes were the causes which led to great changes in the customary
unit of agricultural management.

Precisely at the time when the rise in corn-prices began, mention
begins to be made of the enlargement of holdings, or, as it was called,
"the engrossing of farms." It is noticed in a pamphlet of 1764*; and
in another of 1766 we are told that it has already " become a common
practice with the landed gentlemen, in every part of the kingdom, to
throw several estates together, to make capital farms ; or for several
landholders to let estates, which lie near together, to one man4."
From this time forward there is hardly any publication dealing with
agriculture which does not contain some discussion on the subject of
the engrossing of farms, the swallowing up of the little holdings by
the larger, and the like. In 1776 Peters said that "the growing evil
of engrossing farms is spreading itself every day," and that even
those farmers who already held three or four farms were not yet
satisfied with the extent of their land ; the " modern farmer " was not
content with a hundred or two hundred acres. Nothing less than
a thousand would satisfy him5.

The passion for large farms, however, did not reach its height till
early in the nineteenth century, when the small holdings disappeared
in hundreds to be replaced by large ones6. In numbers of villages
twenty, thirty, and even forty or fifty farms were absorbed by one

farmer's Letters, Vol. I, pp. 1 36 ff.

Arthur Young, junior, A General View of the Agriculture of Sussex, 1808, p. 126.

Considerations on the Present High Price of Provisions and the Necessaries of Life,
1764, p. 7.

Two Letters on the Flour Trade and Dearness of Corn, 1766, p. 19.

Peters, Agricultura, p. 176, also p. xvi.

Adam Murray, A General View of the Agriculture of Warwickshire, 1813, p. 33: —
" There appears to be a disposition among the landlords, when the small farms fall in, to
increase them in size, by laying two or three of them together " ; and Duncumb, op. cit.
p. 33 : — " Of late years the practice of consolidating several estates in one, has much reduced
the number of small farms."

Agricultural Revolution 17

or two large farmers and thrown together into large holdings1. The
small plots of the cottagers and little farmers, holdings of from one
to eight acres or so, on which their occupiers had mostly raised live-
stock and dairy produce, practically vanished altogether in the course
of the Napoleonic wars. " Such was the competition for land during
the war," wrote Perry in 1846, "and such the disposition of the
landowners to blot out the existence of small farms... that in a few
years nearly the last vestige of these small holdings had dis-
appeared2."

The rise in wheat-prices was severely felt by the small holders,
who had sent little of their produce to market, and had been for the
most part accustomed to buy corn. The bad seasons affected their
own crops ; they needed to buy larger quantities than before, and
meantime the price was constantly increasing. Others, who had
previously grown sufficient for their own needs, found themselves, in
consequence of the same bad seasons, obliged to buy8. In these
years of scarcity the small farmers who had corn to sell were the
exception ; most of them had not enough for themselves4. In 1772
Arthur Young had described a holding of twelve acres as sufficient to
produce all the corn required by its occupier; in 1799, at the time
of the worst harvests, he found that even in unusually fertile districts
of Lincolnshire a holding of twenty acres was needed for the purpose5.
There certainly were small farmers who held more than this, and who
sold corn. But corn for the market was never more than a by-
product of small farming: its main sphere lay, as has been shown, in
pasture-farming and the lesser branches of agriculture.

Possibly if the profits on these branches of production had
increased they might have compensated the little farmer for the loss
consequent on the rise in corn-prices. But, as has been shown above,
the market for meat, dairy produce, vegetables, etc. deteriorated
in proportion as the price of corn and bread went up and the

1 J. S. Girdler, Observations on the Pernicious Consequences of Forestalling, Regrating and
Engrossing, 1800, p. 25. So also the Report respecting Grain of November 1814, p. 77.

3 G. W. Perry, The Peasantry of England, 1846, p. 19; see also p. 20. Also The
Labourers' Friend, loc. cit. pp. 2 and 3.

3 As early as 1760, Thos. Hitt points out that the high corn-prices did not only affect the
consumers adversely, but also many farmers; A Treatise of Husbandry, 1760, p. 52: —
" In wet years there are many tillers of land in the kingdom who have not only no corn to
sell, but are necessitated to buy part of what they use in their houses for bread, beer, etc.,
also seed to sow their land with."

4 See the description given by Bailey and Culley, op. cit. p. 163.

5 Young, Lincolnshire, p. 17.

1 8 Large and Small Holdings

purchasing-power of the working-classes decreased. So that even
where any small farmer had grain to sell he would find that the loss
on his staple produce more than balanced the larger profit he made
on his little quantity of corn.

In consequence, many even of the smallest holders attempted to
extend their corn-production at the expense of their other, now less
profitable, business. But such attempts could not save the small
farm system. All they could do was to prove how little fitted the
small holder was to compete with the large farmer in this sphere.

On the other hand many small holders were not in a position
even to attempt to give up pasture-farming in favour of arable.
More especially was it impossible for the cottier class, to whom
their own holding was only a by-occupation, who returned from their
day-labour late in the evening, and who therefore were quite unable
to give the work required by plough-land. All they could do, and all
they ever had done, on their little holdings, was to keep a cow or two,
and some pigs and poultry, and for these their wives were mostly
responsible1. Nor was the transition to arable much easier for those
little farmers who still held their land on the old common-field system.
This, however, still ruled on a great part of the area under cultivation.
Where the holdings had not been consolidated, on the so-called open
fields, the traditional intermixture of strips, customary regulation
of tillage and common rights of pasture were still in use. Naturally
they hindered any improvement in the methods of agriculture, so that
the unenclosed fields represented the worst of bad husbandry2. Nor
were they of any particular importance to the small holders, who
were much more interested in the common pastures, where they drove
their cattle, sheep and pigs. It was no one's business to improve the
common fields, and the methods of cultivation remained the same
year in and year out3. Of these the old three-field system was most
usual, viz. a course of winter-corn, summer-corn, and fallow, with
sometimes the substitution of a crop of beans in place of the fallow.
Where this substitution was not made, the traditional common rights
of -pasture made the unenclosed fields useless to their owner every

1 John Billingsley, A General View of the Agriculture of Somersetshire, Bath, 1798,
p. 34: — "The wife undertakes the whole management of the cows, and the husband goes
to daily labour."

8 Cp. Kent, op. cit. p. 102 ; A. Young, A General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk,
1804, P- 9 J W. Pearce, A General View of the Agriculture of Berkshire, 1794, p. 59 ; and
Stone, Suggestions, pp. 11-21.

1 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. i, p. 329.

Agricultural Revolution 19

third or fourth year1 ; whereas in the eighteenth century every well-
educated and intelligent farmer had long since given up fallowing in
favour of a proper rotation of crops with regular manuring. On the
unenclosed fields turnip-crops could not be introduced, nor indeed
any system which depended on the rotation of crops*. Nor was
drill-husbandry in use3, nor drainage4. Naturally, with such extensive
methods of cultivation, the crops obtained were extremely poor5,
whereas the cost of production was high, in consequence of the
expense entailed by the system of intermixture. Farmers holding
as much as 100 acres might have nowhere more than two or three
acres lying together6. The whole system was only possible so long
as no great importance was attributed to the earning of high profits
on the corn-crops. That is to say that in the eighteenth century it
was bound up with the small farm system7, in which not corn-growing
but live-stock held the first place. The small farmers cared for the
rights of common as enabling them to breed or to fatten a larger
number of cows or poultry, while the corn grown on the open fields
sufficed to cover their own needs. But when it became a question of
getting large corn-crops and decreasing the live-stock kept, the old
common-field system must have been felt as a serious handicap.

However, a considerable number of small farmers were able to
follow the general tendency and to increase their production of corn.
But it soon became evident that corn-growing was best done upon
a large scale. Arthur Young and others showed that the large
farmer needed fewer plough-horses or oxen in proportion than
the small farmer8; and it was remarked that as a fact when several
small farms were transformed into one large farm fewer beasts were

1 Second Report on the High Price of Provisions, 1801, p. 135.

2 Prothero, op. cit. p. 65.

3 Th. Stone, An Essay on Agriculture, Lynn, 1785, p. 61.

4 Prothero, op. cit. p. 66 ; J. Anderson, A General View of the Agriculture of Aberdeen-
shire, Edinburgh, 1794, p. 51.

5 Donaldson was of opinion that the perpetual corn-crops taken on the unenclosed fields
made them incapable of producing any profitable crops at all, op. cit. p. 58. See also
Kent, op. cit. p. 102.

6 Stone, op. cit. p. 58 ; and Observations on a Pamphlet entitled an Enquiry into the
Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from Bills of Enclosure, Shrewsbury, 1781, p. 15.

7 Th. Robertson, Outline of the General Report upon the Size of Farms, Edinburgh,
1796, p. 38: — "The common fields, which are so frequent and extensive, are naturally
destined for small farms."

8 Arthur Young, Rural Economy, 1773, p. 12; and so also his Farmer's Letters,
pp. 129-31, and p. 123; H. Home (Lord Kames), The Gentleman Farmer, Edinburgh,
1776, VoL I, pp. 270 ff. ; and A. Hunter, Georgical Essays, York, 1803, Vol. IV, Essay XXIII.
Cp. also Pitt, op. cit. p. 25; and Arbuthnot, op. cit. pp. 5-7.

2O Large and Small Holdings

used to plough the same area1. Moreover only the large farmer
possessed sufficient capital to take advantage of the improved
methods of cultivation. He could obtain the modern tools and
agricultural machines which were already, at the end of the eighteenth
century, coming increasingly into use2. He could carry out the
expensive drainage of wet land, described by Blith in 1641 as the
fundamental condition of agricultural progress3. It was the large
farmer who on the sandy lands of Norfolk first introduced turnip
cultivation and the model rotation of crops4. Then again it was only
the large farmer who had the education necessary to enable him to
appreciate and to apply the advances made in agricultural science.
He travelled in order to enlarge his mind, and he read the scientific
treatises on agriculture which the small holder regarded as the height
of folly6. For these reasons, namely because they could appreciate
the improvements made in the methods and science of corn-growing,
praise was heaped upon the large farmers by such prominent writers
as Arthur Young, William Marshall and Sir John Sinclair6. To
expect improvements and the bringing of poor lands into cultivation
from the little farmers was, as Anderson expressed it, as hopeless
"as it would be to expect to gather pine-apples from thistles7."
" Poverty and ignorance are the ordinary inhabitants of small farms,"
declared Marshall8. So that the small farmer, even if he were able to
increase his arable area, was from a technical and economic point of

1 Davis, Wiltshire, p. 24: — "The parish of Brixton Deverill, which sixty years ago was
in six hands and employed 43 horses, is now in three hands, and employs only 26 horses."
See also Hunter, op. cit. p. 561.

2 E.g. threshing machines, which were already in use in the eighth decade of the
eighteenth century. For the fact that they were only used on large farms cp. Brown, Rural
Affairs, Vol. l, p. 327.

* Cp. Prothero, op. cit. p. 95.

4 Cp. Donaldson, op. cit. p. 403 ff. : also W. Marshall, Rural Economy of Gloucestershire,
Vol. II, p. 299; and Thorold Rogers, Industrial and Commercial History of England, 1892,
p. *54-

8 J. Middleton, A General View of the Agriculture of Middlesex, ed. of 1807, p. 54.

' Cp. A. Young, A Farmer's Tour through the Eastern Counties, Vol. II, p. 161 : — "If the
preceding articles are properly reviewed, it will at once be apparent that no small farmers
could effect such great things as have been done in Norfolk — You must go to a Curtis, a
Mallet, a Barton, a Glover, a Carr, to see Norfolk husbandry. You will not among
them find the stolen crops that are too often met with among the little occupiers of £100 a
year in the eastern part of the county." See also Marshall, Gloucestershire, Vol. II, p. 29 ;
A. Young, Political Arithmetic, p. 155; and Sir John Sinclair, Statistical Account of Scotland,
Edinburgh, 1793. Vol. vm, p. 613.

7 J. Anderson, Essays relating to Agriculture, 1798, Vol. ill, p. 66.

8 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire, 1788, Vol. I, p. 255.

Agricultural Revolution 21

view far behind his competitor ; a fact admitted even by writers who
were not so one-sidedly in favour of large farming as were Young,
Sinclair and Marshall1.

This inability to increase their production of corn or to compete
in that sphere with the large farmers meant to the small holders the
loss of the very conditions of their existence. With the change in
the price of corn the whole face of the agricultural world was
changed. The profits of corn-growers rose in proportion as the
price went up. They found that even the most expensive improve-
ments were well worth making. Corn-growing on a large scale
became a good investment for capital. It even became the fashion.
Doctors, lawyers, clergymen and soldiers all turned farmers2. Mean-
time, with the rise of farming profits, the rent of farms rose too*. It
was rising all through the second half of the eighteenth century, and
by the last decade of the eighteenth and the first decade of the nine-
teenth it had as a rule become double or treble, sometimes four or
five times, as high as it had been about 1770*.

But the farms whose rents had risen in this way were not the
little holdings of the cottagers or of the small pasture-farmer. Nor
could the rents of the small holders on the open fields be raised to
any great extent, for, as has been shown, they were not in a position
to increase their output of corn. It was the large farmer, selling corn
wholesale and drawing high profits from its high price, who was able
to pay an increased rent. Not only was his production per acre the
highest, but his expenses of production per acre were much less than
those on the small or even the medium holding. Very soon after the
rise in prices began this state of affairs produced complaints on the
part of the small holders. In 1772 Comber wrote that "a third
very principal cause of complaint is, that the advancer of their rents
has paid no regard to the various sizes of their farms, but has,
almost indiscriminately, raised them all8." These enhanced rents were

1 E.g. Davis, Wiltshire, p. 73 :— "In those modes of husbandry where the hands as
well as the eyes of the farmer, and every branch of his family, can be fully employed, small
farms can be managed to advantage. In dairy farms this is peculiarly the case, and it is
frequently so in countries where the land is partly applied to breeding cattle and partly to
raising corn. ...But on Wiltshire Down farms, where horses are necessary to plough the land
and sheep to manure it, the little farmer stands on a very disadvantageous comparison with
the great one ; being obliged to bear a much greater proportional expense in horses and
servants."

2 Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, p. 108.

3 A. Young, Enquiry into the Progressive Value of Money, p. 102.

4 For details see Levy, op. cit pp. 6-7.
J Comber, op. cit. p. 4.

22 Large and Small Holdings

"on the prospect of much additional corn to be grown1." But such
methods were oppressive. The large farmers could bear a rise of
a third in their rents better than the small farmers could bear
a sixth. Comber attempts to find a solution of the difficulty by
suggesting that, if the small farms were not to be entirely abolished,
they must be somewhat enlarged at the expense of the very large
holdings : or else their rents must be only in proportion to their
profits. More particularly ought this to be so where the small
holders had no opportunity of increasing their corn-production2. In
fact there was no other solution. The landlord, in face of the com-
plaints of his smaller tenants, had only the choice between letting his
land in large holdings and renouncing the possible increase in his
rents3. It is not surprising that he generally chose the first alterna-
tive. For the higher the price of corn rose, the louder were the
murmurs of the small men and the greater the well-being of the
large holders4. But the method of enlargement was not that sug-
gested by Comber. On the contrary, what happened was that the
holdings of the little men were thrown into those of their larger
neighbours, who thereupon promptly put under the plough the land
which the small holder had hitherto used as pasture5. The imme-
diate result invariably was that the landlord could without difficulty
raise the rent. This was the meaning of what was known as " the
engrossing of farms8." The grand motive and object of the pro-

V

1 Comber, op. cit. p. 9. N2 Op. cit p. 5.

3 Even Arthur Young says (Annals, Vol. xxm, p. 435) : — " The poor farmers of
former times were unable to pay the new rents ; the rise was, without doubt, exorbitant to
them."

4 Vancouver (op. cit. p. 101) says of the small holders of Devonshire :— " Though
sparing and frugal in all their domestic affairs (they) are but seldom... considered to be in
any way improving that very small capital with which they began the world." See also
G. B. Worgan, A General View of the Agriculture of Corn-wall, 1811, p. 31 : — "While
the large farmers are getting rich, the little fanner finds it difficult to pay his rent, rates and
taxes, and maintain his family."

6 Peters, The Rational Farmer, pp. 132-3, says of the large farmers who took over the
land of the ruined small holders, that they " obtained liberty to break up what had not been
touched with the plough in the memory of man."

6 E.g. the Earl of Selkirk, Observations on the Present State of the Highlands of
Scotland, Edinburgh, and ed. 1806, p. 37: — "The occupier of a minute portion of land,
who, without any other source of profit, can raise little more produce than enough for his
own consumption, has no means of paying an adequate rent — When they are thrown
together, the farmer is enabled... from the same land, without any addition to its fertility,
to afford a better rent to the landlord. This the Highland proprietors have already l>egun to
experience : and a tendency to the engrossing of farms is very observable in the agricultural
districts, as well as in those employed in pasturage." Cp. also the example given by Home,
op. cit. p. 267.

Agricultural Revolution 23

ceeding was the increase of rent1 : and the very reason why this
consolidation of holdings was favoured by so many writers on the
subject was that they regarded the rise of rents as the clearest sign
of agricultural progress2.

Nor was this the only gain to the landowners by the process of
"engrossing." At the present day much of the half-heartedness of
landlords over the question of small holdings is attributable to the
expenses they entail in buildings and repairs. In the eighteenth
century the same consideration contributed to quicken the progress
of consolidation*. The houses of the small holders were either pulled
down or used as dwelling-houses for the day-labourers demanded in
increasing numbers by the large farm system4. Very often, especially
in the case of the smaller cottages, they were simply allowed to fall
to pieces6. At any rate, the expense of repairs was lessened. Indeed,
even when the old buildings were still used as labourers' dwellings
they often received very little in the way of repairs. When one
became altogether uninhabitable, its occupants were simply turned
into another, so that finally three or four families would be found
inhabiting one of the old farmhouses'.

Besides these two advantages to the landlord, namely the increase
of rent and the saving in cost of repairs, there was a third in the
greater ease with which rent was collected from a few large tenants
paying half-yearly, as compared with a large number of small men
with smaller capitals and consequently less able to pay regularly7.

1 Davis, Wiltshire, p. 24: — "The great object of consolidating farms is an increase of
rent."

2 Billingsley, op. cit. p. 156 : — "Let me ask the advocates for small farms, what occasioned

that consolidation of them, which they so much reprobate Was it not because the large

holders could afford to give more rent than the small? "

8 Young, Farmer's Letters, pp. 119-20 : and Forbes, op. cit. p. 151.

4 Report on Small Holdings, 1889, qu. 4032, and also qu. 6983.

5 Strickland, op. cit. p. 42 : — " It is much to be regretted, that the practice of suffering
cottages to fall to decay, and the disinclination to build new ones, should be so prevalent in
this part of the kingdom." Also Vancouver, op. cit. p. 98 : — " In this district the cottages
are certainly in a state of alarming decrease." And Perry, op. cit. p. 20 : — "A gentleman...
informed me, that in his native parish in Cambridgeshire, in 1803, forty-three fires were
extinguished, and as many comfortable cottages demolished, to each of which from two
to ten acres of land were attached, in order that a farm of 200 acres might be doubled
in size."

8 Vancouver, op. cit. p. 94.

7 Forbes, op. cit. pp. 151-2; and Kent, op. cit. p. 206. AlsoW. Pennington, Reflections
on the various advantages resulting from the draining, inclosing and allotting of large
commons, etc., 1769, p. 56. He sums up the reasons thus: — "Engrossers generally give
more rent, and want less allowed, if anything at all, for repairs."

Large and Small Holdings

Accordingly the tendency among landowners was increasingly
in favour of the enlargement of the size of holding. But they also
looked about them to see if it were not possible to obtain control
of more land and so to form more of these very profitable large
farms. The open fields, mostly held in small holdings, and above all
the common pastures, presented themselves as possible objects of this
transformation. With the profits of pasture-farming decreasing and
the importance of corn-growing increasing it seemed to be desirable
from an economic point of view to turn the commons into wheat-
fields and to put both them and the open-field strips at the disposal
of progressive individuals. Nor was it very difficult for the great
landowners to effect this, since they were almost always the chief
owners of land and chief holders of common rights in any given
parish, or at any rate, by purchasing land, they could if they wished
become so1.

The increase in the number of Enclosure Acts in the course of the
eighteenth century illustrates the rapidity with which the division
of the commons and the consolidation of the open-field holdings
proceeded. Between 1702 and 1760 only 246 Acts were passed,
affecting about 400,000 acres. In the next fifty years the Acts
reached the enormous total of 2438, and affected almost five million
acres2.

The immediate result of the enclosures was a further disappear-
ance of small holders. The enclosures took place at the instance of
the landlords with a view to the enhancement of rents3, and therefore
to the formation of large holdings to be let to the corn-producing
large farmer. This was accordingly the usual consequence of a Bill of
Enclosure.

The first to disappear were the landholding day-labourers or
cottiers. These received no land in consideration of their common
rights unless they could actually prove them : very often their claims
were altogether disregarded. But even in cases where they did
receive a small allotment, they could not maintain their position.
The scrap of land they received was not sufficient to feed a cow ; nor
had they the capital with which to do the necessary fencing. There
was nothing for it but to sell their bit of ground4. The buyer was

1 Cp. Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 61 ff. and rio.
8 Cp. Levy, op. cit. p. 127.
* Cp. Hasbach, op. cit. p. 56.

4 Cp. the General Report on Enclosures, 1808, pp. 55 f. Thus, as to the parish of
Alconbury :— " Many kept cows that have not since (the enclosure) : they could not enclose,

Agricultural Revolution 25

as a rule the landlord, and the allotment went to enlarge the holding
of the large farmer1.

But though the cottier class was the first to go, the ruin of the
small holders proper, whether owners or tenants, went forward
equally surely, if more slowly. The commons had been quite as
fundamental a condition of their existence as of that of the cot-
tiers. Everywhere, on the conclusion of an enclosure, they fell
into distress. Many "starved with their families, till necessity
forced them to quit their farms1": and it was the general opinion
that "strip the small farms of the benefit of the commons, and
they are all at one stroke levelled with the ground*." The small
farmers were not in a position to compensate the landlord for the
expenses of enclosure by paying a higher rent. On the contrary,
they found it difficult to continue to pay the old amount; for they had
no longer free pasture for their stock, and besides, the land allotted
to them was not enough to enable them to keep as many beasts as
formerly4. Meantime the landlord had every motive for forming
large arable holdings. While he could not hope to get a high rent
from his smaller tenants he knew that their land, if let to a few
large farmers, would bring in ever-increasing profits. In some cases
a large farmer, on replacing several small ones, would not only offer
ten times the rent they had paid, but would also take on himself the
cost of the enclosure5.

and sold their allotments. Left without cows or land." Of Parndon, in Essex : — " Their
little allotments all sold ; could not enclose " : and so of many others. Arthur Young
mentions in the Annals, Vol. xxxvi (1801) innumerable cases in which the poor had lost
their cows after enclosure.

1 The writer of the General Report on Enclosures says (pp. 12 f.) : — "In many cases the
poor had unquestionably been injured. In some cases... where allotments were assigned, the
cottagers could not pay the expense of the measure, and were forced to sell their allotments.
In others, they kept cows by right of hiring their cottages, or common rights, and the land
going of course to the proprietor, was added to the farms, and the poor sold their cows."
Cp. the Letter of the Earl of Winchilsea in Communications, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 80 : — " I am
sorry to say, that I am afraid most of those cottages were taken away at the time of the
several enclosures, and the land thrown to the farms " ; and p. 84 : — " Whoever travels
through the midland counties, and will take the trouble of enquiring, will generally receive
for answer, that formerly there were a great many cottagers who kept cows, but that the land
is now thrown to the farmers." Cp. also J. Farey, A General View of the Agriculture of
Derbyshire, 1815, p. 76.

2 The Advantages and Disadvantages of enclosing Waste Lands, 1772, p. 36.

3 An Enquiry into the Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from Bills of Enclosure,
1780, p. 14.

* Hasbach, op. cit. p. 109.

8 J. Monk, A General View of the Agriculture of Leicestershire, p. 45, says for example that
the parish of Queniborough had been let before enclosure for is. 6d. an acre ; but a gentleman

26 Large and Small Holdings

Naturally, therefore, the landlords as a rule followed up enclosure
by " engrossing1." Small farmers, whose families had in many cases
occupied the open-field holdings for centuries, disappeared in hun-
dreds2. Their fate was shared by the small freeholders and copy-
holders, who had also held a large number of the old type of holdings.
They did not perhaps feel the effects of enclosure quite so directly
as the tenant-farmers, who were simply given notice to quit by their
landlords. The yeoman class could not suffer in the same way by
a demand for increased rent on the competition of a large farmer
bidding higher for the land they occupied. But they were equally
touched by the economic difficulties entailed on small holders by
the enclosures. The disappearance of the commons, for instance,
was a great blow to them8. Again, they had not the capital necessary
for fencing4. For this purpose many of them borrowed money from
the large landowners, and so became indebted to their richer neigh-
bours. Very soon they found themselves unable to keep up the
payment of the interest due : and thereupon they sold their land to
their creditor, "whose sole view at first setting out was to get the
land of the whole parish into his own hands5." So soon as any parish
came wholly into the hands of one landlord, he of course turned
out the small holders and replaced them by large farmers'. There

had declared that he would give 25.?. an acre and take the expenses of enclosure on himself
if he might have a lease of 100 acres for twenty-one years.

1 J. Donaldson, A General View of the Agriculture of Northamptonshire, 1794, p. 60, says
that after the enclosures " several of those who occupy small farms must necessarily be re-
moved, in order to enable the proprietors to class the lands into farms of a proper size." See
also The Advantages and Disadvantages, pp. 7 f. , for a description of the effect on the village
community : — " The landowner, seeing the great increase of rent made by his neighbour,
conceives a desire of following his example; the village is alarmed ;... the small farmer
dreads that his farm will be taken from him to be consolidated with the larger ; the cottager
...expects to lose his commons." Cp. also Essays on Agriculture occasioned by reading
Mr Stone's Report, 1796, p. 74 : — "When the commoners happen to be only tenants, which
is frequently the case, the landlord, on enclosing, not uncommonly turns several of them out,
to convert his smaller divisions into large farms."

2 Even the General Report, though in favour of the enclosures, admits (p. 32) that — "there
is, however, one class of farmers which have undoubtedly suffered by enclosures ; for they
have been greatly lessened in number: these are the little farmers." Cp. also T. Batchelor,
A General View of the Agriculture of Bedford, p. 25 : — " It is evident that the prevalence
of the enclosing system, and other causes, have diminished the number of farms within the
last fifty years to a considerable amount."

3 General Report on Enclosures, p. 158.

4 Addington, op. cit. p. 35 : — "When their fields are enclosed, not a few of these small
proprietors are obliged to sell their land, because they have not money to enclose it."

8 Cursory Remarks on Enclosures, 1786, pp. 6-7.

6 F. Moore, Considerations on the exorbitant Price of Provisions, 1773, p. « : — "In

Agricultural Revolution 27

was an actual persecution of small owners, whose land was often
practically stolen from them. The commissioners of enclosure well
understood how to manage matters in the interests of the great land-
lords, so for instance that the land allotted to the small proprietors
should lie as far as possible from their houses and farm buildings.
The consequent increased expenses of cultivation did away with their
small margin of profit1. The little yeomen knew very well what
enclosure meant to them. But all their efforts to oppose it were
frustrated by the power of the great landlord or the large farmers,
who only saw in the abolition of the small proprietors an opportunity
for increasing the land in their own hands2.

But while these numerous individuals were being ruined by the
division of the commons and consolidation of the open-field holdings,
extraordinary progress resulted on the economic side. From that
point of view, enclosures and engrossing were only a means by which
corn-growing was brought to yield the highest possible profits, and
by improved methods of cultivation increasing quantities were pro-
duced to meet the increasing prices. Whereas Anderson regarded
commons and " wastes " as one and the same thing3, the old village
pastures were now broken up by the large farmers, and in many cases
turned into excellent wheat-fields. Thus Arthur Young speaks of
the sandy tracts of Norfolk, Suffolk and Nottinghamshire, "which
yield corn and mutton and beef from the force of enclosure alone";
and of the Lincolnshire wolds, "which from barren heaths at \s. per
acre are by enclosure alone rendered profitable farms4." It is true
that some writers, opponents of the enclosures and the large farm
system, attempted to show that the enclosures had led to an exten-
sion of pasture-farming6, and so to condemn the movement from a

passing through a village near Swaffham, in the county of Norfolk, a few years ago, to
my great mortification I beheld the houses tumbling into ruins, and the common fields all
enclosed ; upon enquiring into the cause of this melancholy alteration, I was informed that a
gentleman of Lynn had bought that township and the next adjoining to it ; that he had
thrown the one into three, and the other into four farms ; which before the enclosure were in
about twenty farms : and upon my further enquiring what was become of the farmers who
were turned out, the answer was, that some of them were dead, and the rest were become
labourers."

1 Girdler, op. cit. p. 40.

2 Addington, op. cit. p. 35 ; and Girdler, op. cit. p. 40.

3 Anderson, Essays, Vol. Ill, p. 30.

4 Young, Political Arithmetic, pp. 148 ff.

5 The view that enclosures decreased arable land was mentioned and controverted as a
popular argument in an Essay on the Nature and Methods of ascertaining the specific Shares
of Proprietors upon the Enclosure of Common Fields, 1766, p. 13. It is to be found in

28 Large and Small Holdings

socio-political point of view, as leading to rural depopulation. But
they were only able to point to a few counties, such as Leicestershire
and Northampton, and some parts of Warwickshire and Huntingdon-
shire, where enclosure had occasionally led to a lessening of the area
under corn. These cases were, as Arthur Young pointed out, fast
diminishing exceptions ; and in the whole north and east of the
country enclosures were almost invariably followed by an extension
of arable. It can hardly be supposed that pasture-farming would be
extended after enclosure when by common admission the aim was
everywhere to turn pasture into arable. As the price of corn rose
higher this became increasingly desirable, and the enclosures would
naturally be used to further it. During the French wars this was so
markedly the case that no one any longer attempted to dispute it.

There was yet another cause which contributed to the extension
of the large farm system. Many social reformers condemned at the
time, and many still condemn, the part played by the landlords in
the expropriation of the small holders and the division of the com-
mons. But it was not only the large landowners, acting in their own
interests as capitalists, who brought about this development. The
small proprietors too, the independent yeomanry, even where they
remained untouched by the effects of enclosure, dealt a deadly blow
at the system of small holdings. The extinction of the yeomanry
is the clearest illustration of the irresistible force of the economic
conditions which were sweeping away the old system of agricultural
holdings.

In the eighteenth century, and even in the second half of the
century, the yeoman class was still numerous. Part of it was indeed

Price's Observations on Reversionary Payments, 1773, p. 388, in Cursory Remarks, p. 2, and
in An impartial view of English Agriculture, 1766, p. »i. It is more surpnsing to find
that Dr Hasbach adopts it (see his History of the Agricultural I^abourer, pp. 369-71).
The points which he brings forward in its favour cannot all be recounted here ; but his
argument that pasture-farming was more profitable than arable is certainly misleading.
Various facts which contradict it have already been mentioned in the text. He notes that
Arthur Young makes a calculation directed to show how much larger a profit was obtainable
from an acre of pasture than from an acre of arable. But this is easily understood when it
is remembered that Young did not share in the general passion for corn-growing, but
advocated pasture-farming and mixed husbandry. Dr Hasbach also adduces in favour
of his theory the fact that England ceased to export corn in the last quarter of the
eighteenth century. But this by no means proves that the production of corn remained
stationary, much less that it decreased. The phenomenon is quite sufficiently explained
by the growth of population on the one hand and the bad harvests on the other. Other-
wise it hardly seems to be doubted now that the enclosures in general, that is to say the
enclosures of open fields and commons taken together, increased the area under corn. Cp.
A. H. Johnson, The Disappearance of the Small Landowner, Oxford, 1909, pp. 18 f.

Agricultural Revolution 29

ruined by the enclosures. But apparently this would only affect
these whose properties were very small. The larger proprietors
would not be annihilated, nor even seriously injured, either by the
division of the commons or by the cost of fencing1. They would
safely survive the enclosures. Further, not all the yeoman class even
came in contact with the movement. Many held land which had
been enclosed long ago. Nevertheless, even those members of the
class who had not suffered and could not suffer by the enclosures
disappeared in the course of the period 1760-1815.

As early as 1770 it began to be said that the yeomanry were
vanishing. Arbuthnot, himself a large farmer, gives important evi-
dence on this point. He was a champion of the large farm system,
and set himself to reply to Price's attacks upon it. But he was
obliged to admit the fact of the disappearance of many of the yeoman
class, which Price had attributed to the development of large farming;
and he wrote : — " I most truly lament the loss of our yeomanry, that
set of men who really kept up the independence of this nation ; and
sorry I am to see their lands now in the hands of monopolizing lords2."
Marshall, writing in the year 1787, also admits the fact8. The reports
on the various counties published by the Board of Agriculture
between 1790 and 1815 also contain much discussion as to, or notice
of, this disappearance4. Of Westmorland, the classic country of the
small holder in England, Pringle reported in 1794 that the class was
diminishing day by day8. From the most various quarters about
this time comes corroborating evidence6. But more significant than
any mention of the fact is the light which is thrown on the nature of
the process of extinction.

The disappearance of small properties in the period 1760-1815
did not always imply deterioration in the personal position of the
yeoman himself. Discussions of the subject seldom mention bank-

1 See also Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 107 ff.

2 Arbuthnot, op. cit. p. 139.

3 Marshall, Norfolk, Vol. i, p. 9: — "Formerly the farms were much smaller; but the
numerous little places of the yeomanry having fallen into the hands of men of fortune, and
being now incorporated with their extended estates, are laid out into farms of such sizes as
best suit the interest, or the conveniency, of the present proprietors."

4 See e.g. Thos. Wedge, A General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire, 1794, p. n;
R. Brown, A General View etc. of Derby, 1794, p. 14; and Robertson, op. cit. p. 76.

5 A. Pringlfe, A General View of the Agriculture of Westmorland, Edinburgh, 1794,
p. 40.

8 E.g. Holland, Cheshire, p. 80 ; R. W. Dickson, A General View etc. of Lancashire,
1814, p. 10 ; The Complete English Farmer, 1807, under the head Yeomen: — "This useful
and important class of society has been within these few years considerably lessened. "

30 Large and Small Holdings

ruptcy of the yeomen, or that they sold their land in order to take
up some inferior occupation, to migrate to the towns, or to leave the
country1. Such occurrences became prominent at a later time, namely
in the period of the corn-laws. But between 1760 and 1815 they
were exceptional. At that time the yeomanry as a rule gave up
their land with a light heart They ceased to be small owners in
order to become large farmers. There is abundant evidence of this
fact2. It is described by Albrecht Thaer, whose knowledge of English
agricultural literature was unrivalled. The small owner saw, he says,
that the tenant of a large farm was in a better position than himself
and made a larger income, and he made up his mind to sell his land,
and with the capital so acquired to devote himself afresh to farming,
but now as a tenant. This, he continues, was the reason why in certain
districts the yeoman class had almost entirely vanished, and only
farmers and cottiers were to be found3. Marshall wrote of the Norfolk
yeomen " that many, seeing men whom they lately held their inferiors
raised by an excessive profit, which had been recently made by farming,
became dissatisfied with the homeliness of their situation, and sold
their comparatively small patrimonies in order that they might —
agreeably with the fashion or frenzy of the day — become great
farmers4." Sinclair, too, mentions it as " a well-known fact" that
small owners frequently sold their estates in order to become large
farmers8.

That the yeomen should have found tenant-farming more profitable
than working their own land is natural enough under the circumstances
of the time. They would feel all the effects of the rising corn-prices
as other small holders felt them, with the exception that they did not
have to pay increasing rents out of their decreasing profits. They,
too, were pasture-farmers and market-gardeners, that is to say were
devoted to those branches of farming whose profitableness was

1 Cp. Levy, Der Untergang klein-bduerlicher Betriebe in England, in Conrad's Jahr-
biichem, 1903, p. 147.

2 E.g. Th. Stone, Suggestions for rendering the Enclosure of Common Fields a Source of
Population and Riches, 1787, pp. 42 f. : — "It has been a common circumstance, in counties
where a spirit for improvement in agriculture first broke forth, that the yeomanry, or persons
possessed of small estates in their own occupations, have been induced to sell them, to
purchase a stock sufficient to improve larger tracts of land, the property of other persons,
which they have hired upon improving leases."

* A. Thaer, Einleitung zur Kenntniss in die englische Landwirtschaft, Hanover, 1801,
Vol. I, pp. 25 f.

4 Cp. Johnson, op. cit. p. 142.

5 Sinclair, Code of Agriculture, 1817, p. 37.

Agricultural Revolution 31

decreasing as the profitableness of corn-growing increased. Many of

them would be injured as consumers by the rising price of bread and

flour, if, as in Lincolnshire, a holding of twenty acres was required to

provide the necessary bread for a family in the bad years1. From

these causes they would find their profits diminishing, though they

might not be ruined. They were not forced to give up their holdings, as

were the small tenant-farmers. But year by year they would find it more

difficult to keep up their wonted standard of life, and it would appear

impossible to improve their position in any way. Thus for example

it was reported of the Derbyshire yeoman that " the smaller landowner

(provincially "statesman")... finds his mind distracted how to preserve

his estate, as well as the rank his father held, and how to improve his

fortune on rational principles2." They would look with envy at the

flourishing estate of the capitalistic large farmer. They would see

how he concentrated on the production of corn, and what increasing

profits he drew from the sale of his wheat. They would see how the

large farmer and even the tenant of a medium-sized holding came

to attain the position of a gentleman, and could enjoy all modern

comforts and allow himself all manner of expenditure on luxuries,

while they themselves had to work harder than their forefathers for

a smaller return. On the other hand, the price of land had risen

enormously since 1760. The high corn-prices and the possibility of

drawing high rents from arable holdings had produced a positive

land-hunger in the upper classes3. The buying and selling of land

had become a business in which some speculators succeeded in making

thousands of pounds annually4. Even the large farmers often bought

to add to the farms they already rented5. At the same time there

was an increasing demand for land from persons who wanted to buy

estates for the sake of their social and political advantages. The

political influence bound up with the ownership of land, and its

necessity for purposes of shooting and hunting, all helped to drive up

its price even higher than its agricultural value had already made it.

Again, it was the ambition of men who had made fortunes in trade or

manufacture to raise themselves out of the position of parvenus into

1 Vide supra, p. 17.

2 Brown, Derbyshire, p. 14.

3 See Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 6 ff.

4 R. G. Welford, H<nv will Free Trade affect the Farmer? 1843, p. 31.

5 Cp. e.g. J. Plymley, A General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire, 1803, p. 91 : —
" The number of gentlemen of small fortune living on their estates has decreased... but then
the opulent farmer, who has purchased the farm he lives upon, and some smaller estate,
which he sets or holds, with the large one he before rented, is a character that has increased."

32 Large and Small Holdings

the ranks of the landed gentry1. The yeoman would at any time
find an eager purchaser, if not in the neighbouring landlord or large
farmer, then in some rich manufacturer or merchant, or in an anxious
speculator.

Thus it would gradually be borne in upon him that it would serve
him better to grow corn as a large farmer than to produce live-stock
as a small proprietor. This was the view taken by every contemporary
who concerned himself with the question, as for example by Sinclair2
and Arthur Young. The latter wrote that to prefer to cultivate a
small holding as proprietor rather than a large farm as tenant was to
engage in a very unprofitable business8.

This question is of course one which still gives rise to lively
discussions in scientific circles. The views here put forward were
first published by the author in Conrad's JahrbilcJiern for 1903. An
attempt to controvert them was made by Dr Hasbach in the Archiv
fur Sozialwissenschaft, 1907, pp. 1-29. Whereas I began from the
assumption that a distinction must be made between the small owners
and the larger yeomen owning say 100 acres or upwards, Dr Hasbach
entirely overlooks this distinction. He is content to show that " the
yeomen" as such increased or decreased ; and he uses for this purpose
certain of the Reports from the Counties which I had expressly left
out of account on the ground that the "yeomen " to whom they referred
belonged to a higher social class than those with whom I was con-
cerned ; that they were to be reckoned partly even among the gentlemen
farmers, and that they certainly held medium or large holdings, not
small ones. Thus Dr Hasbach attempts to controvert my conclusions,
which expressly referred to small owners (Kleinbauerri) only, by facts
concerning the yeomanry in general (Bauern\ I never doubted that
yeomen having large properties prospered between 1765 and 1815.
They would find the rising corn-prices as profitable as did the large
farmers. But they must be clearly distinguished from the small owners
who went by the same name ; and only where the Reports from the
Counties made such a distinction possible can they be used for the
elucidation of the problem. Mr Johnson, in his Disappearance of the

1 L. Brentano, Erbrechtspolitik, Stuttgart, 1899 ; and G. J. Shaw Lefevre, Agrarian
Tenures, 1893, pp. 7-8. Goldsmith's lines, written in 1770, may also be quoted : —

" The man of wealth and pride

Takes up a space that many poor supplied,
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds."

1 Sinclair, Report on the Agricultural State of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1814, Vol. I, p. 185.
* In his Elements of Agriculture, an unprinted MS. in the British Museum.

Agricultural Revolution 33

Small Landowner (already quoted) seems also to have overlooked this
point. He has attempted to throw new light on the subject by a study
of the Land Tax Assessments. Students will be grateful for his labours ;
but still the results he has arrived at do not add very greatly to our
knowledge. He himself warns the reader against attributing over-much
importance to his statistical results. Their basis is too limited to
admit of the deduction of general conclusions. Where he makes use
of other sources (Surveys, previous writers, etc.) he falls into the same
error as Dr Hasbach, namely that of failing to distinguish between the
size of the holdings concerned. The same is true of Mr H. L. Gray's
article Yeoman Farming in Oxfordshire, in the Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 1910, pp. 293 ff. He also uses the Land Tax Assessments,
and he further makes use of the Enclosure Awards and manorial
surveys. But he too includes in his researches yeomen owning holdings
of very various extent and, therefore, from an economic standpoint, of
quite heterogeneous character. He writes, e.g. (p. 325) " Enclosure
after 1785 did not fatally affect yeomen with holdings of from two
acres to 300 acres." The yeomen of Kent, whom Mr Johnson cites on
p. 142 of his book, were undoubtedly most of them medium or large
holders, and not to be identified with the " small yeomen " of other
counties1 : and the data which he quotes from Dr Rae are open to the
same objection2. When this necessary distinction is borne in mind,
it will be realised that very little of the material available can be
definitely interpreted of the small yeoman or small freeholder class.
The ambiguity, from an economic point of view, of the word "yeoman"
will, it may be feared, be a permanent hindrance to the final solution
of the obscure problem in question.

Of course there were cases in which the yeoman sold, yet did not
become a farmer. Some sold their estates in order to invest in an
industrial undertaking : but as this is only reported from Lancashire3
it would seem that the movement in this direction was limited to those
districts where manufactures were rapidly developing. Again, in some
cases the yeoman sought to take advantage of the rise in the price of
land by mortgaging his property. But on this point too there is
little evidence, so that it does not appear to have been a common
proceeding4. As a rule, the property was sold and its owner became
a tenant-farmer. His estate was thrown together with others to form

1 Cp. Hasbach, in Archivfur Sozialwissenschaft, £andxxiv, I, p. 15.

2 Cp. Levy in Conrad's Jahrbiichern, 1903, pp. 148 f., and J. D. Rogers in Palgrave's
Dictionary, Vol. ill, p. 886.

3 J. Holt, A General View of the Agriculture of Lancashire, 1794, p. ia.

4 Levy, Der Untergang etc., p. 159.

34 Large and Small Holdings

part of a large farm. But its late owner prospered in his new position
and profited by the rising price of corn. In some cases he actually
made so much money that he was able to buy his farm, and with it
sometimes the very fields which he had previously utilised as a small
proprietor1.

The disappearance of the yeomanry is thus one more proof of the
extraordinary force of the economic tendency to the development of
the large farm system*. As Mr Prothero has well expressed it, the
small farm had become an anachronism3.

The improvements introduced by the larger unit of holding in the
methods and results of arable farming were indeed brilliant ; but the
social consequences of this agrarian revolution were disastrous. To
it is due the development of that agricultural proletariat which is
now the rule on English soil. The rise in the profits of large-scale
corn-growing expropriated the old race of landholding day-labourers.
Not only they themselves, but also their wives and children, who had
hitherto found employment on their own land, now became entirely
dependent on wage-labour. The effect of the same conditions on the
position of the little farmer and the smaller yeomen was even more
cruel. Hitherto living almost entirely on the produce of their own
holdings, they now descended to the dependent position of labourers on
other men's farms. Thousands of small agriculturists, forced to give
up their farms or to sell their little estates, had to submit to this fate4.

1 Sinclair, Code, p. 37.

2 The economic causes of the decay of the yeoman class, as described above, are treated
as quite secondary in Arnold Toynbee's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England,
1884, chapter v. He finds the main causes " in social and political facts," which led to the
buying out of the small owners. But he recognises that their disappearance was an important
factor in the formation of the large farms. " Small arable farms would not pay, and must in
any case have been thrown together." And if the economic position of the yeomen had not
been undermined, they would probably have made a much stronger resistance to the pressure
put upon them by the social and political ambitions of their richer neighbours. So that in
any case the economic conditions were decisive in the matter.

8 Prothero, op. cit. p. 65.

4 Cp. Davies, The Case of Labourers, p. 55 : — "The landowner, to render his income
adequate to the increased expense of living, unites several small farms into one, raises the
rent to the utmost, and avoids the expense of repairs. The rich farmer also engrosses as
many farms as he is able to stock ; lives in more credit and comfort than he could otherwise
do ; and out of the profits of several farms, makes an ample provision for one family. Thus
thousands of families, which formerly gained an independent livelihood on those separate
farms, have been gradually reduced to the class of day-labourers." Also Kent (Hints),
pp. 211, 712: — "So soon as the little schools of industry are grasped into the hands of an
over-grown, rapacious farmer, the former occupiers are, at once, all reduced to the state of
day-labourers : and when their health or strength fails, there is but one resource ; they, and
their children, are thrown upon the parish." Cp. also Traill, Social England, Vol. v, 1896,
pp. 455 and 673 f. : — "The result of enclosures, which were the great social feature that

Agricultural Revolution 35

Many contemporary authors saw practically no harm in this rise
of a wealthy and luxurious class of large farmers on the one hand
and the development of an agricultural proletariat on the other :
especially those who attributed great importance to the technical
agricultural improvements brought about by the large arable farm
and the extension of enclosure. Arthur Young was certainly correct
in pointing to the hard work of the small farmers, who laboured
" without intermission like a horse1." But he was not justified in
concluding that the lot of a wage-labourer was any better, or even
equally good. The small farmer, working for himself, knew very well
what he was purchasing at the expense of his longer hours and
intenser labour ; he was gaining independence for himself and
his family2. Even when wages were high and conditions good for
the labourer independence remained an inestimable advantage of the
small holder, not to be compared with any merely monetary gain.
But as a matter of fact the labourer's standard of comfort was being
forced down from 1765 onwards. This was a possibility to which the
authorities who favoured the transformation of the small independent
agriculturists into wage-labourers had given no thought. They were
of opinion that the extension of arable farming on the large scale
would so increase the demand for labour that wages would rise and
the standard of comfort improve. Sinclair prophesied this even as
late as I/963. But large as the new demand for labour was, the
supply offered by the expropriated farmers and yeomen was larger.
The seventh decade of the eighteenth century begins a long period
marked by the absence of any complaint on the part of agriculturists
concerning scarcity of labour. Even in the neighbourhood of the

marks the closing years of the eighteenth century is, in fact, the extinction of the common-
field farmer, and his transformation into a wage-earner."

1 Young, Farmer's Letters, p. 112 ; and Lincolnshire, p. 18.

2 Mavor writes (op. cit. p. 80) : — " I have heard it maintained, indeed, that (a labouring
farmer) must work harder than a day-labourer, and it probably is the case ; but then his toils
are sweetened by the reflection that he is to reap the fruits of his own industry, and that he
has no occasion to apply for parochial relief, either for himself or his family. ...Voluntary
labour is no hardship ; and living on humble fare is no privation, to him who feels that he is
providing against the contingencies of fortune, and laying up something against the approach
of age."

3 first Report from the Select Committee appointed to take into Consideration the Cultiva-
tion and Improvement of the Waste, Unenclosed and Unproductive Lands of the Kingdom, 1796,
p. 15 : — " It is impossible to suppose that the poor should be injured by that circumstance,
which secures to them a good market for their labour (in which the real riches of a cottager
consists), which will furnish them with the means of constant employment, and by which the
farmer will be enabled to pay them better wages than before."

3—2

36 Large and Small Holdings

large towns the agricultural labour-market was over-stocked, and the
farmers could get as many men as they liked1. The consequences
were evident in the lowered purchasing-power of wages, the deterio-
rated position of the labourer, and the rising poor-rates.

The labourer had further lost the possibility of investing his
savings in taking a small farm or some tiny piece of land such as
would now be known as an allotment. In the old days an industrious
couple who had managed to save some ^50 or ^100 could take a
farm large enough to make themselves and their family independent8.
Now a labourer might offer a high rent for a few acres, but he would
be contemptuously refused and the land let to a large farmer3. A
landlord who built new cottages for his labourers and provided them
with a small piece of garden-ground was held up as "an example
worthy of imitation4/' but the example was followed by very few.
The large farmers were even less inclined than the landlords to allow
land to their labourers5. It is significant that in 1774 the Act
of Elizabeth providing that every cottage must have four acres of
land annexed, was repealed6. The Act had long ceased to be enforced,
but it was repealed in order to remove even the theoretical importance
which might perhaps have been attributed to it by the opponents of
the large farm system.

The reasons why the large farmers and their friendly landlords
objected to labourers holding any land are not difficult to discover.
The old-fashioned small farmers had found it convenient to have the
labour of the cottiers at their disposal during harvest and on other like
occasions, as by this arrangement they were free from any necessity
of keeping labourers all the year through. The large farmer's
interest was to the exact contrary. He was simply the manager of
the farm, and he needed a supply of labour permanently at his dis-
posal. He needed besides labourers who would not be hampered in
their work for him by consideration of the needs of their own holdings7.
Also he wanted his men to be as dependent as possible upon their
employer, and consequently to depend for their livelihood on their

1 Adam Murray remarks in his General View of the Agriculture of Warwickshire, 1813,
p. 167, that although Warwickshire was a great manufacturing county, "I could not learn
that any want of labourers prevailed, as plenty were to be had for all the agricultural purposes
wanting."

1 Duncumb, op. cit. p. 33. » Perry, op. cit. p. si.

* W. Gooch, A General View of the Agriculture of Cambridge, 1811, p. 31.

5 Kent, Norfolk, p. 173.

6 Cp. Traill, Social England, p. 337.

7 See on this point Dr Hasbach's interesting description and references, op. cit. p. 100, n. i.

Agricultural Revolution 37

wages. To these considerations was added the natural desire to add
every available acre of ground to the very profitable arable area1.
The consequence was that not even the most capable labourer could
get the necessary means of raising himself out of his dependent
position.

The distress which came upon the great mass of the agricultural
population along with the development of large farming and enclo-
sures contributed to the intensification of a phenomenon then as now
regarded as most unsatisfactory by all students of social policy. The
fall in the purchasing-power of agricultural wages, the deterioration
in the position of the agricultural labourer, the swamping of the agri-
cultural labour-market by the expropriated small holders, all joined to
increase the dimensions of the rural exodus. It is true that industrial
expansion was at the same time raising the attractive power of the
towns and manufacturing districts : and this circumstance must be
given the first place in any attempt to understand the causes of the
ever-increasing exodus from the land at this period. But it is remark-
able that the exodus should so have increased precisely when English
agriculture was in such a flourishing condition, and when the rapid
progress of English corn-growing was the envy and admiration of all
continental observers. Although in the period from 1760 to 1815 the
corn-supply of the kingdom was almost entirely home-grown, there
were by 1811 only 35-2 per cent, of the families of Great Britain
occupied in agriculture as against 44*4 per cent, who were interested
in trade or commerce. So that in spite of the immense investment of
capital in agriculture throughout the period, England was in process
of transformation from an agricultural to an industrial nation.
Complaints against the rapid decrease of the agricultural population
resounded as loudly as they do to-day. In place of the modern
lamentations over railway facilities Arthur Young in 1772 declaimed
against the cheapening of transport. " Young men and women
in the country fix their eye on London, as the last stage of their
hope ; they enter into service in the country for little else but
to raise money enough to go to London, which was no such easy
matter, when a stage-coach was four or five days creeping an hundred

1 Letter of the Earl of Winchihea in Communications^ Vol. I, 1794, p. 83. He says that
the farmers were as a rule disinclined to allow their labourers to hold land. " Perhaps one
of their reasons for disliking this is, that the land, if not occupied by the labourers, would fall
to their own share ; and another, I am afraid, is that they rather wish to have the labourers
more dependent upon them ; for which reasons they are always desirous of hiring the house
and land occupied by a labourer, under pretence that by that means the landlord will be
secure of his rent, and that they will keep the house in repair."

38 Large and Small Holdings

miles ; the fare and the expenses ran high. But now ! a country
fellow, one hundred miles from London, jumps on to a coach-box in
the morning, and for eight or ten shillings gets to town by night ;
which makes a material difference ; besides rendering the going up
and down so easy, that the numbers who have seen London are
increased tenfold, and of course ten times the boasts are sounded in
the ears of country fools, to induce them to quit their healthy, clean
fields, for a region of dirt, stink and noise1." Undoubtedly the rapid
growth of the towns and the cheapening of the means of communica-
tion must have exercised a great attraction on the agricultural popu-
lation of the eighteenth century. But undoubtedly also, the rural
exodus of the period would not have attained the extraordinary
proportions it did if the attractive power of rural life for the mass
of the people had not at the same time decreased. The labourer had
no longer the chance of cultivating a holding of his own, nor the very
stimulating hope of one day raising himself to the position of a small
farmer. That hope lost, the chief superiority of work on the land was
lost to the mind of the day-labourer. It was replaced by the hope of
improving his position by migrating to the town2. So too the expro-
priated small farmer, degraded to the position of a labourer, and
unable to find work in the over-supplied agricultural market, swelled
the rural exodus, being driven into the towns, or, if the money gained
by the sale of his possessions was sufficient, he might make his way to
America or the colonies8. Painters such as Wheatley showed him,
his goods in his hand, turning his back on his ancestral home ; and
Goldsmith's Deserted Village gave poetical expression to the desolation
of the land : —

"The mournful peasant leads his humble band,
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms— a garden and a grave."

That the exodus was in many cases simply to be traced to
enclosures and engrossing is evident from the statements of various
contemporary writers on social subjects4. Even the enthusiasts for

1 Young, Farmer's Letters, pp. 353 f.

8 Forbes, op. cit. p. 160, draws attention to the fact that many young people went to the
towns for the reason that the possibility of renting small farms no longer offered.

3 Cursory Remarks, p. 6.

4 E.g. Price, op. cit. p. 376. He complains " that the inhabitants of the cottages thrown
down in the country fly to London and other towns, there to be corrupted and perish." Cp.
further: Uniting and Monopolizing Farms, 1767, p. i ; G. Chalmers, An Estimate of the
Comparative Strength of Great Britain, ed. of 1802, p-3i8: — " We owe much of this disadvan-
tageous change to our modern system of agriculture.... By consolidating farms to an enormous

Agricultural Revolution 39

agricultural progress could not deny that the extension of large
farming meant rural depopulation. The Earl of Selkirk attempted to
show that the marked emigration of Highlanders which began in the
last years of the eighteenth century was caused by the formation of
large farms1 ; while Donaldson, a whole-hearted defender of the
system, said that the one unanswerable objection to the large farms
was the depopulation of the land8.

The social evils which " the engrossing of farms " brought upon the
mass of the agricultural population called out a furious hatred in the
minds of the lower classes against the new development of agriculture,
with its large farms and division of the commons. The rise in the
price of corn from 1760 onwards was immediately followed by open
revolt and rioting on the part of the people3. They saw the large
farm system developing hand in hand with the rise in prices. Nothing
was more natural than to confuse effect with cause. While in reality
the increasing profits of arable farming led to the formation of large
holdings, it was assumed that the large holdings caused the prices of
provisions to rise. For centuries corn-merchants and middlemen had
been blamed when corn-prices went up, and accused of holding back
grain from the market. Innumerable laws had been passed to abate
the nuisance arising from these dangerous speculators4. The large
farmers were now compared to these hated "engrossers." It was
claimed that they too raised prices, seeing that as cultivators of such
large areas they were in a position to keep great quantities of corn
out of the market5. As "the engrossing of corn" had been attacked,

extent ; by forcing cottagers from their hamlets ; by pretending to make much profit with little
labour ; the agricultural system has depopulated, and is depopulating, the shires wherein it
prevails." Also Peters (Agricultural, p. 171 : — "By monopolizing farms, and dearness of
provisions, thousands are yearly emigrating" ; and Girdler, op. cit. p. 28 : — " These industrious
people have been turned out of their possessions, and so deprived of their subsistence : or, if
they subsist at all, are obliged to exist as labourers and servants to those who have deprived
them of their livings and added them to larger farms ; or are driven from their native homes
to seek for bread in some populous town."

1 Selkirk, op. cit. p. 94.

2 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 405. Cp. also Holland, op. cit. pp. 95 f. ; Vancouver,
op. cit. p. 364 ; and Mavor, op. cit. p. 482.

3 Chalmers, op. cit. pp. 323 f. In 1768 Arthur Young describes the condition of the
working classes "in those counties where the riots were most remarkable." A Six Weeks?
Tour through the Southern Counties, title-page.

4 I.e. the laws against forestalling and engrossing. The series begins in the reign of
Henry III, and the laws were re-enacted by George III in 1766. See the Annual Register,
[766, p. 224; and Thaer, op. cit. pp. 121 f.

5 Arbuthnot, op. cit. p. 14: — "The general outcry which has been made against the great
farmer, for keeping his corn from the market, has not failed to inflame the minds of almost all

4O Large and Small Holdings

so was now "the engrossing of farms," and the large farmers were
dubbed with the same titles as had formerly been bestowed on
the hated forestallers1. Writers more gifted with penetration vainly
strove to show that the large farmers were not in a position to exercise
a harmful influence on the corn-markets, and that the most they could
do was to hinder a rapid fall of prices after harvest as a consequence
of their not threshing or selling their grain at once2. The people did
not believe it. They found it more satisfactory, and perhaps also
simpler, to ascribe the high prices under which they suffered to the
wickedness of men than to the caprices of the weather and the chances
of the harvest. Thus at the end of the eighteenth century a popular
agitation arose against the "monopolising" farmers in every year of
dearth, until in its last decade the true causes of the rise in prices
became too clear to be misread.

The anger of the people against the new methods was reinforced
by those writers who combated the rise of the large farm system
and the division of the commons as being a social evil. They were
indignant at the way in which the cottagers were robbed or cheated
of their rights. They had a distaste for the large farmer, with his
sense of superiority and his imitation of the ways of the gentry, com-
paring him to his disadvantage with the honest, hard-working small
holder*. They were sorry to see the rural population degraded to the
rank of a proletariat and leaving the field for the towns. They had
little to say from an economic standpoint. They could not claim that
the small farmer produced more corn than the large farmer, or that
the unenclosed fields were models of agriculture. They could only
point out the achievements of the small holders in the way of dairying
and market-gardening. Nevertheless they brought the question of
the proper size of the agricultural unit to the forefront of the politico-
economic discussion. It was clear to them that the question was
much more than the mere question of agricultural technique to which

ranks of people." Also Uniting and Monopolizing Farms ^ p. 17; Forbes, op. cit. p. 159;
Kent, Hints, p. 205 ; and Price, op. cit. pp. 373 f.

1 Considerations on the Present High Price of Provisions, 17^4, p. n: — "Engrossing
farmers, or, which is the same thing, engrossers of corn." Also An Enquiry into the
Advantages etc., p. 25 ; S. Hodson, Address to the Different Classes of Persons in Great
Britain, 1795, p. 10; Two Letters on the Flour Trade, 1766, p. 19; Girdler, op. cit. p. 9;
An Humble Address to the King concerning the Dearness of Provisions, 1775, pp. 13 f., etc.

8 Peters, The Rational Farmer, p. 115; (N. Forster), An Enquiry into the Causes of the
Present High Price of Provisions, 1767, p. 91 ; also An Essay on the Causes of the Present
High Price of Provisions, 1773, pp. i8ff.

1 See e.g. Cursory Remarks, p. 22.

Agricultural Revolution 41

it was reduced by many of its advocates. The new movement meant
that a class hitherto independent was to fall to a position of mere
wage-earning, and that a new capitalist class was to be developed to
rule over them. To these results the writers in question were opposed.
Dr Price, for instance, referring to the legislation of Henry VII and
Henry VIII, which had protected the peasantry from expropriation,
said : — "Such was the policy of former times. Modern policy is, indeed,
more favourable to the higher classes of people ; and the consequence
of it may in time prove that the whole kingdom will consist of only
gentry and beggars, or of grandees and slaves1." Some writers pro-
posed that the State should set a limit to the size of farms2, though
naturally all such suggestions were fore-doomed to failure. It was
hardly likely that in a country ruled by the landed interest and a
Parliament filled by landlords a champion should be found able and
willing to carry through measures in opposition to a development
which filled the pockets of the owners of agricultural land.

The opponents of large farming on social grounds were treated with
the same contempt which is even now meted out by many agricul-
turists to critics who are alleged to have no practical experience.
The representatives of the corn-growing interest occupied themselves
primarily with the economic side of the matter. They pointed out
the economic superiority of large holdings over small ones, which
was obvious so far as corn-growing was concerned ; they drew atten-
tion to the progress which agricultural technique had made under the
new system, and so forth. Many of them also managed to satisfy
their social conscience. Arthur Young, for example, expounded the
theory that low wages meant more work done, and that therefore the
deterioration of the labourer's standard of life might be profitable to
the State3. The expropriation of the small holders and cottagers
was said to be justified inasmuch as they would be better off in the
position of wage-labourers ; they would work less hard and would
have less anxiety than when they were working for themselves. By
arguments of this kind the weighty case developed against the large
farm system and the enclosures was set aside.

The enthusiasm of these advocates of the large farm system and
their failure to grasp the social aspect of the new conditions makes
more remarkable the change in their ideas which took place at the

1 Price, op. cit. p. 393.

- E.g. The Causes of the Dearness of Provisions assigned, Gloucester, 1766, p. 11 ; and
also N. Forster, op. cit. pp. 94 ff.

3 Young, Farmers Letters, Vol. I, pp. 205 ff. ; see also p. 37.

42 Large and Small Holdings

turn of the century. Possibly the evil social consequences showed
themselves so clearly at this time that no candid thinker could
deny them ; possibly Young, Sinclair and the rest had really
expected different results from the measures they advocated than
actually followed. At any rate their views were radically altered.
Young, once the most zealous advocate of the enclosures, now com-
plained that they had in most cases, though not necessarily,
produced "this evil;... that instead of giving property to the poor,
or preserving it, or enabling them to acquire it, the very contrary
effect has taken place1." Again, whereas in 1772 he had spoken
in the most contemptuous manner of the cottager's cows1, he now
lamented that they had been lost to the labourers through the con-
solidation of farms, and recounted at length all cases of the kind
which were known to him. It seems that as he grew older he came
to take more and more account of the social consequences of economic
conditions, instead of looking simply at the greatest possible profit to
be made, or at the purely economic fitness of things. And while from
the latter point of view he had defended the large farm system on the
ground of the increasing profitableness of corn-growing, now, regard-
ing the social aspect of the new form of agricultural management, he
became more and more sensible of the advantages of the small holding.
On social grounds he became a strong advocate of the revival
of cottagers' holdings (now to become known as allotments), though
thirty years earlier he had for economic reasons approved of their
abolition. He strongly opposed Malthus' arguments against the
creation of allotments3, and described their advantages with as much
enthusiasm as some modern social reformers show for them4. He sug-
gested all possible means by which agricultural labourers, "that class
of people upon which all others depend5," might be assured of holding
land of their own and of possessing a cow6. Sinclair's change of mind
is equally remarkable. In the Report already quoted he had described
wage-labour as the mainstay of the cottager, and so had defended his

1 Annals of Agriculture, Vol. XXXVI, 1801, p. 515.

2 Farmer's Letters, p. 94, and also p. 181.

3 Malthus was decidedly against allotments, regarding them as an inducement to the
increase of population, which, in his view, would speedily make the advantages of the
allotment illusory. See On the Principle of Population, 5th ed. 1817, Vol. Ill, p. 241 ; and
Young's reply in Annals, Vol. XLI, 1804, p. 231.

4 Young, Annals, Vol. xxxvi, pp. 510, 511 and 456; Vol. XXXIX, 1803, p. 251 ; and

Vol. XLI, p. 231.

8 Young, Lincolnshire, p. 419.

8 Young, The Question of Scarcity plainly stated and Remedies considered, 1800, pp. 77 f.

Agricultural Revolution 43

position against those who regretted that the cottager should be driven
from his holding. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century
Sir John Sinclair is found as the most zealous advocate of allotments,
and in fact as the first to demand that particular form of holding
which has become famous in later times under the title of "three
acres and a cow1." In 1801 the Board of Agriculture, of which
Sinclair was president, offered a prize to the person "who shall
explain in the most satisfactory manner the best means of render-
ing the allotment system as general throughout the kingdom as
circumstances will admit2." The enthusiasts who had seen nothing
but good in the rise of corn-prices, the progress of the large farm
system and the disappearance of small holdings now experienced a
certain reaction. Arguing as economists they remained defenders
of the larger agricultural unit, which was still in process of develop-
ment under the spur of the rising corn-prices. But they could no
longer deck out their economic ideal in plumes borrowed from social
reformers. They now desired to get rid of the social evils which had
followed upon their favoured developments by means of an artificial
revival of the cottager's holding. Allotments were to make the
labourer once again independent, keep him off the poor-rate and set
bounds to the rural exodus8. Previously the social effects of the new
system had been overlooked for the sake of its economic advan-
tages. Now, in spite of the force of the economic tendencies, it was
hoped that the social evils of the system might be overcome. But the
hope was not justified by events.

Certain liberally-minded landlords, as for example Lord Winchilsea,
did indeed support the propaganda of the Board of Agriculture4 in
favour of the extension of allotments. But they were few in com-
parison with the great mass of landowners, and these, in the first
decade of the nineteenth century, were eagerly developing the large
farm system, as with the still rising corn-prices it brought them ever-
increasing rents. The large farmers were their favourite tenants, and
whatever the large farmers desired the landlords accepted as desirable.
But the large farmers found the underpaid labour of the landless, rate-
aided labourers quite to their mind, and Culley, for instance, declared

1 Sir John Sinclair, Observations on the Means of enabling a Cottager to keep a Cow,
1801, pp. 4, n.

2 Cp. C. W. Stubbs, The Land and the Labourer, ed. of 1891, pp. 39 ff.

8 See e.g. Murray, op. cit. p. 31 : — " They will not, as now is too much the case, be
driven into towns and villages far from the farm, for a residence."

4 Communications, Vol. I, and ed. 1804, pp. 77 ff. ; and Annals, Vol. XL, 1803, p. 51.

44 Large and Small Holdings

that for labourers "to have one, two, or three acres... does a great deal

of harm I consider it as one of the worst things that can or could

happen to cultivation1." Under these circumstances the movement
in favour of allotments naturally disappeared and left no trace
behind.

A complete revolution in agricultural conditions had in fact been
brought about by the uninterrupted rise in the price of corn due to
the combined results of the bad harvests which ruled from 1760
onwards, the French wars lasting almost a quarter of a century, and
the Continental System. The enhanced price of corn had made
arable farming more profitable than any other branch of agricul-
ture. Accordingly the unit of holding most suitable for arable
farming, namely the large farm, became the rule. On the large
farm the methods and technique of wheat-cultivation were per-
fected to a degree which was the admiration and astonishment of
both English and continental agricultural experts. But the old
agricultural system had to be broken down before the new could be
built up. The small farms and peasant properties, and the little
holdings of the cottager and labourer, had to be sacrificed. The
industrious small agriculturist had to give way to the large farmer
possessed of capital and education. The distinction between manage-
ment and manual labour, hitherto almost unknown in agriculture,
became a visible fact. The small agriculturist had united both in his
own person. The large farm demanded the rise of a class of wage-
labourers obedient to the will of one organising mind. It thus led to
the development of the antagonism of class-interests on the land as
it exists at the present day.

England was subjected to no such invasions as those which sacri-
ficed the continental country-people by the thousand to the ambition
of the great French conqueror. But nevertheless masses of its agri-
cultural population were brought from independence into social
slavery, not indeed by the power of the cannon, but by the power of
the plough.

1 Annals, Vol. XXXVI, 1801, pp. 385 ff. ; and Billingsley, op. cit. p. 48.

CHAPTER II

THE PERIOD OF THE CORN-LAWS

THE peace of 1815 did not put an end to the development of the
new form of agricultural holding which had grown up since the middle
of the eighteenth century. On the contrary, the extension of the
large farm system may be said to have continued well into the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. But from the time of the peace the
development went on quietly, without awakening the public discussion
and socio-political debates with which it had been accompanied from
1760 to 1815. Politicians, economists, and the working classes were
now occupied with other matters. England had become a predomi-
nantly industrial nation; and accordingly all questions concerning the
industrial population had attained a new importance. They now
absorbed much of the interest previously directed to purely agricul-
tural problems. The only agricultural question which was prominent
between 1815 and 1846 was the controversy over the effects and
justification of the corn-laws. Possibly, however, one reason for the
cessation of the discussion on the large farm system was that its
extension had become an everyday affair, too common for opposition
to seem of any avail.

Nor was there any essential change in the condition of the market
for agricultural produce during the period 1815 to 1846 as compared
with that from 1760 to 1815. It might have been expected, and in
fact many did expect, that after the peace general well-being would
spread over the country, and that in consequence there would be an
increased consumption of those articles of fare whose use had become
uncommon during the dearth of corn. This certainly would have
meant a change in market conditions. But the expectation was not
fulfilled. Trade and industry, instead of expanding, suffered severe
depression after 1815.

During the rule of the Continental System England's export trade
naturally could not develop. Quantities of unsaleable commodities

46 Large and Small Holdings

lay upon the home market, ready to go abroad so soon as normal
conditions of trade should be restored. Accordingly, when the Con-
tinental System was abolished, foreign markets were filled to over-
flowing by English goods. But the purchasing power of the foreign
markets had been overestimated1. They were not in a position to
take up the surplus produce of England. Not only so, but they set
up positive hindrances to the invasion of English goods which
threatened to follow on the invasion of French armies, by erect-
ing tariff walls in the interest of the development of their own
industries2. England had therefore little to hope from them. An
enlightened policy would have concentrated on the development and
strengthening of the home market. But on the contrary a protective
policy was instituted which would necessarily lessen the home demand
for the products of the factories and workshops.

The introduction of high duties on corn in the year 1815 artificially
raised the price of the article of fare most important to the mass of
the people. The curse entailed by the bad harvests and the limitation
of imports due to the war was extended to the peace period for the
benefit of corn-growers and landlords, and the price of wheat was
kept by the corn-laws3 above the price of the international market.
But the more the labouring classes had to pay for their bread, the
less could they afford to expend on the products of industry. In bad
seasons the high duties caused an enormous rise in price4. No corre-
sponding rise in wages followed, either on the land or in the towns5.
The consequence must have been that in such years the demand of
the masses for anything except bread was enormously reduced. The
diminished demand was of course followed by a decrease of supply,
whereby masses of labourers were thrown out of work, or at least had
their wages reduced. Accordingly the years of bad harvests and high
corn-prices were always periods of terrible industrial and commercial
crisis, as especially in the years 1817 to 1819, 1825, 1829 to 1832, and
1839 to 1845.

The misery of the labouring classes, not only in such years of acute
crisis, but throughout the period of the corn-laws, has been described

1 Harriet Martineau, History of England, 1 849, Vol. I, p. 34.

3 L. Brentano, Anfang und Erde der englischcn Komwlle, a supplement to the AUgemeine
Zeitung, 1892, Nr. 15, p. 4.

3 Levy, Die Not etc. , p. 1 29.

4 Ibid., p. 104, and passim.

5 H. Martineau, op. cit. Vol. n, p. 407 ; Tooke, op. cit. Vol. in, p. 52. See also H. Levy,
Landarbciter und Kornzblle, in Nation, Nov. 2nd, 1901 ; and the Memoirs of Sir Robert
Peel, 1857, Vol. n, p. 338.

Corn-law Period

47

so often and so well both by contemporary and by recent writers1,
that it is unnecessary to do more than refer to it here. Its significance
in this connection is simply that the condition of the working classes
determines the kind of food which they consume, and the kind of food
consumed reacts upon the relative profitableness of the various branches
of agricultural production.

The standard of life of the mass of the population was, as has been
seen, so bad in the period of dearth at the end of the eighteenth
century and during the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the nine-
teenth, that it is hardly possible to conceive that it could be worsened.
Nevertheless, according to the detailed reports published, it appears
that a further deterioration did take place, more especially after 1834,
when the rate in aid of wages was abolished. Between that time and
the abolition of the corn-laws the food of the people was reduced to
a hitherto unknown minimum. "Taking the whole body of agricul-
tural labourers," says a Parliamentary Report of the year i84O2, "beef
and mutton, as articles of food among them, are almost unknown from
the north of England to the south.... When Ss. out of 15^. must be ex-
pended in bread and flour by a family, and the greater part of the rest
be expended in rent, clothing and fuel, what is there left for animal
food?" When after 1836 the price of corn, after a period of compara-
tive cheapness, rose rapidly and considerably, the consumption of meat
in the large towns fell, often by 30 or 40 per cent.* With rising corn-
prices and no corresponding rise of wages, the consumption of meat,
eggs, butter and cheese was always the first thing to be limited4. It
will be understood that these things had indeed become luxuries when
it is realised to what extraordinary means of satisfying their hunger
the people were often reduced. Nettles, swedes, and rotten apples
were requisitioned5. Children fought in the streets for scraps which the
rich would not even have offered to their dogs6. " I could tell you of
mothers dividing a farthing salt herring and a halfpennyworth of

1 See e.g. S. Laing, National Distress, 1844, PP- 2^ ff-> and p. 53. Speeches by Richard
Cobden, 1870, Vol. I, pp. 30, 151 f., 163 ff. ; F. Engels, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasscn in
England, Leipzig, 1845, pp. 314-317 ; H. Martineau, op. cit. Vol. l, pp. 510 f. ; H. Dunkley,
The Charter of the Nations, 1854, pp. 65 ff. ; and especially Walpole, op. cit. VoL IV,

PP- 357 ff-

* Report on the Handloom Weavers, Reports, Vol. XXIV, Sess. 1840 [636], p. 18.

3 Report of the Statistical Committee appointed by the Anti-Corn Law Conference, p. 18.

4 Report of the great Anti-Corn Law Meeting, 1842, pp. 22 f. For the small consumption
of meat see also B. W. Noel, A Plea for the Poor, 1841, p. 3; and Brereton, Wages etc.,
p. 61. Cp. also the labourers' budgets given by A. Wilson Fox, in Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society, 1903, pp. 323-325.

» Speeches of R. Cobden, p. 164. * Walpole, op. cit. Vol. iv, p. 363.

48 Large and Small Holdings

potatoes among a family of seven," wrote the correspondent of an
M.P. in I84I1. The old fare of bread, bacon and beer was frequently
replaced by water-gruel, rice and potatoes, and for drink a decoction
of boiled tea-leaves2.

In spite of all expectations from the peace, therefore, the people
found themselves after 1815 not merely in no better position, but
perhaps degraded even below the level to which they had already
become accustomed. A commercial policy which raised the price of
the chief necessary of life and at the same time injured trade and
industry produced a worse state of affairs in time of peace than
any war could have brought about. The policy did not even profit
those in whose interests such a fearful burden was laid on the people
at large. The farmers, who were to have reaped the chief advantages
of the corn-laws, were in a state of almost continuous distress from
1815 to 1 846s. Meantime the agricultural result of the high duties
was to carry still further that one-sided development of arable farming
which had been going on since 1760.

The Reports of the Committees on the Distressed Condition of
Agriculture in 1836-7 prove clearly that pasture- farming and market-
gardening not only made no progress during the thirty years of the
corn-law period, but even deteriorated4. The rotation of crops, a
matter whose importance in relation to pasture-farming had been
recognised even in the eighteenth century, was only in use on a com-
paratively few model farms. Baker reported on Essex in 1845 that
experiments with winter root-crops had been made for the first time
in that county a few years previously5. In 1849 the dairy-farms of
Suffolk, for which that county had been celebrated in the time of
Arthur Young, had practically disappeared6. According to Raynbird's
figures, 90 per cent, fewer cows were kept than at that period ; every-
where pasture had been turned into arable. "The corn laws... have
induced farmers to rely for profit upon a great breadth of wheat, to
the neglect of stock-farming and improved systems of husbandry,"

1 Hansard, Vol. LIX, p. 759.

2 R. Heath, The English Peasant, 1893, p. 45.

3 Levy, Die Not etc., passim.

4 See especially the evidence of the Scottish fanners. They had introduced the rotation
of crops much more commonly than their English neighbours, and one after another expressed
their astonishment at the poor methods of breeding and bad agricultural systems of the
Englishmen. See e.g. Report on Agriculture, 1837, qu. 13,813 and qu. 14,089.

5 R. Baker, On the Farming of Essex, in Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1835,

P-3-

6 W. and H. Raynbird, On the Agriculture of Suffolk, 1849, PP- 7' 94-

Corn-law Period 49

wrote an agriculturist in I8431. This must have been at least in part
caused by the inability of the mass of the population to consume
animal products to any extent worth mentioning. Obviously produc-
tion could not extend when the market was continually shrinking.
Partly too, however, the corn-duties directly stimulated the production
of corn at the expense of other branches of agriculture. They never
indeed achieved the end of which the landed interest had dreamed at
the time of their introduction. But men are often inclined to forget
the facts of the present in favour of their hopes for the future : and the
agriculturists acted as if the results they expected from the corn-laws
had in reality been achieved. Although neither the tariff of 1815 nor
that of 1828 were able to keep the price of corn anywhere near the
desired level, yet the farmers behaved as though that high price, which
they supposed to be guaranteed, already existed. Wastes and pastures
were broken up, and rents, which had risen so enormously since 1760,
were not lowered as prices fell, because it was supposed that the duties
would bring the price up again2. In bad seasons the artificial limita-
tion of imports did in fact produce this rise of price. But in good
seasons the increased home production alone sufficed to bring the
price of wheat below the level which seemed profitable to the agricul-
turist, so that universal lamentation was made over low prices and high
rents. Even at such times, however, the idea which was bound up
with the maintenance of the corn-laws, namely that some time or
other prices would rise again, continued to influence men's minds so
powerfully that the area under corn still continued to extend8. This
extension of arable in the period 1815 to 1846 was based on an
imaginary foundation ; it resulted from an assumption which was
never justified. The population at large suffered under it inasmuch
as they had to pay more for their bread than the people of other
countries. The English farmers got no profit out of the difference in
price at home and abroad, but before five different Parliamentary
enquiries complained of their distressed condition. Such was the price
paid for the artificial stimulation of corn-growing and for the continued
extension of the area under wheat at the expense of pasture and other
purposes.

Two causes thus contributed to maintain the predominance, or it
might almost be said the monopoly, of arable farming in English

1 Welford, op. cit. p. 199.

2 Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 76 f.

3 See an exhaustive discussion of the point, with references, in Levy, op. cit. passim, and
especially Chapter IV.

50 Large and Small Holdings

agriculture after the year 1815. There was, first, a diminished con-
sumption of meat and other animal products, and of fruit, vegetables,
etc., in consequence of the deteriorated standard of life of the
working classes : and secondly, an artificial stimulus was given to the
production of corn by the introduction of the high duties. The
peace, therefore, produced no change in the direction in which
agricultural production was moving. Equally little change appeared
in the matter of the unit of holding.

For reasons already glanced at, the progress of the large farm
system cannot be so clearly traced after 1815 as before that date.
Individual examples have to suffice in place of more general
statements. But such examples can be adduced in plenty. Thus
on the celebrated Netherby estate in Cumberland, the number of
farmers was decreased by more than 50 per cent, between 1820
and 1850. "Fine farms of 300 and 400 acres, now occupied in one
holding by an enterprising tenant, were then (1820) held in seven or
eight separate possessions1," wrote Caird in 1852. Again, it is
reported that after 1820 very many dairy-farms were transformed
into arable, and this would naturally be accompanied by an increase
in the number of acres in one hand8. Little allotments, too, in large
numbers were thrown into larger holdings3, the labourers being
deprived of their bits of land4. Where common-land was enclosed —
and about 900,000 acres were enclosed by Act of Parliament between
1820 and 1850 — the formation of large farms was always the im-
mediate result When Exmoor Forest was enclosed, for instance,
farms of from 400 to looo acres, and even up to 2000 acres, were
formed8. Agricultural authorities recommended the landlords even
in the classic districts of small holdings to throw two or three farms
into one, as a matter of "good policy8." The policy was so well
carried out that Caird, on his tour of 1850, found many districts in

1 J. Caird, English Agriculture in 1850-1851, i88a, p. 352.

3 Carmichael, Corn Laws, Edinburgh and London, 1838, p. 13.

* G. Buckland, On the Farming of Kent, m Journal X. A. S., Vol. VI (1845), p. 196.

4 Cp. The Labourers' Friend, 1835, p. 31 : — " I could point out parishes which fifty years
ago contained a body of poor who, I observed at that time, and for several years after, were
comfortable and happy, as to their temporal concerns : and this was chiefly owing to their
occupying their crofts, and orchards, and gardens close to their cottages. The parish of
Evestan, next to Potton, of which I was curate about fifty years ago... was circumstanced, as
to the poor, as above stated ; but within the last twenty years the cottages have been deprived
of all their accompaniments, which enabled the occupiers to keep some one, some two, and
some three cows, besides pigs and poultry."

6 T. D. Acland and W. Sturge, The Farming of Somersetshire, 1851, p. 159.

8 W. F. Karkeek, On the Farming of Corn-wall, in Journal R. A. S., Vol. VI (1845), p. 402.

Corn-law Period 51

which the farms had attained an area of from 1000 to 3000 acres and
over1.

Moreover, it was during the corn-law period that the final disappear-
ance of the yeomanry took place. The greater part of this class had
already vanished in the previous period, having preferred the position
of a large farmer to that of a small owner. Those who had not made
that really beneficial exchange burdened their estates with mortgages
and attempted with the capital so raised to increase the falling profits
of their small holdings. In particular, they tried, by all manner of
improvements, to increase their production of corn, in order to share
in the large profits promised by its high price. But when after 1815,
in spite of the corn-laws, the price of wheat failed to return to its
former height, these remaining yeomen were the first to suffer. Their
decreased profits no longer sufficed to keep up the interest on their
mortgages, and they either sold their land or were foreclosed upon3.
Their estates were swallowed up by the great landlord and the large
farmer, so that by 1836 a witness could state that the yeomanry "are,
as a body, ceasing to exist at all3."

Meantime, while the system of the large farm was thus making
progress, the counter-movement, begun early in the nineteenth
century on social grounds, had little practical effect. The Board of
Agriculture and its most zealous supporters had initiated legislation
for the purpose of assisting the labourers once more to the use of
a bit of land. The agitation for allotments had proved a failure,
but it had led to the passing of an Act in 1819 which empowered the
overseers to buy or rent land for the purpose of letting it out again
"to any poor and industrious inhabitant of the parish4." Another
Act was passed in 1832, probably as a result of the agricultural riots
of that and the preceding years, recommending that a certain pro-
portion of all newly-enclosed land should be let out in allotments5.
But neither Act produced any marked result6. The private agitation

1 Caird, op. cit. p. 89 (Hants) and p. 130 (Sussex).

2 Report on the State of Agriculture, 1833, pp. ix f., where it is said of the yeomanry that
"The high prices of the last war led to speculation in the purchase, improvement and
enclosure of land ; money was borrowed on the paternal estate for speculations of this nature,
which, at the time, were not considered improvident. Prices have fallen, the debt still
remains, or the estate has changed owners, and the interval between the fall of prices and the
adjustment of charge and of expenditure to the altered value of money, has been most
pernicious to this body of men."

3 Report on Agriculture, 1837 (House of Lords), qu. 5107.

4 Cited by Stubbs, op. cit. p. 41.

5 Sir G. Nicholls, History of the English Poor Law, Vol. II, p. 202.

6 The Earl of Onslow, Landlords and Allotments, 1886, p. 10.

4—2

52 Large and Small Holdings

continued alongside of the official efforts. The Labourers' Friend
Society was founded in the thirties, its object being to carry on, both
by lectures and publications, a propaganda in favour of allotments1;
or, as it claimed, to abolish the evils entailed on labourers and small
farmers by the high corn-prices and the consequent enclosures and
engrossing2. But energetically as the agitation was carried on8, it
could not accomplish economic impossibilities. Even at the present
day, when the formation of allotments is often to the economic
advantage of the landowner, the ingrained conservatism of the land-
lord and his larger tenants frequently prevents their introduction.
Such opposition was naturally much more powerful at a time when
the allotment had indeed many social gains to offer, but practically no
economic advantage.

Nowadays many farmers are in favour of allotments because they
rightly suppose that a holding of his own will tend to keep the
labourer upon the land. But in the corn-law period employers had
nothing to fear from a rural exodus. The very cause of the low
wages of agricultural labour was that the industrial crises and the
depression of trade made it impossible for the labourers to migrate to
the towns4. The rural labour-market was overflowing precisely
because the movement to the towns was at a standstill8. In the
thirties the farmers even regarded it as a blessing if labourers did
leave the land, since, far from forcing up wages in the still swamped
labour-market, such migration freed the country from beggars and
vagrants, and relieved the rates'. Farmers were not at that time
crying out for workers ; it was the starving labourers who begged for
work at any price. Under these circumstances there was naturally

1 Proceedings of the Labourers' Friend Society ', 1832, pp. 7 f.

2 Ibid., pp. 9 f.

3 Cp. the many articles on the Allotment System published at this period ; e.g. in The
Farmers' Magazine, 1836 (July to December), p. 167 b.

4 The Proceedings of the Labourers' Friend Society, loc. cit., state that the existing condition
of industry precluded all hope that the superfluous agricultural labourers would be absorbed
by the towns, since the industrial labour-market was already over-crowded.

5 Cp. among other authorities Wilson Fox, Agricultural Wages during the last Fifty
Years, in Journal of 'the Royal Statistical Society, 1903, p. 311 : — " Does any one want to go
back to the period between the ' twenties ' and the ' fifties,' when the rural population was so
plentiful in many counties outside the northern ones that there was not enough employment
to go round ? "

6 The steward of the Duke of Bedford stated in 1836 that the farmers had been very
desirous that labourers should find work on the construction of the Birmingham railway.
No rise of wages had followed : the agricultural labour-market had only been freed from a
great over-supply of labour, and the poor-rates had been relieved. Report of 1836, qu. 1897 ff.
and qu. 9590 ff.

Corn-law Period 53

no need for an allotment system as a means of keeping labourers on
the land, where they were obliged to stay whatever happened. On
the other hand the farmers held that labourers' allotments were
against their interests, since the labourers might prefer working on
their own land to working for an employer1.

The landlords, whose main interest was in the well-being of their
larger tenants, found in the farmers' dislike of allotments sufficient
reason for not favouring the movement. They had no economic
advantage to expect if they took it up. A very impartial Parlia-
mentary report of 1843 stated that land let in allotments paid the
same rent per acre as land of the same quality let to a large farmer*.
If so, the landlord had obviously small inducement to form allotments
on economic grounds. For while they paid no higher rents than
did the large farms, they cost more in buildings, repairs and
administration.

It was very natural that the allotment-holders should not be able
to pay more per acre, or even should pay less, than the farmer.
Except in the neighbourhood of towns, where there was a demand
for fresh vegetables, eggs and poultry, they could not make any
considerable income out of their allotments. Elsewhere, corn was
the most profitable agricultural product. Enthusiasts for the
allotment system, like Thornton3, did indeed maintain that spade-
cultivation could make corn-growing profitable even on the smallest
holding. But experience soon showed that the cottager did not
succeed on such lines. If he held two or three acres, to cultivate
them by the spade took up far too much time. On the other hand
the area was too small to give full employment to a horse and
plough : both would have to be borrowed from neighbouring larger
holders4.

Thus the socio-political agitation, aiming at the extension of
allotments as a means of improving the miserable position of the
labourer, found an unconquerable obstacle in the economic circum-

1 A land-surveyor, Mr Driver, told the Select Committee on Agriculture in 1833 (qu. 1 1,760)
that " In some instances I have found that the farmers have been dissatisfied, because they
found that the labourers if employed on their own grounds were more fatigued and less able to
perform their labour to their employers." A land-agent, Mr Joseph Lee, told the same
Committee (qu. 6099) that " We do not wish to give them so much (land) as to take away
their attention from the farmers." A little book called Practical Directions for the Cultivation
of Cottage Gardens, by Charles Lawrence, 1831, is also characteristic. The writer warns the
labourers not to neglect their wage-earning for the sake of their own land.

8 Report on Women and Children in Agriculture, 1843, P- 15-

3 W. T. Thornton, Over-population and its Remedy, 1846, p. 346.

4 Report on Agriculture, 1833, °iu- 10,849.

54 Large and Small Holdings

stances of the time. Here and there allotments were formed1. But
they were only isolated experiments, or a result of the social ideals of
liberally-minded landlords. How little success the movement had on
the whole may be seen by an official estimate of 1868, according to
which, of the seven million acres enclosed since 1760, only 2000 had
passed to the labourers in the form of allotments2.

The corn-laws, then, caused an artificial development of that unit
of holding which the economic conditions of the previous period had
favoured8. Accordingly nothing was more natural than that a radical
alteration of existing agricultural conditions and a consequent far-
reaching change in the customary size of holdings should be expected
from the abolition of the corn-laws in 1 846.

1 Report on Agriculture, 1833, °»u> i°»249, 10,997 ff. ; also the Report on the Employment
of Women and Children, 1843, p. 15 ; and the Journal R. A. S., Vol. IX, p. 127.

8 G. C. Brodrick, English Land and English Landlords, 1881, p. 234.

8 Certain political motives may also have contributed in some cases to the establishment
of small holdings. When the great Anti-Corn Law agitation began about 1840, it was
recognised in the Free Trade camp that the agitation must be extended to the rural
constituencies. The old Chandos clause was dug up, according to which forty shilling
freeholders had a right to a vote. When in 1843 Lord Morpeth, M.P. for the West Riding,
failed to secure re-election, Cobden determined to put the ' ' forty-shilling freehold system "
into operation. The Free Traders, with the large sums at their disposal, were not long in
obtaining the 5000 votes which they required, and Lord Morpeth was duly re-elected. There
is no evidence as to the exact extent to which the activity of the Anti-Corn Law League was
carried in this direction. After the dissolution of the League its policy of creating freeholders
naturally came to an end also. But it was continued by James Taylor, who founded a
freehold land society at Birmingham in 1847. By 1853 there were five such societies in
Birmingham, which had bought nineteen estates and created 2300 allotments upon them.
Some weeks after Taylor's society was founded Cobden started the National Freehold Land
Society, also for electoral purposes. But it seems impossible that these associations should
have led to any serious development of small holdings, in view of their small number and
local nature. For a fuller account see Th. Beggs, Freehold Land Societies, \njournal of the
Royal Statistical Society, Vol. XVI (1853), pp. 338 ff.

CHAPTER III

FROM THE ABOLITION OF THE CORN-LAWS TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN COMPETITION

(a) The Agricultural History of the First Thirty Years
of Free Trade.

IN 1846 the landed interest believed that the much dreaded fall
in wheat-prices, which had begun after the break-up of the Con-
tinental System, would now at last become a serious fact. The
Free Traders too believed that the price would fall rapidly, and
the only difference between their view and that of the Protec-
tionists was that they regarded the prospect from an optimistic
instead of a pessimistic standpoint. This coming revolution in prices
was also expected to produce considerable alteration in the relative
positions of the various types of agricultural holding. James Caird,
the best authority on agriculture whom England has ever possessed,
predicted in I85I1 that in the immediate future there would be a
decrease in corn-production, but that with the increasing population
and its growing wealth, together with the improved means of com-
munication, pasture-farming and market-gardening would prosper.
And as these branches of production, which would partly replace
arable farming, required industry, care, skill and attention to so much
greater a degree than corn-growing, large holdings such as existed in
the eastern counties would no longer be profitably manageable by one
man. Accordingly there would be a decrease in the number of large
farms, and more capital and labour would be concentrated on the
working of smaller areas. Thornton2, Alister3 and others wrote in

1 Caird, English Agriculture, pp. 483 f.

2 Thornton, op. cit. p. 329 : — " The repeal of the corn-laws might thus cause the race of
large capitalists to disappear from the occupation of the soil, and to be replaced by small
farmers, holding on an average, perhaps, not more than fifty acres each."

8 R. Alister, Barriers to the National Prosperity of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1853, p. 51 :—
" High-farming must now be the order of the day ; and the inevitable consequence will be,
that farms will become less in size, for it will not pay now for one man to take two farms
while his capital is barely sufficient for one."

56 Large and Small Holdings

the same sense. Their expectations were quite correct in theory,
but in practice they remained unfulfilled. The assumption on which
all such deductions were based did not prove justified.

Contrary to all expectation, there was no serious fall in the price
of wheat in the thirty years following the abolition of the corn-laws.
Between 1847 and 1881 wheat was at about $2s. a quarter. This
was not much below the average for the period 1815 to 1846, which
was between 56^. and 57.$-. J In spite, however, of the small change in
wheat-prices, considerable alterations in English agriculture did begin
with the year 1846. But they were of a different kind from those
which had been expected. The significance of the first thirty years
of agricultural free trade was that corn-production, far from being
abandoned, was made more profitable than ever.

In the corn-law period a price of $2s. had always produced the
cry of agricultural distress2. But after 1846 the same price saw
agriculture flourishing, so much so that the years from 1850 to 1880
have come to be regarded as " the good old times " of arable farming.
The question arises as to why it was that the same price produced
such different results in the two periods. The present writer has
attempted to answer this question in another place3, and must refer
the reader to that earlier publication if what is here said on the
subject appears to be too concise.

The changes which began in 1846 were of various kinds. For
one thing, the economic conceptions of the farmers themselves under-
went a considerable revolution. Under the corn-laws they had
reckoned on high prices and regarded relatively low prices as an
exception. Now they reckoned on low prices, and it was the
relatively high prices which were regarded as exceptional. The
general expectation of a fall in prices consequent on the abolition of
the protective duties set the corn-growers seeking some way of
meeting such a fall. The obvious means was to diminish the cost
of production. But as in fact prices only fell very slightly, a large
profit was made out of the lowered cost thus originated. Chief
among the improvements made with this end in view was drainage.
Caird states that between 1848 and 1878 about ^"10,000,000 was
expended for this purpose4. Artificial manures were also brought
into common use, and agriculture generally was put upon a scientific
basis. Among the great contributors to this result were the Royal

1 Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 109 and n8.

1 Ibid., pp. 19 f., 48 and 63. * Ibid., pp. noff.

4 Caird, The Landed Interest, 1878, pp. 81 f.

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 57

Agricultural Society, and of individuals J. B. Lawes, Pusey, Mechi
and Voelker. Instead of more or less exhausting the soil, as had
still been common even up to 1846, scientific analysis of its quality
was now undertaken, and the principle applied of replacing as far as
possible what was taken from it1. Lastly, the use of agricultural
machinery was rapidly and profitably extended*. In addition to
these efforts of their own, the farmers were helped in their attempt
to reduce cost of production by the cheapening of transport, and
especially by the great extension of the railway network.

In regard of technical progress the agriculture of 1846 to 1879
stands in sharp contrast to that of the corn-law period. " The abo-
lition of the Corn Laws in 1846 may be taken as the critical date
in the history of the agriculture of the century," writes Professor
Somerville. " Since that time its progress has been steady, and for
many years its results were satisfactory*."

But it is possible that not all these improvements together would
have made the great change which actually was achieved in English
agriculture if it had not been for another development, which may be
said to have appeared as altogether a new phenomenon after 1846.
Pasture-farming came to the front. Throughout the corn-law period
it had been a neglected branch of agriculture; but from 1846 onwards
it became an object of the greatest interest to farmers and land-
owners. Its profitableness increased continually, and contributed
essentially to the remarkable advance made by English agriculture
in the first thirty years of free trade.

This success of pasture-farming depended on the greatly increased
demand for meat after the year 1846. English industry, which had
not only not increased its exports, but at times had even found them
diminishing between 1815 and 1846, experienced a great revival after
the abolition of the duties on the necessaries of life4. The imports of
foreign provisions were balanced by the export of the products of
home industries. The value of British and Irish exports rose from
£47,284,488 in 1842 to £189,953,957 in 1869. Further, with the
increasing well-being of the working classes the effective demand of
the home market increased. Wages, both on the land and in the

1 Caird, The Landed Interest, 1878, pp. 22 ff.

2 Besides the authorities cited in Levy, op. cit., see also John Noble, Fiscal Legislation,
1842-1865, 1867, pp. 158-162.

3 Wm. Somerville, Agricultural Progress in the Nineteenth Century, in The Bath and
West and Southern Counties Society 's Journal, Vol. XII (1902), p. 15.

* Spencer Walpole, op. cit. Vol. v, pp. 151-153.

58 Large and Small Holdings

towns, rose rapidly after the introduction of free trade1. On the land,
according to Caird, they rose from 9^. yd. in 1850 to 14^. in i8782.
The price of bread remaining the same, or even falling somewhat3,
the purchasing-power of wages in regard of all other provisions must
have risen greatly so soon as the money-wage went up. The people
could once again enjoy the animal food which they had so long been
compelled to renounce. Hitherto bread and potatoes had been their
staple diet: now they could add some amount of meat, butter and
cheese. In 1851, five years after the abolition of the corn-laws, Caird
reported4 that though bread was still the chief food of the great mass
of the population, the consumption of meat and cheese was increasing
enormously in the manufacturing districts, where wages were high.
Even in the agricultural districts, he said, the labourers were beginning
to eat meat occasionally, or to add a little cheese to their bread. It
would seem that the increased demand for animal food in the first thirty
years of free trade was mainly for fresh meat and perhaps for cheese.
Butter, milk, eggs and poultry were less in demand. At any rate the
increased consumption of fresh meat is the point always specially
emphasized by the writers of the period5. Accordingly the price of
that commodity rose considerably6; and under the comparatively
undeveloped transport conditions foreign competition hardly entered
into this sphere7.

The rising price of meat made the hitherto neglected art of
pasture-farming profitable, and farmers quickly took it up. Un-
fortunately there are no reliable agricultural statistics of earlier date
than 1867. But the series of figures beginning in that year shows that
between 1 867 and 1 874 the cattle and sheep kept had increased by about
a million heads, the area under green crops by about 100,000 acres,
that under clover, sainfoin and "grasses under rotation" by 300,000

1 A. L. Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom, 1900, p. 130; Memoranda, Statistical
Tables and Charts prepared by the Board of Trade, 1903, pp. 264-9; Noble, op. cit.
pp. 161-9.

2 Caird, landed Interest, p. 157.

3 Cp. the prices of bread as given in the official Report on Wholesale and Retail Prices,
1903, pp. 221, 224 and 225.

4 Caird, English Agriculture, p. 484.

5 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, July 1857 — March 1859, pp. 554 f. : — " Butcher-meat
is now much more extensively used among all classes, arising from the prosperous condition of
the labourers, who, having good wages, cheap bread, and also cheap beef, immediately after
the repeal of the Corn Laws, were enabled to indulge daily in a little flesh." See also Caird,
Landed Interest, p. 30 : — " The leap which the consumption of meat took in consequence of
the general rise of wages in all branches of trade and employment."

6 Levy, Die Not etc., p. 131. 7 Caird, Landed Interest, p. 30.

After the Repeal of the Corn- laws 59

acres, and permanent pasture by two million acres1. These figures
prove clearly that the expansion of pasture-farming, the beginning of
which had been noted by Caird on his tour in 1851, was proceeding
rapidly.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that at this time pasture-
farming was already playing a leading part in English agriculture.
The fact was that now at last that combination of arable and pasture
so strongly recommended by the theorists of earlier times had come
into being. It is true that to some extent pasture-farming had
become an end in itself, under the influence of the high profits obtain-
able on meat. But it was also a means to an end ; a means, namely,
of making corn-growing profitable or more profitable. When the
corn-laws were abolished it became clear to every agriculturist that
pasture must be extended if plough-land was still to be cultivated at
a profit. Only by keeping more beasts could the land be provided
with the necessary amount of natural manure, and a better rotation
of crops, especially an increase of root-crops, be introduced. On this
followed the rise in meat-prices, making pasture-farming desirable for
its own sake. There was no longer any economic hindrance to the
general introduction of a proper rotation ; it had become profitable to
increase the live-stock kept. On light soils, or so-called turnip-lands,
such rotations had long been adopted, since it was impossible to grow
corn there otherwise2. The question was more difficult on the com-
moner heavy clay soils. Here the wetness of the land was a hindrance
to the introduction of a wider range of crops3, which could only be
overcome by expensive drainage operations. While live-stock re-
mained unprofitable the drainage of such lands was not undertaken,
and consequently the rotation of crops was not introduced. But from
the moment when pasture-farming promised large profits, drainage
began, since it had become worth while to introduce the rotation even
at heavy cost. Thus it was pasture-farming which led to improved
methods of arable farming, a result which naturally in its turn led to
an increased production of corn4. The quantity of manure available

1 Statistical Abstracts, No. iS, p. 119.

2 The light soils were accordingly held to be less profitable than the heavy clay soils until
the expansion of pasture-farming, because the rotation of crops was expensive so long as live-
stock brought no profit. Cp. Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 83 f. ; Brown, A Treatise etc., Vol. II,
pp. 468 ff. ; and J. Russel, A Treatise on Practical and Chemical Agriculture, 1830, p. 71.

3 See e.g. R. N. Bacon, Report on the Agriculture of Norfolk, 1844, p. 33.

4 The rotation of crops as practised on light soils (see note i above) had so increased their
corn-production, that, though at one time supposed to be unsuited to arable, in 1850 they
could produce corn much more cheaply than the characteristic English wheat-land, that is to
say the heavy clay. Caird, English Agriculture, p. 476.

60 Large and Small Holdings

from the increased number of beasts kept was also a very effective
means to the same end. Indeed this development of pasture-farming
often had quite astonishing results on the corn-harvests on poor land1.

In addition to the other methods of reducing the cost of corn-
production, pasture-farming thus contributed largely to produce that
profitableness of arable farming vainly expected before 1846. Instead
of the predicted depression there was a period of prosperity. Corn-
growing continued to play the chief part on the larger and medium-
sized holdings, though pasture now held an important second place
beside it. Whether the actual area under corn was diminished cannot
be decided as regards the twenty years next following 1 846. But it
seems improbable in view of the fact that between 1867 and 1878
there were no changes in the arable area which cannot be satisfactorily
explained by the nature of the harvests in the years in question2. In
all probability the arable area was even increased in the decade
1850-60, for wheat-prices reached an unusually high level in the
years 1853 to 1857. In any case, even if the area remained un-
changed, the total corn-production must have increased between 1850
and 1878, since the produce per acre was increased during that period3.
Similarly there is no doubt that this increased productivity and the
improved technique enormously increased the profits of the corn-
growers. A farmer informed the Commission of 1894 that on the
.£ 1 0,000 which he sank in his farm between 1861 and 1874 (partly as
tenant and partly as owner) he made on an average 8^ per cent. In
1873 his profit was 10 per cent.4

Such high profits both on arable and pasture produced a veritable
land-hunger. The good old times of the Continental System seemed
to have returned. When a farm fell vacant, dozens of would-be
tenants competed for it5. The consequence was that rents were again

1 See for a typical example A. Poggendorf, Die Landwirtschaft in England, Leipzig,
1860, p. 234. He says that the soil of a certain farm was so unproductive that in spite of
its relatively low rent several successive tenants went bankrupt. A new tenant undertook
the drainage of the land. After the work was completed he tried to get as heavy a green
crop as possible, to be fed off by sheep. Next he sowed barley and clover, and let the clover
too be eaten on the ground by the sheep. Then, sowing wheat, he obtained a crop of
25 bushels per acre. From one rotation to another the results improved, and he very soon
replaced his capital together with its interest.

3 Levy, Die Not etc., p. 109.

8 Caird, Landed Interest, p. 157.

4 Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1894, qu. 18,163-18,171.

8 Report on Agriculture, 1881, qu. 35,760: — "About 12 years ago farming had been
fairly good, and then there was such a rush for land that whenever land was to be let there
were 20 applications for it, and a man never considered what he was going to pay for it if he
could only get the chance of renting it."

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 6 1

driven up above the economic level. Between 1860 and 1880 the
demand was such that "some people were foolish enough to take
farms at ridiculous rents1." But of course the economic rent was
raised by the growing profits of agriculture. In the first thirty years
of free trade the rise was 10 per cent, according to Caird1, 25 per cent,
according to Sir Robert Giffen, who based his estimate on the figures
of Schedule B of the Income-Tax Returns. And there is no doubt
that in many cases rents were raised not only by this percentage, but
by 30 and even 50 per cent.8

Thus agriculture, and especially arable farming, experienced after
1846 such a period of prosperity as had not been anticipated even by
the most optimistic Free Traders. It is not wonderful, therefore, that
the expected reaction in regard of the size of holdings did not take
place. On the contrary, the " engrossing of farms," as the eighteenth
century had called it, reached its highest point at this time.

(b) The Continued Extension of the Large Farm System.

The extension of pasture-farming after 1846 was in no way opposed
to the further expansion of the large farm system, nor favourable to a
revival of small holdings. Corn-production, owing to the high prices
and the changes wrought by the application of an improved technique,
remained the most profitable branch of agriculture. The only differ-
ence was that it no longer played the sole part in the farmer's mind.
The rising price of meat made pasture-farming profitable too. But
the extension of the latter was not made at the cost of arable, nor
did it lead to consideration as to the unit of holding best suited for it.
It fell into line, so to say, with the predominant system of large arable
farms. All that happened was that the large farmer, instead of being
almost exclusively a corn-grower, as he had been from 1760 to 1850,
now combined corn-growing with stock-farming. This resulted, where
arable was the main interest, from the more intensive rotation of crops
generally introduced after 1846: so that between 1850 and 1880
pasture-farming came to be a necessary and lucrative supplement

1 Report of 1894, Pt. II, qu. 25,173-

3 Caird, Landed Interest, p. 157. Cp. also the description given by Noble, op. cit.
pp. 153 ff.

3 Report on Agriculture, 1894, Vol. II, p. 623, qu. 18,163-18,171. According to the
evidence of a farmer named Cooper rents rose between 1865 and 1883 alone by 30 per
cent. See the Report of 1880, qu. 52,808 ff. ; also qu. 53,611, and the evidence of the
land-agent Squarey in the Report of 1894, qu. 7202. Another land-agent, Punchard, said
that between 1865 and 1880 rents had risen by 25 and even 50 per cent. Ibid., qu. 15,085 ff.

62 Large and Small Holdings

to the corn-growing of the large farm. Unless this is understood it
will remain a puzzle why the prosperity of pasture-farming after 1846
did not lead to a diminution in the size of holdings. The efforts of
agriculturists were directed towards increasing corn-production, but
they sought to base this more firmly by combining it with pasture.
Pasture-farming by itself, and especially dairy-farming, made very
little progress1. And clearly the new system, as it included arable,
would in no way tend to the formation of small holdings.

Young's law, that ploughing necessarily costs a small holder more
than a large, held good for the combined arable and pasture-farm.
Besides this, the extensive drainage works required by the introduc-
tion of a rotation of crops on stiff clay lands could only be undertaken
by capitalist large farmers, and also cost less in proportion when
carried out over a large area. The large farmer again had the
advantage in the matter of artificial manures, especially needed on
the heavy lands, and in the use of oil-cake and other artificial foods.
But more important than all these was perhaps his advantage in the
use of modern agricultural machines. The application of steam-power
to agriculture was making rapid progress. But it was evident that
the steam-plough would only pay its way on large farms and large
fields2. Halkett's steam-plough, for instance, was said to be economic-
ally applicable only on areas of 500 to 1000 acres3. It was also
remarked that where holdings were comparatively small, as in
Worcestershire and Westmorland, the steam-plough was not as a
matter of fact brought into use4. Some enthusiasts held, indeed, that
small holders might use the steam-plough by means of co-operation.
But this has never been effected up to the present time, and does not
seem likely to be effected in the future. The case of the steam
threshing-machine was much the same as that of the steam-plough ;
it, too, was long in coming into use in the districts where the smaller
holdings predominated5. It was on the large arable farm that the
progress of agricultural science and technique was promptly applied.
Accordingly, in proportion as the increasing profitableness of corn-

1 R. E. Prothero, English Agriculture in the Reign of Queen Victoria, in Journal
R. A. S., 1901, p. 29.

2 Caird, Landed Interest, p. 17 : — "A steam plough... is not capable of doing its work
with economy within small enclosures."

3 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, July 1859 to March 1861, p. 131.

4 Journal R. A. S., 1867, pp. 455 f. : — "Steam cultivation does not appear to increase in
favour with our farmers; one cause of this is that the holdings are small, and the cost of
hiring comes too high."

8 Caird, English Agriculture, p. 78.

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 63

growing made such technical progress valuable, the chances of
the large holding increased and those of the small holding fell.
In addition, the prices of wool and mutton were rising1, and sheep-
breeding was always best carried out on a large scale : so that even
in grass districts the case for the large farm was stronger than ever
before.

The fact that the profitableness of the large farm did not decrease
even when pasture was combined with arable is instructive for those
who claim that increasing intensiveness in agriculture must invariably
improve the position of the small holding as against the large.
"Increased intensiveness" is a very vague term. It is undeniable
that the intensiveness of agriculture, that is to say the application of
capital and labour to the land, increased considerably between 1846
and 1880. But this was the period when the large farm system
reached its highest level. The increased intensiveness, in fact, was
such as to consist mainly in an increased application of capital.
Drainage, the use of labour-saving machinery, and so forth, were
matters which made great demands upon capital. The increase of
intensiveness which depends on an increased application of labour is
quite another thing. Intensivity of capital is the postulate of progress
in corn-production. It means a quantitative increase in the applica-
tion of one element of production, namely capital, to the land. But
increased intensity of labour may mean a qualitative change in that
other element, labour : that is to say, not merely that more labour is
applied to agricultural production, but that the labour is of a different
kind, i.e. is itself more intensive. For an increased intensivity of
labour, therefore, the demand is not on things, but on persons. It is
not sufficient that the agriculturist should expend more capital on his
holding; the labour which he bestows on it must take on a new
character.

But this qualitative intensity of labour has never been of import-
ance in arable farming : whereas intensive application of capital has
always been of the highest importance to it. Now in the period 1850
to 1880 the large arable farmer was obviously in a much better
position than the small to make this increased application of capital.
The small corn-grower had not the capital necessary for the profit-
able use of the technical and scientific improvements in agricultural
methods, without which corn-growing could no longer be made
to pay. This was why districts where farms were small were

1 Wholesale and Retail Prices, p. 52.

64 Large and Small Holdings

considered backward in an agricultural sense1. An experiment made
by Sir Francis Baring on his estate in Hampshire shows how little
capacity for survival was manifested by the small farm system at this
time of flourishing corn-farming2. In 1849 he created fifteen small
arable holdings on this estate, letting them on terms very favourable
to the tenants. But they did not prosper, and by 1879 the fifteen
were reduced to eleven. The four farms which had thus fallen in
were thrown into other holdings ; and the consequence of this
"engrossing" was that the larger farms, by the use of oil-cake and
artificial cattle-foods, produced more corn and at the same time more
beef and mutton than the remaining small farms. The steam-plough
made its appearance. And that these improvements gave the farmers
a larger net profit was evident from the fact that they continued to
prosper, whereas the small holders had not been able to maintain
their position.

On the other hand it had to be admitted that small holdings had
the advantage over large where the question was not one of corn-
growing and meat-producing, but of dairying, poultry-farming, fruit
and vegetable growing, and the like. It was even claimed that these
branches of agriculture were pursued almost exclusively on small
holdings, and Tremenhere stated in an official report that the supply
of such articles as butter, milk, eggs, etc. would practically cease if
the small farms were to disappear3. But the production of these
commodities played so unimportant a part in agricultural production
generally that the farms devoted to them appeared to be a negligible
quantity. Corn-growing and stock-feeding occupied the chief place.
The development of other branches of production might seem desirable
in the interests of the consumer, but they were insignificant from the
producer's point of view. Small farming, which undertook these other
branches and prospered by their means, seemed to be the exception
to the rule, or an isolated deviation from the law that in agriculture
production on the large scale alone was economically profitable. The

1 For Durham see Journal R. A. S., Vol. XVII (1856), p. 98 ; and for Berkshire, Ibid.,
Vol. xxi, 1860, p. 8.

2 Th. Stirton, Small Holdings, in Journal R. A. S., 1894, pp. 90-92.

8 Second Report on the Employment of Women and Children, \ 868, p. 1 44 : — ' ' There are
perhaps a few advantages attending small farms which should not be entirely overlooked.
More attention is bestowed on the production of butter, eggs, poultry, honey, and other
useful commodities, which a large farmer usually deems beneath his notice, and which if the
whole area of the country was thrown into large farms would scarcely be produced at all, or
if produced would be solely for the consumption of the occupier and his family." Cp. also
on the success of milk- production on allotment-holdings, Trash's article in the County
Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. VI (1871), p. 17.

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 65

same Tremenhere who paid homage to the achievements of the small
farmer in the sphere of the lesser agricultural products said also that
in his opinion the day of small holdings was over. They might be
slow to disappear, but their time was past1. Such was also the
conviction of landlords at this time, and the result was that the
tendency to increase the size of holdings showed itself more and more
decidedly in the period between 1850 and 1880.

The landlords expected advantages in every direction from this
enlargement of farms. Their rents rose, cost of repairs for buildings,
fences, etc., diminished, estate management was simplified, and the
farms themselves became models of constant agricultural progress*.
Naturally they carried on the movement vigorously — how vigorously
all the relevant Parliamentary Reports of the period show3. Wherever
a small farm was given up, it was added to some larger holding*.
This, of course, happened most markedly in the arable districts'.
But the formation of large farms made rapid progress even in
counties which had hitherto been almost the preserve of the small
holder, owing to the natural qualities of soil and climate which had

1 Report on the Employment etc. loc. cit.

2 See Journal R. A. S., 1863, p. 165, in a letter from Mr John Gurdon, a landowner :—
" I am for progressing with the times ; I like large farms and extended fields ; they save the
landlord many buildings, they give full scope to machinery, and they meet the requirements
of the march of intellect." Also Report of 1881, qu. 32,142, 32,143, where Mr A. Doyle
states that in his opinion "the tendency to throw farms together" has arisen "from the
conviction that good farming cannot be carried on except upon farms of considerable
extent." •' Large farms," he says, " are regarded as one of the necessities of progressive
agriculture." See also ibid., qu. 55,687 (Mr J. Walter, M.P.) :— " At the time when the
system of engrossing farms, as it was called, came in, the landlords had the idea that by
consolidating farms, they would be saving money on buildings." And so qu. 4788. Also
Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 3809. For the tendency to consolidate farms for the sake
of simplifying the work of estate management, see Report of 1881, qu. 37,610.

3 Second Report on the Employment of Women and Children, 1868-9, p. 144: — "The
number of small farms is rapidly diminishing.... The consolidation of farms is becoming
general, as it is found by the landed proprietors to be most beneficial to their interests."
See also the statement of the farmer Overmann as to Norfolk in the Report on Agriculture,
1880, qu. 51,879 ; and the Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 3807, 3808 : — " Do you think
that the number of small holdings has decreased or increased ? — In what period ? — I said in
your experience ; say in the last 30 years ? — Small holdings have decreased certainly in that
time." Also Report of 1894, Vol. n, qu. 19,149 ff. : — " In your opinion between 1871 and
1 88 1 there was a considerable consolidation of farms going on? — Yes, there was; it was
constantly going on."

4 Report on Agriculture, 1894, qu. 39,166.

5 Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. p. 22 : — " Throughout the chief agricultural districts, however,
and especially in the arable districts, the small farms have been largely reduced in numbers
during the last fifty or sixty years, and in many parts have almost ceased to exist."

L. 5

66

Large and Small Holdings

suited them for grass-farming, as in Cumberland and Westmorland1.
Unfortunately, the movement cannot be statistically traced throughout
the period. The figures only begin in 1870; that is to say they are
only available for its last ten years. In the following table2 some of
the figures for the year 1885 are also given, for the reason that the
classification then adopted is more suitable for comparison with that
of 1870 than is the classification of the intervening years. The number
of holdings was : —

Year

J to i
acre

i to 5
acres

5 to 20
acres

20 to 50
acres

50 to 100
acres

too to looo acres
and over

1870

111,284

62,826

45,629

7I,488

1872

18,422

93,148

1875

44,872

74,029

1880

44,602

74,889

1885

21,069

103,229

109,285

61,146

44,893

75,328

This table shows a movement in three directions. In the first
place, between 1870 and 1885 there is a marked increase in the very
small holdings of a quarter of an acre up to five acres. In the second
place, there is a considerable decrease in the holdings of 5 — 20,
20 — 50 and 50 — 100 acres. Finally there is a great increase in
holdings of 100 acres and over.

Disregarding the allotment-holdings and the smallest farms, these
statistics therefore confirm the evidence of the official reports and the
agricultural experts. The fact that the very small holdings increased
does not justify any conclusion that the small farm system properly
so-called was extending. Such holdings as a rule belong to men whose
agricultural activities form neither their main work nor the chief
source of their income. More especially at this period, when market-
gardening still played so small a part, it is not to be supposed that
holdings of a quarter of an acre to five acres could be anything but a
by-employment for their occupiers. Moreover, these occupiers were
not all interested in their land from a capitalist point of view : they
held it largely from social and not from economic motives. The
wealth of all classes had rapidly increased between 1846 and 1870.
Therewith arose a large number of persons in the lower classes who

1 C. Webster, in Journal R. A. S., 2nd series, Vol. iv (1868), p. 8; and T. Farrall, ibid.,
Vol. x (1874), p. 416.

8 See the Agricultural Returns for the various years.

After the Repeal of the Corn-Laws 67

wanted to use their savings to own or rent a bit of land, even if they
had to pay more in interest or rent than they could recover out
of the profits on its produce. In the same way the rising wages
of agricultural labour enabled labourers in some cases to take
allotments even at a rent which had to be partly met out of their
wages. But the class more especially responsible for these tiny
holdings were the numerous small shopkeepers or artisans, widows,
little investors and so forth, who as their incomes rose invested in
land, irrespective of the economic results to be expected. In all these
ways such little holdings might increase, especially in the neighbour-
hood of the towns, without showing in any way that small holdings
were economically advantageous. Where purely agricultural purposes
were concerned, that is to say undoubtedly from five acres upwards,
the decrease begins, and only ends where the medium sized holdings
end, to give place to an increase of large holdings. This was what
happened, in the period 1846 to 1880, everywhere where purely
economic circumstances came into consideration, that is to /say
everywhere except on the outskirts of the towns and manufacturing
districts.

(c) The Geographical Distribution of Holdings.

The tendency in the matter of the unit of agricultural holding had
thus remained the same in the first thirty years of Free Trade as it
had been since the middle of the eighteenth century. Chronologically,
the extension of the large farm system may be described as first
constituting an agrarian revolution and then continuing slowly but
surely for more than sixty years. But the geographical aspect of the
development also deserves some attention. The expulsion of the small
holding by the large holding took place at a time when corn-growing
had almost a monopoly of agricultural effort, for the reason that
meat, dairy produce, poultry and the like had become less profitable,
while the profits on corn were steadily increasing. This remarkable
but one-sided agricultural development, however, naturally was not
equally marked in all parts of the country. It took place earliest and
most completely where the conditions were by nature most suited
to corn-production : that is to say chiefly in the north and east of
England. As early as 1796 Robertson pointed out that the dryness
of the eastern counties suited them especially for corn, while in the

5—2

68 Large and Small Holdings

west the moist climate gave the advantage to pasture1. Caird, writing
in 1851, says the same2. Accordingly it was the north and east which
profited most and earliest from the rising corn-prices. Norfolk,
Suffolk, Essex, Lincolnshire and their neighbours were the counties
which continually met with the approval of Arthur Young for their
rapid extension of arable and application of the newest agricultural
methods. The natural qualities of the different parts of the country,
and their varying suitability for arable or pasture would of course
affect the question of the unit of holding, since this was dependent on
the agricultural use to which the land was to be put In the eastern
counties climatic conditions favoured the rapid substitution of arable
for pasture. Accordingly the large farm system, as most suited to
arable farming, was also most rapidly developed in the east. In the
west, on the contrary, the extension of the arable area met with great
hindrances, in spite of the rising price of corn, since here the natural
conditions were all in favour of pasture. Therefore the small farm
held its own longer against the large. In this way certain units of
holding became characteristic of certain geographical areas. Robertson
wrote at the end of the eighteenth century that " allowing for many
local and accidental exceptions, large farms... are chiefly to be met
with in the eastern shires of England ; small farms... in those of the
west3." The same conditions continued in the nineteenth century, as
Caird's investigations proved4. Not that the west of England had
not felt the movement for the enlargement of holdings very consider-
ably. It will be remembered that various writers noticed that in years
when corn-prices were specially high farmers did not hesitate to break
up the most beautiful grass-lands, nor landlords to throw little pasture
farms into large arable holdings. What is true is merely that the
process of consolidation was not carried so far on the grass-lands of
the west as on the arable farms of the east; more small holdings
survived in the western counties, and accordingly there the average
size of farms was less5. It might even be said that where the natural
conditions for corn-growing were altogether absent, there the large
farm never made its appearance. But such districts were few, and
the cases in which small farms succeeded in maintaining their exist-
ence over a whole district were few also. It happened only in distant

1 Th. Robertson, Outlines of the General Report on the Size of Farms, 1796, p. 2.

2 Caird, English Agriculture, p. 481.

8 Robertson, op. cit. p. 3 ; cp. also p. 1 7.

4 Caird, English Agriculture, pp. 481 f.

8 Caird reckons the average holding at about 430 acres in the east, and no in the west.

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 69

mountain-valleys, as on the Scottish border in Cumberland and
Westmorland, where Tremenhere found some such districts, occupied
by a yeoman class, as late as i860,1. The mountainous nature of the
ground in this neighbourhood had prevented the introduction of arable
farming, and in consequence the small holdings survived as little sheep
and dairy-farms.

Consideration of the geographical distribution of large and small
farms therefore leads to the same conclusion as the chronological
study of their history. It shows a close connection between the use
to which the land was put on the one hand and the size of the holding
on the other. As the large farm system was found where conditions
were favourable to corn-growing, and extended itself at a time when
corn-growing played the chief part in agriculture, so the small farm
system was destroyed at a time when market-gardening and pasture
farming (as distinct from mixed husbandry) were unprofitable, and
more particularly in those parts of the country where pasture and
gardening were least favoured by Nature. Such is the theory de-
ducible from a historical study of the question of the unit of agricultural
holding in England. It was not, however, the theory which was de-
veloped by writers contemporary with the movement : and the theories
which they did develop have been of sufficient importance in the
general theory of political economy to demand some discussion.

(d) Contemporary Views and Theories.

Nothing is more common in economic history, and indeed nothing
is more natural, than the deduction of general laws from certain
remarkable phenomena. The contemporary student finds the doctrine
that all things change a hampering one, and he ignores it. He must
have laws and dogmas which will be good for all time. He overlooks
the special circumstances which condition a phenomenon, and this
short-sightedness enables him to draw out general principles which
are not as a matter of fact contained in the phenomenon in question.
So in this matter of the unit of holding. It was observed that the
large farm system had continued to develop in England for more
than a century, and it was concluded that the large farm was the best
unit of agricultural holding. This was the theory of Arthur Young,

1 Report on the Employment of Women and Children, 1868-9, p. 143 :— "In the districts
where tillage prevails they [small ' statesmen '] are singularly out of place." " The number
of small farms is greater in Westmorland than in Cumberland in consequence of the great
preponderance of pasture over arable land," etc.

70 Large and Small Holdings

Marshall, Sinclair, Low, etc. ; and of the Germans who followed them,
in particular Albrecht Thaer and Karl Marx.

Arthur Young wrote whole treatises on the question with a
particular end in view. The rise of the large farm system and the
social evils which followed in its train had awakened the indignation
of the people at large and of the representatives of the consumers'
interests. The whole development was attacked as a social evil.
Young felt himself called to defend it as an economic good. He was
the great eighteenth century representative of the interests of the
agricultural producer. Now the large farm was undoubtedly the form
of holding best suited to the then flourishing business of corn-grow-
ing. Young proved, and could prove, no more than that. His very
method of classifying holdings, according to the number of ploughs
employed1, shows that his conception was limited to arable-farming.
So far as this was concerned, he was able to show by arguments
which are still valid that greater profits could be made on the large
farm than on the small. But he did not stop there. What he had
proved as regarded arable he extended to cover agriculture in general.
He even formulated an exact size of holding as absolutely best,
namely 1400 acres2. Because he saw that the improved methods of
arable farming had been best applied on large holdings, he fallaciously
concluded that the large farm system had brought about those im-
provements. He overlooked the fact that they all had reference in
the first place to the production of corn, whether the particular
improvement in view was the drainage of wet lands, the use of
machinery, or the breaking-up of bad pasture ; that the increasing
profitableness of corn-growing had first made such improvements
worth while ; and that the same profitableness of corn had led to the
formation of the large farms, because on such farms both the particular
improvements in view and the methods appropriate to corn-growing
in general could produce the best results. So that it was not the
large farms which made corn-growing pay, but on the contrary the
rising price of corn which made the large farm pay. Young was
quite right when, comparing large and small arable holdings, he con-
cluded that the former unit was the more profitable. It was more
economical in the use of horses and ploughs, and it had the advan-
tage in the separation of management from manual labour, in the
greater education possessed by the large farmer, and in his larger
capital, which enabled him to introduce the new methods at a low

1 Rural Economy, p. 12.

a Ibid., p. 45 ; and so also W. Marshall, On the Landed Property of England, 1804, P- H4-

After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 71

relative cost. In a word, it was the intensive application of capital
which made the large farm the pattern of arable farming. So far as
his arguments were directed to prove this, Young was quite correct.
But he jumped from the conclusion that the large farm system was
best for arable farming to the conclusion that it was absolutely best.
He argued quite correctly that the small holding could never hope to
compete with the large in the particular points named, depending as
they did essentially on the free use of capital. But this did not
prove what he adduced it to prove. For the advantages of the large
farm system in relation to corn-production were no longer advantages
when other branches of production, requiring quite different con-
ditions, were in question. However, from 1760 onwards, these other
branches were in fact a vanishing quantity in English agriculture:
so that it was natural that scientific students of agrarian questions
should pay little attention either to them or to the forms of holding
suited to them. Young's followers neglect them almost to the same
extent as he does himself. Sinclair does indeed point out that the small
holding has certain advantages in the production of fruit and vege-
tables, and in dairy-farming1 : and at a later time Low admits that it
could survive in the neighbourhood of large towns2. But both these
writers regard such cases simply as exceptions to the rule. Their
argument is constantly directed to show what is absolutely the most
profitable unit of agricultural holding, and as they identify agriculture
with corn-growing they come to the conclusion that this unit is the
large farm3. David Low goes so far as to say that the development
of large farms is always a sign that agriculture is flourishing, while
that of small farms shows the contrary : for as less capital is used on
small farms than on large, an increase of the former must mean that
less capital is flowing into agricultural channels4.

Thus the increased application of capital to corn-growing on the
large farms led students to the conclusion that, in view of the growing
importance of bringing corn-production to a high pitch of perfection,
the large farm was the sole unit of agricultural holding which was
worthy of attention. This view was apparently confirmed as im-
provements in the technique of arable farming on the one hand and

1 Sir John Sinclair, An Account of the Systems of Husbandry etc., Edinburgh, 1812, pp. 9
and 16 ff.

2 David Low, On Landed Property, 1844, P- 35-

3 See Sinclair on the advantages of large farms and the disadvantages of small in The
Statistical Account of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1792, Vol. II, p. 319; v, 472; vm, 613;
X, 247, 265; xiv, ai ; xv, 153 ; and in, 567 ; iv, 444; v, 212, 422; vi, 262, 378 ; vn, 143.
Also An Account etc., pp. 43 ff. * Low, op. cit. p. 38.

72 Large and Small Holdings

the rising price of corn on the other increased the demand for capital
with which to purchase machinery or better tools, or to improve the
soil. The evident connection between the application of science to
arable farming and the formation of large holdings naturally led to
the idea that the law of the unit of management was the same for
agriculture (identified with corn-growing) as for industry. Improved
methods meant in both cases that the smaller unit was replaced by
the larger. "Why should the farming trade totally differ from all
others1?" asked Sinclair in his defence of the large farm system in
1793. Eighty-five years later, when agricultural machinery was still
further developed, Caird pointed out that agricultural progress illus-
trated the same principles which had caused the power-loom to
replace the hand-loom8. The theory is also to be found in the
Socialist writers Marx and Kautzsky. It was very natural that it
should arise under the historical circumstances described above. The
whole history of the development seemed to show that as methods
improved large farms drove out small. The point overlooked was
that the whole application of these improvements had been con-
ditioned by the peculiar circumstances of the market, namely by
the continually increasing profits on corn. No one realised that
market conditions might so change as to favour other branches of
production which were less dependent on improved technique. It
was therefore no wonder that the theory of the absolute superiority
of the large farm ruled between 1760 and 1880.

The opponents of this theory were quite as one-sided in their view
as its defenders. The question of the unit of agricultural holding has
always presented both an economic and a social problem ; and these
two distinct aspects governed the discussion of the question between
1760 and 1880 just as they do today. One set of writers set them-
selves to discover what size of holding would produce the best
economic results, and having arrived at the conclusion that the large
farm did so, proceeded to show by very weak arguments that it also
had social advantages. Another set were primarily interested in social
policy, and finding that the development of the large farm system
was a social evil attempted to show that it was also an economic
mistake. Marshall, in 1804, alludes to the two parties as consisting,
the one of men "who have turned their attentions to agriculture," the
other of persons "who live in towns3." The distinction is characteristic.

1 Statistical Account, Vol. vm, p. 613.

2 Caird, in Journal R. A. S., snd series, Vol. xiv (1878).
s Marshall, Landed Property \ p. 139.

After the Repeal of the Corn- laws 73

"Men who live in towns" is a euphemism for persons who do
not understand agriculture, an accusation often brought against the
friends of small holdings both in the period in question and even now
in districts where the large farm system is successful. The ground
of the accusation is obvious. The defenders of small holdings
championed them apparently in face of the clearest contradiction
from the economic and agricultural conditions of their time. They
regarded the consolidation of holdings as an evil occasioned by the
ambition, covetousness and tyranny of certain individuals, and
attempted to show theoretically that small holdings were not only
socially desirable, but economically profitable. They argued from
the particular holdings which they saw either vanishing or still sur-
viving before their eyes. As the apologists of the large farm deduced
their doctrine from the case of the corn-grower, so they discussed the
live-stock, the dairies, the fruit and vegetables etc. of the small farm.
They showed how the small holders had the advantage in the pro-
duction of these "trifles," or "small objects." Nathaniel Kent, for
instance, argued on these lines1; and he fully realised the reason of
their advantage. If the defenders of the large farmer pointed to his
intensive application of capital, Kent showed how the small agricul-
turist, working for himself, worked " more cheerfully, zealously and
diligently" than the wage-labourer would ever do. In other words,
it is the intensive application of labour which he praises. And
intensive application of labour did in fact give the small farm the
advantage in the branches of production which he had in view. Cow-
keeping, market-gardening, and dairy-work did require that care
which was ensured by the personal interest of the small farmer but
never given by the wage-labourer. The case was proved in practice
by the general neglect of these branches of production on the part
of the large farmers. So far Kent had as much right on his side as
his opponents had from their own point of view. But, like them, he
rashly generalised his conclusions. From the fact that the small
farms were superior to the large in certain points he concluded that
they were absolutely superior. Like Young and Marshall, he even
proceeded to lay down a certain ideal division of an estate, naturally
allotting the lion's share to the small holders2. At a later date John
Stuart Mill argued in a similar way3. He too belonged to the party

1 Kent, Hints, pp. 213 f.

2 Ibid., p. 217. On an estate of ^1000 a year, he would have one farm let at a rent of
£160, one at £120, one at £100, two at £&o, two at £60, two at ^50, three at £40, and
four at .£,30.

8 J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 6th ed., 1855, pp. 180 rT.

74 Large and Small Holdings

which desired to prove that the social superiority of the small holding
(or in his case the small property) was also an economic superiority,
and regarded the personal interest of the small holder and his
family as an advantage which quite overshadowed any gains arising
from the division of labour as carried out on large farms. But he
too overlooked the fact that though this intensive application of
labour might be very valuable in regard of certain products it could
not compensate for the intensive application of capital in the case of
arable farming, which could be carried on to admiration by means of
machinery and hired labour.

In this way there came to be two equally one-sided doctrines as
to the unit of holding, both correct in some respects, but false when
generalised. Both failed to take account of the fact that the develop-
ment of the large unit of management, as it proceeded in agriculture
from 1760 onwards, was only the means of bringing to perfection one
branch of agricultural production, namely corn-growing, and later
pasture-farming so far as it was combined with arable. Both
neglected the peculiarity of the existing market conditions, which
gave predominance to that particular branch of agriculture which
could best be conducted on the large farm. But the history of the
rise of the large farm system in England is the history of the
increasing profitableness of corn-growing. It was this which revolu-
tionised the system of holdings, and brought about the ruin of the
small farmers, the disappearance of the yeomanry and the destruction
of the landholding labourers, replacing all these classes by the capi-
talist large farmer on the one hand, and an agricultural proletariat on
the other. All attempts to counteract this process on social grounds
failed hopelessly in face of its economic force. The theories in
favour of small holdings put forward by social reformers were
regarded as simply expressing a ridiculous failure to understand an
economic development which a century's experience established as
a general law of agriculture. The superiority of the large unit of
holding had become an article of faith.

PART II

THE ECONOMICS OF LARGE AND SMALL
HOLDINGS AT THE PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER IV

THE ALTERATION IN MARKET CONDITIONS AND ITS
EFFECT ON PRODUCTION

THE agricultural development of almost all European countries
has been very fundamentally affected by the cheapening and quick-
ening of transport which has taken place in the last thirty years.
The results to national economy might even be compared with those
of Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea-route to the East Indies.
As that brought the goods of the East to the western peoples at
prices formerly impossible, so the recent improvements in navigation
and the extension of the railway system have brought the chief
necessary of life to the doors of every nation at an ever-decreasing
price. Through these new transport conditions virgin lands in the
United States, Canada, India and Russia have been brought under
the plough, and their products have been placed at the disposal of
countries whose growing populations oblige them to have resort to
imported corn. This supply has been offered at continually decreas-
ing cost, so that international corn-prices have fallen steadily; and
thus the importing countries need no longer be dependent on the
chances of the home harvest or those of one or two neighbouring
countries : the price in the world market regulates that in the home
market. Where customs duties have not prevented the close knitting
of the home market into the international, the price of corn, as in
England, has fallen much and rapidly. Taking the period 1879 to
1902, and disregarding the fluctuations of particular years, the fall in

76 Large and Small Holdings

corn-prices appears extraordinary. The prices per quarter were as
follows1: —

Years Wheat BarUy Oats

1877 to 1879: 49J. 37 s. nd. 245.

1900 to 1902: 27 s. 3//. 25.?. yi. i8j. 8rf.

But besides the improvement in the means of transport, methods
of transport have also made enormous progress. Not only can
durable commodities be sent huge distances, but even animal food,
whether in a natural or frozen condition, can be sent from one end of
the earth to another. Consequently meat-prices have also fallen in
all markets where foreign imports have been admitted. In England
the poorer qualities of beef had fallen by 1894-5 to 4° P61" cent,
below the prices of 1876-8, and the poorer qualities of mutton by
31 per cent.2 The better qualities had also fallen in price, though
not so much; viz. by 24 and 17 per cent, respectively. Taking the
year 1900 as= 100, the following table shows the movement of prices
in the twenty years 1883 to 1902 for wheat, flour and meat (irrespec-
tive of quality)3 : —

Year Wheat Flour Beef Mutton

1883 154 161 125 120

1887 120 118 91 87

1891 137 129 101 97

1895 85 89 93 98

1899 95 99 93 94

1900 100 xoo 100 TOO

1901 99 97 94 91

1902 104 97 101 95

Thus a very marked fall in the price of all these agricultural
products had taken place since 1880. From 1895 there was a slight
rise both in wheat and meat-prices up to the year 1900, but nothing
as compared with the fall already experienced : and the same is true
of the rise of the last few years.

Such a change in prices inevitably shook the existing agricultural
organisation to its foundations. Corn-growing became increasingly
unprofitable, especially on the poorer soils. Stock-feeding too, so far
as it was directed to the production of meat of anything except the
best quality, brought only diminishing returns. The whole move-
ment of the past hundred years, culminating as it had done in the

1 Agricultural Statistics, 1903, p. 100.

2 Final Report of 1897, pp. 46 and 49.
* Memoranda, Charts etc., p. 734.

Market Conditions and Production 77

wide extension of arable farming and later in the combination of this
with meat-production, received as heavy a check as can well be
imagined. The immediate effect of the drop in prices was a period
of agricultural distress : to which lively expression was given before
the Royal Commissions appointed in 1880 and 1894 respectively.
The cause of the farmer's difficulties was clear. The rents at which
they held their farms no longer corresponded to the profits obtainable
from corn-growing1. But it was natural that after so long a time of
prosperity the demand for farms should not fall off as quickly as did
the profits from them, and so that rents should not drop to the same
degree as prices. Such a position, however, could only be maintained
temporarily. When on many of the arable farms rents disappeared
altogether2 it was only a question of how long the farmers would
continue to sacrifice their capital. In a short time numbers of farms
were given up, and many of them remained unlet even at the lowest
rents. This was more especially the case in the corn-growing eastern
counties, Essex, Norfolk, Lincoln, Suffolk, etc. The area under corn
showed a correspondingly rapid decrease, particularly the area under
wheat and barley. In addition, the decrease in corn-growing neces-
sitated a decrease in the green-crops taken in connection with it ;
turnips especially, which were an essential feature in the usual rota-
tion, often could not be grown at a profit when corn had ceased to
pay3. The following table illustrates the decrease in certain branches
of agriculture between 1880 and 1909* : —

Area (in 1000 acres}.

Years 1881-85 1891-95 1896 1901 1909

Wheat 2563 1852 1609 1617 1734

Barley 1900 1767 1778 1635 '379

Beans 415 263 236 237 301

Peas 228 209 193 152 168

Turnips 1468 1388 1337 1144 1056

Flax 411-6

Hops 67 57 54 51 32

No doubt this fall in the production of crops hitherto so important

1 See the Final Report of 1897, especially the sections Farm Accounts, Rents as a Cause
of Depression, Reductions Insufficient, Rents not reduced soon enough.

2 Ibid.

3 F. A. Channing, The Truth about Agricultural Degression, 1897, a reprint of his Minority
Report as a member of the Commission of 1894 : — " If the estimates of the cost of the four-
course system and of the returns from roots and seeds are approximately correct, to make
ends meet a return from the two corn crops is demanded, which is impossible at present
prices, " p. 68.

4 Agricultural Statistics, 1903, pp. 44 f., and 1909, Pt I.

/ 8 Large and Small Holdings

might have been prevented in England as elsewhere by the erection
of high tariff walls. But after the experience which England had had
of protection nothing of the kind was to be expected. Faith in Free
Trade was rooted deep in the hearts of the people, and recent ex-
perience has shown how difficult it is to shake it. The landed interest,
being in the minority, had to give way to the interests of the majority
of consumers. Consequently a new agricultural order had to come
into being. This could only consist in the development of those
branches of production in which foreign competition was felt less or
not at all, and putting them in the place of the branches which had
now become unprofitable. To this end agriculturists increasingly
directed their efforts after 1880. In fact, men who intended to con-
tinue to devote themselves to agriculture could not well do otherwise,
in view of the impossibility of State help and the consequent necessity
of self-help. And the possibility of achieving success in this direction
was given by the changes which had taken place in market conditions.
The fall in the price of corn and of second and third quality
meat ruined a great part of existing English agriculture. But it
represented an inestimable advantage to the consumer. And in
proportion to this advantage opportunities were created for replacing
the old agricultural products, so far as they had become unprofitable,
by new. As the price of bread and meat fell the purchasing power
of wages rose, even where wages remained at the old level. But
with the growing industrial prosperity of the country wages were
rising considerably, and this not only in industrial or distributive
employments. The wages of agricultural labour rose too, since
labourers migrated increasingly from the land to the industrial dis-
tricts, and so the supply of labour on the land constantly diminished.
Nominal wages thus rising and the price of bread and meat falling,
the increase in purchasing power must obviously have been large.
The following table compares wages and the prices of the more
important provisions from 1883 to 1902, the rates of 1900 being
taken as = TOO1: —

Wages (other
Year than agricultural)

Wages (including
agricultural)

Price of
wheat and meat

1883

84

85

133

1887

81

82

102

1891

91

9i

III

1895

88

88

92

1899

95

95

95

1900

IOO

IOO

IOO

1901

98

98

97

1902

96

97

101

1 Memoranda, Charts etc., pp. a 60 and 11 7.

Market Conditions and Production 79

These figures show clearly that the position of the working
classes, regarded as consumers of bread and meat, had greatly im-
proved since 1880.

What was saved on the more necessary articles of food could be
expended on other commodities, whether provisions or industrial
products. In the famine years of the Napoleonic wars white bread
had been a luxury to the English labourer, and meat a delicacy of
which he never dreamt. During the corn-law period white bread
became his ordinary food, but meat remained a luxury. Under Free
Trade bread and meat became his staple diet. But there remained
many articles of fare which were still luxuries, and many still un-
dreamt of by him. These it was which he began to consume after
1880. Chief of them were butter, new milk, fruit, poultry, eggs and
vegetables. As the well-being of the people increased they came to
form a regular and essential part of the labourer's diet. As Mr
Graham put it1, the man who forty years earlier had contented himself
with a chop now expected a chicken, and whereas then only the well-
to-do had dreamt of buying strawberries, millions of pounds were
now consumed in the cottages of working men. The same was true
of gooseberries, raspberries, apples and plums ; and of tomatoes,
cauliflowers and all other vegetables. Nor was the improvement in
dietary confined to the labouring classes : it extended to those in the
middle and upper ranks of society. The demand for meat of the
best quality increased ; in earlier times it had been a luxury enjoyed
by comparatively few rich people. Cream, too, came into much com-
moner use, till today the foreign visitor will find hardly a middle-
class household in which he will not be offered a jug of cream at
afternoon tea, and that of a quality which he would rarely meet in
Germany !

The growing demand for these particular products could only be
partly met, and in some cases could not be met at all, from abroad.
They offered a new field for home agricultural activity, now that the
production of corn and to some extent of meat had ceased to be
profitable.

The first point to be aimed at was improvement in stock-farming.
The object was no longer to produce meat of medium quality, but
meat of first-class quality, and also butter, cheese, new milk and
cream. Pasture farming, instead of being combined with corn-
growing, became an end in itself. Permanent pasture increased from

1 P. Anderson Graham, The Revival of English Agriculture, 1899, p. 9.

8o Large and Small Holdings

11,000,000 acres in 1876 to 13,400,000 acres in 1902, and 13,900,000
acres in loxxp1, compensating for the decreased arable area. At the
same time the number of cattle kept increased from an average of
4,075,520 between 1876 and 1880 to 4,611,937 in 1902 and 5,100,145
in 1909*. Nor do these figures by any means express the total
increase in the production of meat during those years. For the
average weight of the living animal was very much increased, and
also the fattening was done more quickly than had been the case pre-
viously; so that even if the yearly average of numbers had remained
stationary, the production would really have been much greater than
it had been thirty years earlier8. The number of horses kept had
increased by more than 150,000 in 1909 as compared with the average
of the years 1876 to 1880. The number of pigs remained more or
less stationary up till the years when swine-fever raged, but showed
some tendency to increase, especially when the danger of fever had
been reduced. Sheep-farming did indeed experience a set-back.
But, as Mr Rew has shown4, this was small in comparison with the
set-back experienced in other European countries ; and in this case
too it is to be remembered that great improvements in feeding were
made, and partly compensated for the decreased numbers.

Feeding was however far from being the only matter in which
progress was made in the technique of stock-farming. Breeding in
particular was greatly improved, as was indeed necessitated by the
growing demand for meat of the best quality5. Whereas "in the
days of prosperity," that is to say in the period of high corn-prices,
farmers were said to have been " singularly ignorant or careless of the
value of pedigree6" ; now the breeding of herd-book stock became a
more and more flourishing art, till English cattle-breeding was as
much admired as English corn-growing had been at an earlier period.
Nor was it directed merely to providing first-class meat for the home
market. A demand for English pedigree cattle came from the great
herds abroad which were producing for the European market ; and as
these countries were not suited for such breeding, the export trade to
Canada, South America, the United States and elsewhere became an

1 Agricultural Statistics, 1903, loc. cit. and 1909, Pt. I.
a Ibid.

* R. H. Rew, Recent Changes in the number of Cattle and Sheep in Great Britain, in
Journal of the Farmers' Club, 1903, pp. 45 f.

* Ibid., p. 46.

* A. T. Matthews, Tenant Farmers as Breeders of Pedigree Stock, in Journal of the Bath
and West and Southern Counties Society, 1903, p. 10.

* Ibid., p. 3.

Market Conditions and Prodwtion 81

important and increasing item. It increased enormously just after
the great fall in corn and meat-prices, that is to say after 1880, as the
following figures will show1. They refer, however, only to the export
of pedigree cattle certificated by breeding associations.

Years Pedigree horses Do. cattle Do. sheep
1876-80 3606 626 2818

1881-85 6619 3048 5277

1896-1900 32,909 3335 8765

The value of the animals exported increased even more rapidly*.
In 1908 the United Kingdom exported 53,094 horses, 3895 head of
cattle, 5919 sheep, and 700 swine. Since England imports meat and
cattle of the poorer qualities these exports can only be of pedigree or
herd-book stock or at any rate beasts of some special breed. Their
value was about £1,000,000*. An industry which develops such an
export trade obviously can no longer be conducted, as breeding once
was, by amateurs for the sake of sport or luxury. It is in fact
practised by capable farmers of all classes, and not for the sake of
luxury, but for profit. The prices paid for herd-book cattle show
how high these profits may be. The average price of short-horns
sold at shows rose from £27. \$s. lod. per head in 1898 to £36. 3-r. 4^.
in I9O24. Well-known breeders obtained prices which might seem
incredible to foreigners. Some received an average of £70 for their
short-horn cows, and sold their bulls abroad for £500 to .£800.
Pedigree Yorkshire pigs made £12 to £2$ a head5. And breeders of
pedigree cattle not only got higher prices than the ordinary farmer
for their first-class beasts, but for all the cattle in their herd, even
the least valuable, so long as they could be used for breeding pur-
poses. Accordingly an increasing number of farmers devoted
themselves to this profitable branch of agriculture, with what results
may be seen in Mr (now Sir) F. A. Channing's Report of 1897* and
other authorities of the period7. In 1905 Mr Matthews wrote: — "The
best hope for British graziers lies in improving the standard of quality,

1 H. Levy, Landwirtschaftlicher Export in England, in Conrad's* Jahrbiichern, 1903,
p. 398.
a Ibid.

3 Trade and Navigation Accounts, 1908, pp. 738 f. and 1 16 f.

4 Cp. The Times of Dec. 7, 1903, p. 3.

8 The figures were given by Mr Philo Mills, a farmer of Ruddington, Notts,

6 Final Report, p. 254.

7 Cp. Matthews, op. cit. p. 3.

L. 6

82 Large and Small Holdings

for first-rate home-fed beef is not likely to lose its present decided
lead in comparative value1."

A second sphere in which pasture farming was expanded and
made much progress in method, was dairying. According to Mr
Wrightson, "the keen interest now seen on all sides in the dairy arose
after wheat ceased to be a profitable crop," and modern English
butter-making may be dated from i88o2. The cheapening of fodder
contributed along with the increased consuming capacity of the
masses to the extension of butter and cheese-making. But butter-
making, for reasons which will be considered below, suffered from
foreign competition. In the production of fresh milk and cream the
English farmers possessed, on the contrary, the monopoly of the
home market, and as the demand was increasing with the growing
prosperity of the population, they found here compensation for the
loss of the butter-market so far as they experienced it*. Dairy
farming, on the whole at any rate, remained profitable even when
agricultural distress was at its highest4, and accordingly the crisis
was least felt in the traditional dairying districts, such as Cumberland,
Dorset and Devon*.

But the transition to pasture farming pure and simple, whether
in the form of the breeding of first-class stock for sale or for the
meat market, or in the form of dairying, was not always easy to carry
out. One difficulty was in the conservatism of the farmers themselves.
Many of them could not accommodate themselves at all to the new
conditions. They were accustomed to high arable farming, and were
quite unable to make up their minds to give it up in favour of
pasture. Land of poor quality was kept too long under the plough,
whereas if it had been at once laid down for grass much loss would
have been avoided6. But in many cases the transition to pasture
farming could not be made without loss. " Break a pasture, make a
man," had been the old saying. Now it was : " To make a pasture
breaks a man." To turn poor corn-lands once more into pasture was

1 A. T. Matthews, Position and Prospects of Stock Farming, in Journal of the Bath and
West and Southern Counties Society, 1905, p. 17.

* John Wrightson, The Agricultural Lessons of the Eighties, in Journal R. A, S,t 1890,
p. 279.

3 Rew, op. cit. p. 43.

4 James Long, A Handbook for Farmers and Small Holders, 1892, p. 44 : — "The dairy
farm has admirably withstood the strain of competition, and dairy fanners have maintained
their position as successful agriculturists better than any of the larger classes of the farmers of
this country."

8 Final Report, p. 1 29.
6 Ibid., p. 260.

Market Conditions and Production 83

much more difficult and costly than the reverse process had been.
At best the farmer had to wait for results, and this necessity ruined
many, whose capital had already been lessened by the fall in corn-
prices. Often, too, they were ruined by their want of foresight and
of capacity for managing a pasture farm, which is quite correctly
regarded as an art in itself1. The actual laying down to grass was
often done in the most careless way, so that good results could not
be expected3. And if the land were unsuited, e.g. for geological
reasons, for permanent pasture, the English farmer had small idea
of any other methods of carrying on cattle farming. The consequence
of all these personal difficulties was that the extension of either branch
of pasture farming was much delayed, and that the farmers suffered
heavy losses8. Where such difficulties were not present it proved
possible, to the great advantage of the agriculturist, to carry out the
changes in face of the most adverse external conditions. The history
of the Scottish farmers who, at the invitation of some of the landlords,
settled in England at this period is most instructive*. They came to
the counties which as purely corn-producing districts had suffered
most under the falling prices : viz., Essex, Norfolk, Kent, Hertford-
shire and others in the east and south-east. They brought with them
the peculiar Scottish power of accommodation to all circumstances,
They also brought a preference for cows, grass and turnips, as against
the prejudice of the Essex farmers in favour of corn and long fallows.
They understood how to handle pasture better than did the English-
men. Where permanent pasture was not suitable, they introduced
convertible husbandry, using a field as pasture for some years and
then ploughing it up. This proved most successful in the eastern
counties5, and contributed greatly to the development of dajry farm-
ing as it is now practised in Essex and other counties. From the
time of the Scottish invasion the production of butter and fresh milk
has increased enormously in districts which were previously in great

1 R. Hunter Pringle, Reports on Ongar, Chelmsford etc., 1894, p. 131.

8 J. P. Sheldon, The Future of English Agriculture, 1893, p. 4: — "Unfortunately,
however, it is only too true that a great deal of such land has not been laid down at all — has
simply been allowed to lay itself down, and it is of very little use as it is : weeds, weeds,
nothing but weeds on much of it."

8 Final Report, pp. 258 f.

4 Pringle, op. cit. , should be consulted for the story of the Scottish farmers, if for nothing
else. See pp. 43 ff., and passim.

5 See an article by Mr Graham in the Morning Post of April 1 1 , 1 903, on The Revival of
Agriculture, under the head Dairy Farming. For the success of the Scottish farmers even in
the worst time of the crisis, cp. Pringle, op. cit. pp. 43 f., 45, 60; also the Report of 1894,
qu. 13,890-13,896.

6—2

84 Large and Small Holdings

distress, and the farmers became comparatively well-to-do1. Surely,
if slowly2, the Englishmen decided to adopt the system of the Scottish
immigrants, and pasture farming made its way in a district where
according to tradition it was quite impossible.

But pasture farming, in these two great branches, was not the only
sphere of production in which English agriculture became active as
corn-prices fell. A second was offered by the growing consumption
of fruit and vegetables, eggs and poultry.

Unfortunately the statistics dealing with market gardening and
poultry farming leave much to be desired. The Statistical Abstracts
cease to mention " market gardens " after 1896. Up to that time they
showed a considerable increase. " Market gardens " covered an area
of 96,000 acres in 1896, as compared with 37,000 in 1878: and
"nursery gardens" had increased by about 1000 acres in the same
period8. Gardens and orchards together covered 165,000 acres in
1878, 225,000 acres in 1897, and 250,000 acres in 1908*. These
figures are for Great Britain. The statistics provided by the Board
of Agriculture particularise only the area under bush or tree fruits.
This was, for England only, 78,124 acres in 1909 as against an
average of 37,068 in the period 1 886-1 890*. And in fruit cultivation
as in pasture farming, a mere statement of areas fails to do justice to
the progress made. For as Mr W. E. Bear pointed out in an article
in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society6, "in consequence of
the introduction of improved varieties of fruit and the better culti-
vation and treatment of plantations, the production per acre has
become much greater than it was twenty years ago." Here again
technical progress began when foreign competition began. As Mr
Graham remarked, it gave a fillip to the Kentish fruit farmers and
led to the improvement of their methods7. Strawberries, raspberries,
and gooseberries were in great demand in the towns, and were grown
in increasing quantities. The forcing of fruit also became a flourish-
ing business.

1 Graham, lex;, cit., ascribes the " new prosperity of the farmers of Essex " to the adoption
of dairy farming. Cp. also Primrose McConnell, Experiences of a Scotsman on the Essex
Clays, \njournal R. A. S., 1891, pp. 312, 313.

* For the obstinacy with which some agriculturists clung to the old traditions, cp. the
Report of 1894, qu. 13,916-13,921.

Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 130 f.

Statistical Abstracts, 1909, pp. 290 f.~

Agricultural Statistics, 1909, Pt. I, p. 23.

W. E. Bear, Flower and Fruit Farming, in Journal R. A, S., 1899, p. 31.

Graham, op. cit. p. 144.

Market Conditions and Production 85

As to vegetable growing there is still less statistical information,
though some of the figures already quoted include vegetable gardens.
Potatoes covered almost 100,000 acres more in 1909 than they had
done from 1876-1 880 1. Forcing developed rapidly in this sphere
also, especially in the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers under
glass2. Market gardening was in fact being extended in almost all
parts of the country, but especially in Kent, and next in Wor-
cestershire and Cambridgeshire8. Whole districts were devoted to
it. Nor were these districts only in the neighbourhood of great
markets : in some of them the means of communication did not at all
seem to favour the development. Thus the Isle of Axholme, in
Lincolnshire, which lay almost outside the railway network, was
particularly successful with potatoes and celery. Some of the dis-
tricts had been even quite recently regarded as unfit for any such
purpose. Essex, for example, though so close to London, had
hitherto been devoted almost exclusively to corn. Now the corn-
fields, or fields which had actually been left uncultivated in consequence
of the falling price of corn, were turned into market gardens, and their
produce brought excellent prices in the easily-reached markets of
London and its suburbs4. The high rents paid for garden lands
prove how profitable this branch of agriculture has become5. While
corn lands now hardly ever bring over £2 an acre, and more often
only 15^. to 2$s., £2 is a very low rent for land devoted to
horticulture. I visited market gardens in the neighbourhood of
Coventry paying as much as £$ to £10 an acre. Nor is this the
maximum. Some orchards in the Vale of Evesham and its neigh-
bourhood pay ;£i86: while in Hampshire, where 30,000 acres are
now devoted to strawberry growing, the land is often worth £200 an
acre for this purpose, whereas for arable farming it had brought in
only los. to £1 per annum7.

1 Agricultural Statistics, 1909, p. 23.

8 Bear, op. cit. pp. 267-9 : — " No other industry connected with land has shown such
great expansion in this country during the last thirty years, and especially the last twenty, as
the cultivation of fruit and flowers under glass for market." Then follow reports as to the
progress of this industry in various districts.

8 Graham, op. cit. pp. ro, 142 ff.

4 Cp. Mr Graham's Morning Post article : — " Many acres (in Essex) which formerly were
derelict have now been taken up and turned into market gardens."

8 Examples of this at the worst period of the crisis are to be found in the Report of 1894,
qu. 12,667 : also 554°> 5756.

6 Final Report, p. 254.

7 J. C. Newsham, Strawberry Growing in Hampshire, in Journal of the Board of
Agriculture, June 1909, p. 186.

86 Large and Small Holdings

As regards poultry farming, figures are unfortunately almost
entirely lacking. Mr E. Brown, of the National Poultry Organization
Society, however, has estimated that the number of fowls in England
increased from 15-9 millions in 1885 to i8'3 millions in 1902, and that
the value of the eggs annually produced is about 3^9 million pounds,
while the' chickens, ducklings, geese and turkeys annually produced
are worth 2'4 million pounds1. Other authorities on the subject
state that poultry farming has vastly increased2 ; in some districts
by as much as 100 per cent, in a few years3. It has been developed
with particularly good success in Sussex, according to Mr Rew's
Report to the Royal Commission of 1894*. The rising price paid for
fresh eggs in the large towns is an indication of its increasing profit-
ableness5. Examples of flourishing poultry businesses recently built
up are given by Mr Rider Haggard in his Riiral England6.

To sum up, a change in agricultural production proceeded hand
in hand with the change in market conditions. The falling price of
corn and of meat of the second and third qualities put an end to the
mixed husbandry which had prevailed since the abolition of the corn-
laws. On the other hand the market for certain hitherto neglected
agricultural products improved, so as increasingly to compensate
agriculturists for their losses. Falling prices meant an increased
purchasing-power of wages, and in almost all classes a new demand
developed for such animal products as butter, cheese, new milk, eggs
and poultry; while the demand for meat of a high quality also rose
considerably. This state of things gradually proved to be advan-
tageous to British agriculture. Stock-breeding, dairying, horticulture
and poultry farming all developed from an embryonic state to
marvellous technical perfection.

1 Report on the Supply of Food and Raw Material in Time of War, 1905, Vol. Ill,
pp. 289, 290, 293.

2 Graham, Revival etc., p. 10: — " Poultry keeping has extended enormously."

J See an article by a recognised authority on this subject, Mr E. Brown, in Journal
/?. A. S., 1900, p. 607 : — " More fowls are kept by farmers and cottagers than was ever the
case before... At a village in the Craven district of Yorkshire I was told that fowls have
multiplied twenty-fold... the number of fowls has increased in the ratio of two to three, and
the production of marketable eggs and poultry as two to four," etc.

4 Rew, Report (to the Commission of 1894) on the Poultry rearing and fattening Industry,
1895, p. 4 and passim.

8 See Wholesale and Retail Prices, 1903, p. 297. Cp. also Poultry Notes, in Estate Book,
1907, p. 202 : — " Owing to the continued low price of grain and meal, flocks of fowls can be
kept at an inclusive cost of 5-f. each a year, while the price of eggs continues steady."

6 H. Rider Haggard, Rural England, 1902, Vol. II, e.g. p. 478 (Norfolk). Cp. also the
evidence of the Scottish farmer Dewar, in the Report of 1894, qu. 31,783-31,787.

Market Conditions and Production 87

This technical progress corresponded to a revival of agricultural
prosperity. People had long been accustomed to think of agriculture
as distressed : but now all the signs pointed the other way, as was
already shown in 1899 by Mr P. Anderson Graham's book, The
Revival of English Agriculture, which has been frequently quoted
above. Mr Graham found his views confirmed by his tour in Essex in
1903. Mr A. Wilson Fox stated in that same year that "men of large
experience in the agricultural districts" had told him that farming
was " getting on to a sounder basis1." Nothing more was heard
about an agricultural crisis. Thus a large Gloucestershire landowner,
Mr G. E. Lloyd-Baker*, assured me, in the year 1903, that in all parts
of the country known to him there was a definite upward movement
to be remarked in agriculture.

The same tendency has most distinctly manifested itself in the
last few years. An official Report of the year 1909 speaks of the
" increased prosperity of agriculture during the last few years," and
states that " the demand for farms is keener at the present time than
it has been for many years past, and there has been a corresponding
appreciation in the value of agricultural land8." One of the greatest
experts on agricultural conditions, Mr R. A. Yerburgh, M.P., said
a short time ago that " If the average farmer were asked what were
the present prospects in England, he would probably reply ' Well, not
so bad as they might be.' The proverbial pessimism of his class
would not allow him to go further than that ; but in the mouth of
a farmer it means that agriculture has travelled very far from the
black days of depression4."

A new stage of development has been reached, or rather, perhaps,
there has been a return to the branches of production which had been
most flourishing at an earlier period. For the first time in more than
a century corn growing has lost its pre-eminence. It has now to
make way for commodities which it had once swept almost out of
existence. Pasture farming and small culture have gained the upper
hand.

1 Wilson Fox, in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1903, p. 311.

2 H. Levy, Die Lage der englischen Landwirtschaft in der Gegenwart, in Conrad's
Jahrbiichern, December 1903.

3 Annual Report of Proceedings under the Small Holdings Act, 1909 (Cd. 4846), p. 5.
* Warwick Advertiser, May yth, 1910.

CHAPTER V

THE UNIT OF HOLDING UNDER THE NEW CONDITIONS

THE period of almost a hundred and twenty years of predominant
corn-production had witnessed a development of agricultural holdings
which closely corresponded to the peculiarities of that branch of
agriculture. With the remarkable transformation of agricultural pro-
duction since about 1880, the unit of holding has undergone changes
no less revolutionary in character. But before these can be described,
it is necessary to classify the various types of holding to be found
in England at the present day. A scientific basis for such a classifi-
cation is by no means easy to find. Even Arthur Young avoided
the obvious error of founding it on mere area : but the distinguishing
mark which he adopted, viz. the number of ploughs or horses
employed, was not much less mechanical. No one, however, seems
as yet to have done much better.

Fortunately there appears to be no need to establish a perfect
classification, such as would prove adequate for all possible purposes.
The distinction adopted here will have reference only to certain
marks which, though not belonging strictly to certain types of holding
and to them alone, do serve adequately to characterize such types.
They concern the holding first as a source of income and secondly as
a field of activity for its occupier.

In the first place there are many holdings distinguished from all
others by the fact that the occupier neither draws his whole income
from them nor gives his whole time to them. These are perhaps
best classed under the well-known name of allotment holdings, though
they include a good number which are larger than the allotment
properly so-called. The point is that they are of such a size that
they cannot1 either fully employ their occupier nor provide him and

1 The occupier of a large farm is often also neither fully employed by it nor confined to
it for his income. But in his case there is the possibility of finding full employment and
full subsistence on his holding, and this is what is lacking in the case of the allotment.

Change in Unit 89

his family with a full subsistence. He either has another employ-
ment or holds some capital and makes up his income from the
interest on it. The occupiers of such holdings are mostly agricultural
labourers, but also small shop-keepers or inn-keepers, industrial
workers and artisans, little property-owners, and so forth. The hold-
ings may be divided into two main types : viz. those which are not,
and those which are, the chief support of their occupiers. Allotments
properly so-called belong to the first type, though they do not
exhaust it. The second type produce more for the market than do
the first, on which production is as a rule mainly for the occupier's
own consumption. But they must be distinguished from small
holdings whose occupiers occasionally go out to work. The allot-
ment holder goes out to work because he must ; small holders may
occasionally go out when opportunity offers to earn an agreeable
supplement to their incomes. Finally, on both types of allotment
holding the whole family takes part in the work and hired labour is
not employed.

The allotment holdings merge into the second class, which is that
of the small holding proper. Here the occupier is normally fully
occupied and expects to make the full subsistence of his family,
though he may on occasion do a day's work elsewhere. If he has
a large family, say one or two grown-up sons and perhaps a daughter,
he will need to employ hardly any outside labour, unless at special
times such as hay or potato-harvest or for fruit-picking. Such
employment will be purely exceptional. This was the type of hold-
ing on which the little farmers and smaller yeomanry of the eighteenth
century lived, and which to so great an extent vanished in the nine-
teenth century.

The other classes are those of the medium-sized and large farms.
The characteristic of the medium-sized farm is that the occupier
needs to employ wage-labour, while at the same time he himself and
as a rule his family also takes part in the actual work of the farm.
But a certain division between manual labour and the work of
organisation is here visible, for while the occupier is partly busied in
the actual work he also at times simply directs it. This division
becomes clearly established on the large farm, where a number of
wage-labourers on the one side are directed by the farmer on the
other. The occupier is no longer in a position to take part in the
work himself: his time is fully taken up with supervision and
organisation. If his wife and daughters take any part at all, it is
also only supervisory, as of dairy-maids or milkers, or of the feeding of

9O Large and Small Holdings

the poultry, etc., supposing that dairying or poultry farming is carried
on for the market on a large scale.

If this classification is valid it is evident that there will be to
a certain extent external marks of similarity between the holdings of
each particular class. Such marks, however, are very hard to define.
For instance, as regards the average area of the holdings, the allot-
ment holdings will as a rule include all holdings of less than an acre.
But even those of the first type, where the allotment is a mere
by-employment, may often cover as much as two or three acres.
The famous holding of " three acres and a cow " belongs to this type.
On the other hand a holding of a similar area may belong to the
second type, being the main, though not the sole, source of income
and employment. This is more especially the case in market-
gardening districts. The line between these enlarged allotments and
the small holding proper is very hard to draw. Whether the occupier
of a given area will or will not need to supplement his income by
some by-employment will depend on the most various circumstances;
as for example on the quality of the soil, the branch of production
adopted, the number of mouths in the family, and so forth. Where
fruit and vegetables are grown five acres may suffice to enable their
holder to live very comfortably1. The same is sometimes the case
where dairying is the object2. But as a rule a larger area is required
for a self-sufficing pasture farmer, and the border between allotments
and small holdings may lie as high as at 10, 20 or even 25 acres.
This is the case in such grass counties as Herefordshire, Derbyshire,
Cheshire etc.3 In arable districts the line must be drawn even higher.
In the Isle of Axholme 50 or 60 acres was regarded as the minimum
necessary for a thriving arable farmer having no by-employment.
The outward appearance of a small holding may thus vary greatly,
and it is evident that mere statistics tell very little as to the economic

1 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 5887.

2 Mr P. Petitt's farm, Hilden Park Dairy, Tonbridge, Kent, is or was such an one. He
held in 1903 five acres of pasture, and kept (of course using stall-feeding) 10 — 12 cows,
doing all the work himself with the aid of his son and two daughters.

3 Stirton, op. cit. p. 93 : — " Experience has shown that a pasture holding of fifteen to
twenty acres is sufficient to furnish the entire means of livelihood to one family." Also
W. E. Bear, A Study of Small Holdings, p. 44 : — " Several authorities on the subject
declared that a family could live comfortably... on 20 acres, without working for wages."
See also Report of 1894, Vol. I, qu. 5106, 5109, 5207 ff. (Mr G. Murray on Derbyshire) : —
"If he had 16 acres he would keep four cows, and he would occupy his whole time, and
would not work to earn any rent outside his own occupation." See also qu. 5585 ; 4427 ;
3465 etc.

Change in Unit 91

classification of holdings1. It is perhaps even harder to draw the
line between small and medium holdings and between medium and
large. The boundary in the first case would seem to lie as a rule at
somewhere between 100 and 150 acres. Here the farmer regularly
employs some hired labour, and therefore does some purely directive
work, although his main business may still be with the actual manual
labour, since the number of men he employs will be small.

A few words must be added as to the peculiar distinction commonly
drawn in England between a " working farmer " and a " gentleman
farmer." It might be supposed that the gentleman farmer was
identical with the occupier of the fourth class, that is of the large
farm, such occupiers having no time for actual manual labour. This,
however, is not the case. The small farmer is as a matter of course
a working farmer : but the distinction as drawn has reference to two
different types of large farmer. On two neighbouring large farms of
similar area carrying on similar work, using the same methods and
employing the same number of men, one occupier may be a " gentle-
man farmer " and the other a " working farmer." The first rides,
hunts and pursues various kinds of sport, as do also his sons, while
his wife enters local society and his daughters learn music and
painting. The working farmer is to be found with his sons in the
field among his men, probably in his shirtsleeves, and his wife and
daughters help with the milking, in the dairy or with the poultry.
Pipes, cider and wooden chairs take the place of cigars, wine and
drawing-room furniture. The gentleman farmer is in fact a legacy
from the old days when agricultural prosperity was such as to allow
farmers to live at a very high standard of comfort, and under modern
conditions his day seems over. "When prices were high," writes
Mr Anderson Graham2, "the gentleman farmer could afford to indulge
in the comforts and luxuries to which he had been accustomed.
Nowadays the margin of profit is too fine to admit of these
extravagances." " There is no doubt about the fact that gentlemen
farmers are in greater tribulation than they ever were before. Unless
they are prepared to lose an annual sum for the privilege of living in
the country and following this agreeable occupation, they are entirely
out of place. When it is said that Northumberland is prosperous it

1 A great deal of material for the solution of this question of the classification of
holdings according to size is to be found in the Report on Small Holdings, 1906, Minutes of
Evidence (Cd. 3278). Cp. Index, pp. 530 and 531-2, and especially the heading Self-
supporting Holding.

2 Graham, The Revival etc., pp. 115, 113.

92 Large and Small Holdings

is with the reservation that they are excepted1." The working farmer,
on the contrary, flourishes2, and especially the Scottish immigrants,
who, as one of them said to the present writer, work like any day-
labourer. Mr Pringle noted this fact as among the causes of the
success of the Scottish farmers, and it marks them wherever they are
found in England.

It will now be clear that the large farm is not to be defined as
one where the occupier does not take part in the manual labour.
But he is occupied in the first place with the work of organisation.
Moreover even his manual work is distinguishable from that done by
the occupier of a medium-sized farm. The latter is to some extent
simply in the position of an additional labourer on his holding.
Without his work the business would not be got through at all.
The large farmer, on the other hand, does indeed need to put his own
hand to the work in view of the present-day requirements of more
continuous activity, more careful attention to details, and more
economical methods. Especially at harvest time he must be on the
spot and give active assistance. But his personal share in the work
is only occasional. Here and there he acts as foreman : here and
there he does a job which he does not care to entrust to hired labour.
Even his manual work is really of the nature of supervision. It is
direction in deed as well as in word. It is supplementary to the work
of the labourers, not of the same kind with it.

It follows from what has already been said that it is vain to
attempt to draw conclusions as to the economic character of a holding
from any exterior marks, and more especially from its mere area.
On the other hand it is necessary to combine some economic
conception with the statistical information supplied. Making all
allowance for exceptions it may therefore be useful to sum up as
follows. Allotments proper, which are only a by-employment to
their occupier, will as a rule cover from \ to 4 acres : allotment
holdings of the larger kind from 5 to 10 acres. Small holdings may
be taken as covering from 10 to 80 or 100 acres. Holdings of 100 to
250 or 300 acres will be medium-sized farms, and all above that size
will be large farms. But such a classification must not be used

1 Cp. the interesting evidence of Mr Carrington Smith, himself a farmer, in the Report
of 1894, qu. 8038; 8105-8117.

* Pringle. op. cit. pp. 45 f. ; see also H. Levy, Die Lage der englischen Landwirtschaft in
der Gegenwart, in Conrad's Jahrbuchern, 1904, pp. 734 ff. In the Small Holdings Report,
1906, the Scottish farmers are described as "an exceptionally energetic and successful race."
Minutes, qu. 7225.

Change in Unit 93

without the clearest perception of its inevitable weaknesses. If this
is understood it may be worth while to compare the classification
adopted on economic grounds, as described above, with the cor-
responding statistics as given in 1895*. There were then :

Percentage of Percentage

Total Holdings of Area

Holdings of over i and not over 5 acres 22-9 1*07

i» » 5 » » 20 „ 28-45 4'8?

„ „ 20 „ „ 50 „ 16-42 8-36

„ „ 50 „ „ 100 „ 12-25 I37o

„ „ 100 „ „ 300 „ 15-88 42-00

300 „ „ 500 „ 2-92 16-86

„ „ 500 „ „ 1000 „ 1-04 10-35

» ,> looo 0-14 279

100 100

The contrast between the two series of percentages is interesting.
While that relating to the number of holdings decreases as the size
of holding increases, that relating to the area covered moves almost
in the opposite direction. Further, so far as numbers are concerned,
small holdings preponderate. Holdings up to 100 acres make 8o-l2
per cent, of the whole. But as regards area it is otherwise. Medium
holdings account for 42 per cent, of the whole area covered, and
medium and large holdings together for 72 per cent. So that the
land under cultivation was at that date still predominantly held in
large and medium holdings. But if taken in connection with earlier
statistics, the figures would indicate the beginning of a new develop-
ment ; they belong to a period when the old tendency to the consoli-
dation of holdings was not merely at an end, but was being replaced
by a contrary movement.

Up to 1880 the question of the proper size of holdings was
regarded as settled. Landlords aimed at enlarging their farms as
far as possible. The few social reformers who were in favour of
small holdings failed to get a hearing in face of the economic
conditions. But as corn growing ceased to pay the case was altered,
and the question came up again as one for serious discussion2. The

1 For the sake of simplicity the sources of the statistics used in the following pages
and in Appendix II are given here. They are as follows : — Agricultural Returns for
1885 ; Returns of Allotments and Small Holdings, 1890 ; and Returns as to the Number and
Size of Agricultural Holdings in Great Britain in the year 1895.

2 Cp. e.g. R. Scott Burn, Systematic Small Farming, 1886, p. 14: — " In looking back
at a period of a few years ago, it will be seen that, so far as the general public was con-

94 Large and Small Holdings

f

year 1880 marks the beginning of a revival of small holdings. To
this revival two tendencies contributed ; first, the economic interests
of individual agriculturists; secondly, a movement of social reformers.
The second is of least importance, and may be dismissed in a few
words.

Social reformers had never ceased to take a lively interest in this
matter. It had never been possible to defend the large farm system
on social grounds, though Arthur Young and Sir John Sinclair had
attempted to counter the attacks of its opponents. But from
Dr Price up to the Labourers' Friend Society's agitation for allot-
ments, and from John Stuart Mill on to the present day, the small
holding has always found enthusiastic champions in view of its social
advantages. With the changed conditions after 1880 came the
Radical agitation in favour of such holdings, led by Mr Joseph
Chamberlain and Mr Jesse Collings. A Select Committee was
appointed to consider the matter in 1889, and Mr Collings expressly
claimed that it should regard in the first place the social rather than
the economic side of the question1. The particular aim in view, more
especially among the Liberals, was to hinder the increasing migration
of the rural population to the towns, a point which will be considered
below.

The results achieved by this social movement were, first, that
certain landlords let their land in small farms expressly because
such holdings were socially beneficial. Lord Tollemache and Lord
Wantage were pioneers in so doing, and a little later Lord Carrington,
whose Willow Tree Farm was let to a syndicate of small holders.
In the second place the formation of syndicates and co-operative
associations for renting land and letting it out in small holdings and
allotments is to be noted. The Land Reformers of this period,
too, agitated in favour of small holdings and contributed to their
formation.

In the third place the State took action in favour of a revival of

cerned, the question of small farms occupied but a small part of their interest. It was,
indeed, a topic which was but seldom heard, still less frequently discussed, in any way
approaching to that in which a question is considered to which the term ' popular ' is
attached." And p. 13: — "Of late, and it would be more correct to say very recently, the
subject has been again revived, and its points discussed by those who, having more influence
than those concerned in the old controversies, are likely to impart their views to the public
in a more telling way than has yet been done."

1 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 134, and 135 : — " I think the social question, as
distinct from the economic one, is a question primarily worthy the consideration of this
Committee and Parliament."

Change in Unit 95

peasant properties, small farms and allotments, also on purely social
grounds, as in the Allotments and Small Holdings Act, 1892, the
forerunner of the Small Holdings Act of 1907. The earlier Act was
due first and foremost to the energy of Mr Jesse Collings, then still
a member of the Radical party. Since the early eighties he had
moved almost every year for an enquiry into the small holdings
question. In 1889 he brought in a Bill containing a detailed scheme
for their revival by means of the local authorities. In the same year
the Select Committee was appointed, and in 1892 his Bill, with
unimportant alterations, became law. Social reformers hoped much
from it : especially that, as the President of the Board of Agriculture
(Mr Chaplin) pointed out, it might hinder the rural exodus1. The
Radicals looked to the systematic creation of peasant properties to
put an end to the land-monopoly of the great landlords. The
Conservative Lord Salisbury, on the other hand, favoured the Bill,
because, as he said, " I believe that a small proprietary constitutes
the strongest bulwark against revolutionary change, and affords the
soundest support for the Conservative feeling and institutions of the
country2."

Private effort, political agitation and Government action were
thus all active in promoting the formation of small holdings on social
grounds from 1880 onwards. But the reader will remember that
such attempts were nothing new : and there is no probability that
they would have produced more effect at the end of the nineteenth
century than they had done in its fourth decade or at its beginning,
if the position had not been altered in an essential point. The
arguments of the social reformer were no longer in blank opposition
to the actual economic tendencies of the day. On the contrary, by
the side of his rather timid efforts there now arose a strong move-
ment for the creation of small holdings on purely economic grounds.
This movement it was which made the question as to the proper unit
of holding once more a real question ; and to it, therefore, the main
attention of the historian is due.

It proceeded naturally in the first instance from the landlords,
who found that, if their rents were to be kept up, they must cease to
consolidate farms and on the contrary must cut up the large holdings
as opportunity offered. After 1880 this tendency becomes increas-
ingly evident3. The Report of the Select Committee of 1889 states

1 Parliamentary Debates, 1892, Vol. I, p. 911.

8 Speech at Exeter, on Feb. 3rd, 1892, quoted in Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. p. 85.

3 E.g. Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 4005, where the land-agent Mr Squarey says : —

96

Large and Small Holdings

this clearly, and also points out how contrary the movement was
to current traditions. "As regards small tenancies, the diminution
" has been chiefly due to the practice of consolidating farms which
" prevailed almost universally for a generation previous to the recent
" agricultural depression. This policy was formerly enjoined on the
"landowners on economical grounds. It was pointed out that the
"expense of keeping buildings in repair is much greater in proportion
" in small than in large farms, and that the employment of machinery
" and of the best agricultural methods is facilitated by the single
" management and cultivation of a large area. The contention was
" that small husbandry was barbarous and antiquated like the process
" of handloom weaving, and agriculture, like manufactures, should be
" carried on on a large scale and under the most scientific conditions.
" These views have been partly modified by recent experience, and
" many landowners and agents would gladly revert to the system of
"smaller farms, and they are doing so where it is practicable1." The
same is true under still more recent conditions2.

The statistics collected in 1895 show that the Committee of 1889
rightly interpreted the evidence before them. The following table
gives the figures of that year as compared with those collected
previously3. The number of holdings was : —

Year

land
under i
acre

1—5
acres

5—20
acres

20 50

acres

50 — too
acres

100 — 300
acres

300—500
acres

500—

1000

acres

over

1000

acres

1880

295>3i3

44,602

58,677

11,617

4095

500

1885

21,069

103,229

109,285

61,146

44,893

59,180

11,452

4131

565

1890

25,680

109,528

101,039

62,131

—

—

—

—

—

1895

—

ioi,4283

108,145

62,446

46,574

60,381

11,112

3942

524

" Every landowner would be only too happy to convert his land into small holdings." So
also Mr Jesse Collings, ibid, qu. 50, 51 ff. Cp. also Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. p. 30 : — " Many-
landlords have had reason to regret that they were induced in preceding years to consolidate
their small farms into larger holdings, and would gladly revert to times when a much greater
proportion of small holdings existed." Also Channing, op. cit. p. 297 : — "There has been
a tendency to divide large farms. "

1 Report from the Select Committee on Small Holdings, 1890, p. vi.

3 Report on Small Holdings, 1906, p. 4. In face of the conclusions of this Report, based
on information from the most various sources, Dr Hasbach's statement (op. cit. p. 361), that
landowners continue to enlarge holdings, is quite incomprehensible.

s The figures are taken from the official agricultural statistics (viz. the Agricultural
Returns). Those for holdings of i — 5 acres in 1895 are obtained by adding the number given
in the Report for holdings " over i and not over 5 acres " to the number of holdings of one

Change in Unit 97

The most striking point in these statistics is perhaps the decrease
in the number of large and very large holdings between 1885 and
1895. This is the more significant as the largest holdings (500 acres
and over) had still been increasing between 1880 and 1885. The
holdings of 300 — 500 acres, on the other hand, show a decrease from
1880 onwards. The medium-sized holdings (100 — 300 acres) show
an increase from 1880 : and the small holdings proper (50 — 100 and
20 — 50) show a steady and considerable increase throughout the
period. It is noticeable, however, that holdings of I — 5 acres show a
decrease in 1895 as compared with five years earlier, while the next
group does not exhibit any steady development at all.

In considering the more recent statistics it is evident at once that
the classification has unfortunately been altered. Only four groups
are distinguished. The number of holdings was1 : —

not over 5 acres not over 50 acres not over 300 acres over 300 acres
1895 87,055 170,591 106,955 I5»578

1905 8l,232 166,622 109,498 I4,792

1909 80,195 l65,66l 109,768 14,642

These figures certainly show that large holdings have considerably
decreased and medium holdings very considerably increased within
the past fifteen years. But they also show, what is at first sight
surprising, that holdings of i — 50 acres have not only failed to
increase, but have actually decreased in the period in question. This
statistical result might seem to point to the conclusion that the
movement in favour of small holdings had experienced a set-back
after 1895. But such a conclusion is not warranted by the facts.

The main factor in determining the number of small holdings is
no doubt the increase or decrease caused by the cutting up or
throwing together of farms on grounds of agricultural economy.
But another, and not inconsiderable, influence is the amount of
agricultural land annually absorbed by the spread of the towns or
manufacturing districts, which are continually penetrating further

acre precisely, which for that year was 14,373. The alteration made in 1895 in the method
of classifying these holdings of i — 5 acres would have made a comparison with the figures of
former years impossible, if the supplementary figures had not been specially obtained. I am
greatly indebted to Mr Henry Rew, of the Board of Agriculture, for supplying me with
them.

1 Agricultural Statistics, 1909, Pt. I, pp. 70 f.

98 Large and Small Holdings

and further into the country. As the agricultural holdings in the
neighbourhood of the towns are mostly small, a considerable pro-
portion of the total number of small holdings must be annually
affected in this way : and the loss is naturally felt proportionately
more severely in England, which has altogether only about 245,000
holdings of I — 50 acres, than it is, for instance, in Germany, with its
15 millions. It is true that holdings of I — 5 acres are the most
liable to disappear in this way ; but holdings of 5 — 50 acres are also
affected. If the detailed statistics for this particular class of holdings
in 1895 and 1905 respectively are compared, it will appear that they
have decreased most markedly in those counties which are not purely
agricultural, but which either contain or border on large towns or
industrial districts. Thus the greatest fall in the number of such
holdings (5 — 50 acres) is in the West Riding of Yorkshire, while the
less industrially developed East Riding loses a much smaller number.
Lancashire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire,
all manufacturing counties, also show considerable decreases, as do
Middlesex and Surrey, counties which may almost be considered
simply as extensions of the ever-growing metropolis. On the other
hand counties which are still mainly agricultural in character, and
which lie outside the great centres of industrial and city life and the
chief lines of communication, show an increase and not a decrease of
these holdings. This is the case in Essex, Kent, Sussex, Hants,
Devon, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire. In Wales,
too, which is still, as compared with England, an agricultural country,
these holdings of 5 — 50 acres have in the period in question increased
from 30,969 to 3I.6261.

But obviously the disappearance of small holdings in consequence
of the extension of towns and industrial life has nothing to do with
the question considered as one of agricultural economy. From this
point of view the only matter of importance is whether the decrease
of small holdings is in any degree due to their being thrown together
to form large farms, or to some similar cause. What is shown by
the statistics is simply the fact of decrease, without any indication
as to whether this is caused by consolidation of holdings or by the
spread of the towns. The decrease due to non-agricultural causes
would have to be compensated before an increase over the whole
country could appear in the statistics. So that from the point of
view of agricultural economy it is perfectly possible for holdings of

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, pp. 189 f.

Change in Unit 99

5 — 50 acres to be actually on the increase without any indication
of the fact being found in the statistics.

It is impossible here to avoid some criticism of the official
agricultural statistics. All this obscurity might have been avoided
by a better classification of holdings. The earlier statistics, which
did adopt this more detailed classification, show that between 1885
and 1895 holdings of 20 — 50 acres increased from 61,146 1062,446,
while in the same period holdings of 5 — 20 acres decreased from
109,285 to 108,145. That is to say that the decrease was precisely
among those smaller holdings which are common in the neighbour-
hood of the towns, and consequently are liable to be caught in their
grip. Very likely the same phenomenon might have appeared if some
similar distinction had been made in the period 1895 — 1905.

So too the lumping together in the statistics of all holdings from
50 to 300 acres as medium-sized holdings gives quite a false im-
pression. Holdings of 50 to 100 acres really belong to the class of
small holdings. So far as the observation of the present writer goes,
the labour of the occupier and his family still plays the chief part, as
a rule, on holdings up to about 100 acres, though of course the branch
of production adopted makes some difference in the matter. The
latest expert evidence also shows that such holdings are as a rule
to be regarded as small holdings, and that in some counties, as e.g. in
Wiltshire, a holding of 80 to 100 acres is considered as a typical
small holding1. In 1885 the total number of holdings of 50 — 300
acres in England was 104,073, of which only 44,843 were holdings
of 50 to 100 acres. But the latter had increased by 1895 to 46,574.
It is certain that the number must have risen again between 1895
and 1905, in view of the great increase in the number of holdings
between 50 and 300 acres. But the extent of that rise it is impossible
to determine, owing to the forcing of small and medium holdings
into one class.

On the whole, therefore, the statistics only give glimpses into this
matter of the development of the unit of holding. As regards the
smallest holdings the question is obscured because some of them are
absorbed for non-agricultural purposes, while many holdings properly
to be classed as small are not distinguished from those of medium
size. But at any rate the decrease in the class of large holdings, and
the considerable increase in that which includes small as well as
medium holdings, shows clearly what is the direction of development;

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 3715.

7—2

ioo Large and Small Holdings

so that the statistics confirm at least in some points what has been
noted above as to the characteristics of the modern movement.

In a relatively short time the large farm system has thus retro-
graded considerably, and medium and small farms have made
corresponding progress. The progress would have been more rapid
but for certain causes, some of them economic and some not, to be
considered below. But such as it was it appeared to many people as
an altogether unprecedented phenomenon, especially to those who
were not acquainted with the agricultural history of England, and
supposed that the preponderance of large farms was inherited from
time immemorial. To the historian the change is of course merely
a reversion to the system of holdings which obtained up till the
middle of the eighteenth century, and was destroyed only by the
great development of arable farming.

CHAPTER VI

THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE REVIVAL OF
SMALL FARMING

IN order to trace the causes which have led to a development in
the matter of agricultural holdings diametrically opposed to that
which had become traditional, it is necessary to consider the profits
made on the various types of holding. For so far as landlords were
influenced by economic motives, it was by the question as to which
unit of holding would afford them, not of course simply the highest
nominal rent, but the highest net income. From the middle of the
eighteenth century till about 1880 they had favoured the large farm,
because it paid the highest rent per acre and at the same time
demanded least expenditure on repairs and administration. But with
the agricultural crisis of 1880 onwards the conditions were radically
altered.

The Commissions of 1880 and 1894 paid much attention to the
question whether large or small farms had suffered most under the
crisis. The minutes of evidence show that opinions were fairly
evenly divided on the point. Many witnesses, especially those who
may be ranked as champions of the small holding, alleged the
higher rents per acre paid by the small farms1 to prove that they
were most profitable to the landlord. Of course this did not follow.
Before such a conclusion could be drawn information must be given
as to the relative fertility of soil, the cost of buildings and repairs, the
cost of administration and various other points. Fortunately, how-
ever, other more trustworthy indications were offered of the causes
which were moving landlords to favour the small farm system.

The Reports, the Minutes of Evidence, the publications and press
discussions on the question agree in showing that after 1880 there
was increasing difficulty throughout the country in letting large farms
at all. At one time no holding could be too large. Now in many

1 For some examples see Lawry, in Journal R. A. S., 1892, pp. 391 ff.

IO2 Large and Small Holdings

districts farms of 500 to 1000 acres could find no tenants1. On the
other hand it was a common experience2 to find the demand for
small and medium farms very vigorous3. Before the Commission of
1894 land agents complained of the extreme difficulty of finding
tenants for the large farms4, but stated that "just as the area
decreases, so is the disposition to take farms increased5." Large
farmers threw their holdings on the landlords' hands and took small
farms instead6. Landlords who had consolidated their farms between
1850 and 1880 found this most disconcerting, while those who had
resisted the tendency rejoiced. " I am quite certain," wrote one,
"if I had taken the advice of my friends thirty years ago, and
concentrated my farms, I should have them all now on my hands7."
"The demand for renting small holdings is something quite
astonishing8," said Mr C. A. Fyflfe in 1889. In one case in Yorkshire
there were no fewer than 59 applicants for a farm of 26 acres9, and
this was not exceptional.

If it was thus hard to let large farms and easy to let small and
medium farms, there is no difficulty in accounting for the tendency to
favour the latter on the part of the landlord. As the statistics show,
this tendency developed slowly and in face of numerous hindrances.
Many landlords left their farms long unlet, and put in bailiffs to
manage them. But this system was only for temporary relief and
was not as a rule maintained long. In a few years the landlord,
finding that no tenants came, while other landlords had numbers of
applicants for their smaller farms, began to consider and then to carry
out a policy of division.

What this change in the relative demand for large and small
farms proves is that the profitableness of the first had decreased
while that of the second was increasing. It was frequently said that
the reason the large farms remained unlet was that in these days of

1 Report of 1894, qu. 31,183 : — " If a farm of anything over 500 acres is given up now,
I may say that it is an impossibility to let it ; nobody will take more than 500 acres."

8 S. B. L. Druce, m Journal of the Farmer? Club, November 1903, p. 7.

* Report of 1894, qu. 477 : — " For the most part, the farms that we have in hand are
large farms. The smaller farms are easily let as compared with the large farms." So also
qu. 763 and 871.

4 Ibid., qu. 14,874; and similar evidence in qu. 4480, 4571 ff., 8061, 13,410-1 3,4*1.

8 Ibid. , qu. 7137-7238.

' Ibid., qu. 16,808 and 16,963.

7 Quoted by C. S. Read, Large and Small Holdings, in Journal R, A. S., 1887, p. 13.
The landlord in question was Sir Massey Lopes.

8 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 6076.

" Eyre and Kyle, op. cit. p. 27 ; and also p. 73.

Economic Aspects 103

distress farmers had no longer capital enough to work them. But
obviously if it had paid to work them the capital would have been
forthcoming. If no one wished to invest his capital in large farming
it was because better profits could be made elsewhere. Agricultural
capital was withdrawn from large farming and invested in small
farming. The large farms were not unlet because there were no
capitalist farmers : capitalist farmers failed to appear because the
profits to be made on large farms were not sufficient to attract them.
The interesting question is why small farms had become more profit-
able than large.

The large farm began to be regarded as the ideal unit when in
the middle of the eighteenth century corn-production became the
great object of the farmer. Since 1880 corn-production, instead of ,
being the most profitable branch of agriculture, has become the least
profitable. Stock-feeding, dairying and market-gardening have taken
the lead. Accordingly landlords must aim at multiplying such
holdings as are best suited for these purposes. What these are will
best be shown by a study of the typical units of holding in relation to
the branch of agriculture pursued on each. So far as corn-growing
and pasture-farming are concerned this study is fairly simple, as
statistical evidence is to hand.

The statistics confirm what Robertson at the end of the eighteenth
century and Caird in the middle of the nineteenth stated as the result
of their own observations, that in the pasture districts of the west
holdings were smaller than in the corn-producing eastern counties.
This division of pasture and corn-land into geographical areas persists
up to the present day, being chiefly due to the climatic and geological
conditions1 which favour pasture in the west. The figures of 1895
divide the English counties into four geographical districts. Of
every 100 acres of agricultural land the percentage of arable2 was as
follows : —

District I District II District HI District IV

(eastern and north- (south-eastern and (west-midland and (northern and

eastern counties) east-midland counties) south-western counties) north-western counties)

687 46'! 40'! 32*5

Thus arable predominated only in the east and north-east. It
was nearly 50 per cent, in the south-east and east-midlands. But in
both the western districts pasture predominated considerably. The

1 J. Caird, in Journal R. A.S., 1869, pp. 69 f.

2 The corresponding percentages for the area under wheat were 10*3 ; 5'7 ; 3*9 ; r8.

District I
Acres

District II
Acres

District III
Acres

District IV
Acres

Whole of
England
Acres

'97

'95

ri2

I '21

I'07

3-84

4-I5

4-63

6'74

4-87

6-30

6-94

7-81

I2T3

8-36

10-32

11-50

1372

18-89

1370

37-12

4I-35

45-46

43-86

42*00

21-60

19-18

15-67

11-45

16-86

l6'I2

12-37

874

4-56

10-35

373

3-56

2-85

1-16

2-79

100

100

100

100

100

IO4 Large and Small Holdings

main principle of the geographical distribution of arable and pasture
was thus maintained, even though the proportionate distribution
within the various districts had passed through various changes since
the end of the eighteenth century. Further, the geographical distri-
bution of arable and pasture still corresponded to the geographical
distribution of large and small holdings observed by Robertson and
Caird. This is shown by the following table, giving the acreage
under each class of holding per 100 acres of agricultural land1 : —

Class of Holding

I — 5 acres

5—20 „

20—50 „

50—100 „

100-300 „

300—500 „

500—1000 „

over looo „

Reading from left to right, this table shows how the percentage of
each class of holding increases or decreases as the district changes.
The percentage of acres devoted to small holdings is seen to increase
as we pass from east to west. This result is most marked in the case
of holdings covering 20 — 50 and 50 — 100 acres, i.e. the small holdings
proper. But the area under medium-sized farms also increases
considerably. Large farms, on the contrary, show a decrease. In
District I, for instance (eastern and north-eastern counties) 2r6o per
cent, of the total agricultural area is occupied in holdings of 300 — 500
acres, against only H'45 per cent, in District IV (west and north-
west) : and in the next class the percentages become i6'i2 as against
4-56. Hand in hand with the increased percentage of arable in the
east goes therefore an increase of large holdings. Hand in hand with
the increased percentage of pasture in the west goes an increase of
small and medium holdings.

Another table may serve to show the percentage of arable farms
among the farms of each class in the various districts. Per 100 acres
of agricultural land the percentage of arable (as opposed to permanent
pasture) was as follows : —

1 For the materials on which this table is based see Appendix II below.

Economic Aspects

Whole of

Class of Holding

District I

District II

District ///

District IV

England

Acres

Acres

Acres

Acres

Acres

i —5 acres

47'5

25-07

25-22

1370

26-87

5—5° »

56-44

26-89

26-82

17-56

29-00

50—100 „

66-15

41-52

38-I3

33-95

42-48

100 — 300 „

70-23

47-69

40-42

37-55

47-92

300—500 „

70-94

51-11

43-86

35-96

53-09

over 500 „

70-77

51-32

50-53

30-21

55-98

The horizontal lines in this table show how in each class of holding
the percentage of arable land decreases as we pass from east to west.
It is therefore one more illustration of the fact that the agriculture of
the east of England is much more dependent on the plough than
that of the west. Reading down the lines vertically, the table shows
that in all four districts the percentage of arable is least on the
smallest holdings. On holdings of five acres and less, pasture pre-
dominates all over England, even in the arable districts. On holdings
of 5 — 50, 50 — 100 and 100 — 300 acres, arable land predominates over
pasture only in District I. In each district the proportion of arable
land rises almost regularly with the size of holding. The larger the
holding, the more arable land ; the smaller the holding, the more
pasture. The figures for the whole country show the same thing.
Only holdings of over 1000 acres deviate from the rule. On them,
in two districts, the proportion of arable land is less than in the class
next below them ; but this, as will be seen below, is easily explained.
In the eastern and north-eastern counties arable already predominates
in the second class of holdings (5 — 50 acres) ; in the south-east and
east-midlands not till class 5 (300 — 500 acres) is reached ; in the west-
midlands and south-west not till the area is over 500 acres. In the
west and north-west there is no class of holding on which arable
land predominates over pasture In England, taken as a whole, it
predominates only in those classes into which the large farms fall.
Thus arable land is most in evidence where large farms predominate,
while stock-farming, so far as it is based on pasture, is commonest
where small and medium-sized farms most abound. Further, whether
the district in question is predominantly plough-land or pasture, the
small farms are always mainly devoted to pasture, and everywhere
stock-farming based on pasture is more developed on small and
medium than on large holdings.

These figures are striking evidence of the fact that stock-farming
is a branch of agriculture which mainly belongs to the small and
medium holdings. But it must be remembered that stock-farming
is not only carried out on pasture lands. Where stall-feeding is

io6 Large and Small Holdings

extensively used, a stock-farm may yet have more arable land than
pasture, the arable being chiefly devoted to crops used as fodder.
There are, however, figures which prove yet further that not only
pasture-farming, but stock-feeding generally, at least so far as cattle
and pigs are concerned, belongs to the domain of the small farmer.
The number of animals kept per 100 acres on the various types of
farm is given in the following table1 : —

Class of Holding Cattle Pigs Sheep

i — 5 acres 29*9 49-8 29*9

5—20 „ 31-4 22-1 31-6

20—50 „ 27-1 12-5 44-3

50—100 „ 23-1 9-1 50-9

100—300 „ 18-5 67 62-9

300—500 „ 147 5-1 84-8

500 — 1000 „ IT2 4"2 I03'2

over looo „ 8*2 2-9 107-8

Here it appears that the relative number of cattle and pigs kept
regularly decreases as the size of holding increases, but the sheep
increase. The latter result seems to indicate the reason for the increase
of pasture land on farms of over 1000 acres as compared with those
of 500 — 1000 acres. It is not that ordinary stock-farming increases,
but that these very large holdings often consist of great sheep-walks ;
that is to say, wide stretches of land covered with poor pasture.

It is not so easy to show the extent to which the other branches
of agriculture, as fruit and vegetable growing and poultry-farming,
are developed on the various classes of holding. No statistics are
available. But almost all reports and publications on the subject
mention these businesses as being primarily conducted on the small
farms2. It appears that where the soil is suited neither for pasture
nor market-gardening, small farms are often conspicuous by their
absence3. " A rapid development of special crops, such as celery,
carrots, beetroot and other vegetables" is ascribed in the first place
to small holders, as for example those in the Isle of Axholme,
who have chiefly developed the cultivation of potatoes, celery and
cabbage4. So with poultry-farming. The large farmers left it alone,
as they did dairy-farming and stock-breeding6. On hundreds of

1 Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1886, p. 104.

3 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 7389; and 3/65, 3766, 3773- Cp. also H. Samuel,
Liberalism, 1902, Chapter V, The Land Question.

3 Final Report, p. 357: — "In counties like Suffolk, where there is little good pasture
land or land suited for market-gardening, small farms and freehold farmers are rare."

4 Ibid., p. 355. Cp. also Bear, A Study etc., p. 18.

5 Lord Wantage, in Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 1945.

Economic Aspects 107

large farms fowls, eggs, vegetables, fruit, honey, etc. are only produced
for home consumption, whereas it would be hard to find a small
farmer who does not send considerable quantities of these products to
market1. Accordingly, districts specially suited for fruit or vegetables
are usually covered with small holdings, as in the famous Vale of
Evesham, one of the best fruit districts in England, and also one
exclusively occupied by small holders* : and in a strawberry-growing
district in the neighbourhood of Southampton, where the largest fruit
gardens are not more than 35 acres, and the ordinary size is from
\ to 10 acres3. " In the Chatteris neighbourhood of Cambridgeshire,
numbers of small holders have been able to pay rents of over £2
an acre... and have made a good thing out of holdings of four to fifty
acres, growing potatoes and early carrots, besides other produce," wrote
Mr Channing in his summary of the evidence before the 1894 Com-
mission4. All these branches of production belong to the small
holder. Corn-growing, on the contrary, and particularly corn-growing
for the market, is a point in which they are very weak.

The corn-production of the small holdings is almost entirely for
home consumption, whether for bread for the family, or, what is much
more common in modern times, for the purpose of providing fodder
and straw. Allotment holders of 4 — 5 acres and upwards, even if they
have any arable, sell no corn, but feed it all to their pigs and cattle,
their horse if they keep one, and their fowls. But even on small
holdings of a larger size corn-growing plays a very small part, as the
statistics quoted have shown. Even in those rare cases where such
a holding is mainly arable, as in the often-quoted Isle of Axholme
(celebrated even in Arthur Young's time), this holds good6. A local
expert6 informed the present writer that a holding of 60 acres would
as a rule be divided as follows : — 8 acres under permanent pasture,
IO under potatoes, 4 under turnips, 3 under mangold, 5 under clover,
and the remaining 30 acres under wheat, oats and barley. The occu-
pier's main source of income would be his potato crop, together with
the three or four cows and ten or twelve pigs he would keep, and any
other live-stock. His oats, barley, turnips, clover and mangolds would
be fed to his beasts. The product of the 8£ acres of wheat would be

1 H. Rew, Report on North Devon, 1895 (C. 7728), p. 15 : — " It is the regular practice
for the wives and daughters of the small farmers. ..to take poultry, eggs, butter and clotted
cream, as well as garden produce, honey etc., into the market once a week and there sell it
direct to the customers." Cp. also Eyre, op. cit. pp. 10 f.

8 W. E. Bear, in Journal R. A. S., 1899, pp. 36, 40.

8 Ibid., p. 47. 4 Final Report, p. 358.

s Levy, Der Untergang etc,, p. 160 ; Bear, op. cit. pp. 14-14.

8 Mr John Ross, of Belton, Lincolnshire.

io8 Large and Small Holdings

sold. So that of 52 acres of arable only 8| would serve to grow corn
for the market, and the other 43^ would be for stock-feeding and
potato growing.

The small farms of the eighteenth century, previous to the agrarian
revolution, had produced little corn for the market, and the revived
small farms of the nineteenth century follow in their steps. " Cows,
pigs, poultry and vegetables are the four chief sources of profit that
would come off a (small) farm, to enable a tenant to do well ; and
I should say that nearly all small farmers would carry out the same
system," said a witness before the 1880 Commission1. A priori, the
natural result must have been that small farms, pursuing the now
most profitable branches of agriculture, would prosper much more
than the large farms, which were to a great extent dependent on the
increasingly unprofitable production of corn. It remains to consider
whether this a priori deduction is justified by the facts : whether, as a
result of the different branches of production pursued on large and
small farms respectively, the latter actually prospered better than the
former in the period of the crisis.

Unfortunately the question has never been put precisely in this
form. The Royal Commissions of 1880-1 and 1894-7 considered the
position of large and small holdings in general, without special atten-
tion to the branch of production pursued, and arrived at the somewhat
vague conclusion that the small farms had, not everywhere, but in
particular districts under special conditions, proved better capable of
standing against the crisis than the large. But examples were
adduced to show that in some cases the small farmers had suffered
even more acutely than the large, and it was therefore concluded that
the small farm system was not universally superior to the large farm
system. The Reports, therefore, cannot be used in this matter without
first being subjected to a critical analysis. It is not sufficient simply
to state that in such and such a district small farms did better, and
in such another worse. The interesting question is why this was so,
and it cannot as a rule be answered by mere statistics. The varying
profitableness of the different branches of agriculture makes it
antecedently probable that the class of holdings which suffered least
would be that on which the more profitable branches were pursued.
\ In other words, the small farms, which were mainly devoted to stock-
\ feeding and market-gardening, would as a rule have the advantage
| over the mainly corn-growing large farms. The exceptions, that is to
say the cases in which small farms suffered severely, prove the rule.

1 Report on Agricultural Depression, 1881, qu. 62,310 (Mr Baghot de la Bere) ; also qu.
62,615.

Economic Aspects 109

For, generally speaking, those exceptions are small farms on which
stock-feeding and market-gardening were not the main objects.
They were those which were chiefly concerned with corn-growing.

To cite the Isle of Axholme once more. At the present time, as
shown above, the small holdings of this district are not indeed pasture
farms, but their arable land is not used chiefly to grow corn for the
market, but to produce food for cattle on the one hand and vegetables
for the market on the other. This, however, is a new state of affairs1.
Formerly the district was renowned for its corn-producing yeomanry.
After 1880 this class fell into great distress, and were quoted as an
example of the failure of small holdings to meet the crisis8. Their
history is perhaps almost unique in English agricultural history, but
it is very instructive where the question of the unit of holding is under
consideration. Up to 1880 the Isle of Axholme was possibly the one
district in which the old yeomanry still predominated. In the period
between 1760 and 1815 they had not decided to transform themselves
into large farmers, but had retained the old communal spirit3, had as
a body undertaken improvements4, and had successfully carried on
corn-production throughout the period of high prices. But the custom
of leaving the land to the eldest son led, during the good years (1850
to 1880), to the practice of burdening it with mortgages, inasmuch
as the price of land had increased considerably. When the drop in
prices came, and profits fell, "the rent now due in the shape of
interest," sums up Mr Pringle in his report to the Commissioners of
1894, "far exceeds what would be a 'fair rent5.'" This was the ruin
of the old corn-growing yeomanry, who perhaps felt the crisis more
immediately than the farmers, since the latter could get their rents
lowered. They disappeared ; and their successors, together with a few
wise survivors of their own class, diminished the corn crops in favour
of other, now more profitable, agricultural pursuits, and especially
developed stock-feeding and potato and celery growing. This
policy proved a complete success8. Agricultural distress practically

1 Channing, op. cit. p. 284. He says that the area under wheat fell off considerably,
while that under oats (probably for use as fodder) increased by 40 %, while " there has been
a rapid and persistent development of special crops, such as celery, carrots, beetroot, and
other vegetables."

O. Stillich, Die englische Agrarkrisis, Jena, 1899, p. 92.

Bear, A Study etc., pp. 16, 24.

Drainage, in particular, was carried out at their common expense. On this point
cp. also Rae, op. cit. p. 563.

Report on the Isle of Axholme, by R. Hunter Pringle, 1894, Vol. XVI, It. I, p. 682.

Bear, A Study etc., p. 24 : — " Small farming in the Isle of Axholme must be regarded
as a success."

no Large and Small Holdings

disappeared from the Isle, and altogether from the small farms and
allotments devoted to vegetable-growing1. Small farming, therefore,
in the Isle of Axholme proved entirely successful so far as it was
concerned with live-stock and vegetable-growing, but failed as badly
as large farming, or perhaps more so, in regard of corn-production.

The same was true of other districts. Where small farmers de-
pended on their corn-crops they suffered severely from the crisis.
Cases of this kind were naturally most common in the eastern
counties. Thus the small farmers of Bedfordshire were reported to
be doing very badly; and their holdings were chiefly arable2. So,
too, a gloomy picture was painted of the condition of Norfolk
farmers holding from 50 to 100 acres3; and again the class con-
cerned seems to have been mainly occupied in corn-growing. For
Norfolk was preponderantly an arable county, even the smallest hold-
ings, of i to 5 and 5 to 20 acres, being under the plough4. The case was
the same in Suffolk, where pasture and vegetable-growing were very
slow to develop8. In fact, wherever distress among the smaller land-
holders is reported it turns out that specifically arable districts are
concerned-: and in such districts the small holders undoubtedly
suffered more than the large6.

Where stock-feeding and market-gardening or the like were the
chief business, matters were quite otherwise. It is a recognised fact,
and appears on the face of the Report of the Commission of 1894, that
agricultural distress was much less in the pasture districts than in the
arable districts. Now the statistics quoted above show that it was
in the pasture districts of the west and north-west that most of the
small and medium-sized holdings of the country were situated, while
large farms were much less common there than in the eastern counties.
Therefore it is clear at once that so far as stock-farming, and especially
pasture-farming, is concerned, the depression was much less felt on
small farms than on large. This general proposition may be supple-
mented by various individual examples. Thus small farmers in
Devonshire, who only grew so much corn as would enable them to
buy their seed again out of the profits, are reported to have suffered

1 Rider Haggard, op. cit. Vol. n, p. 196: — " In the district (Epworth) there was nothing
that approached to distress."

2 Report of 1894, qu. 35,652.

* Report of 1881, qu. 51,874 ff. ; 52,132 ff. ; and 51, 935 f.

4 See the tables in Appendix II below.

5 Channing, op. cit. pp. 7, 289.

8 Bear, in Journal R. A. S., 1891, pp. 269 ff. Such districts were North Yorkshire,
Durham, Lincolnshire, East Suffolk and Norfolk.

Economic Aspects 1 1 1

very little from the crisis1. In Huntingdonshire "the small grass-
farmers, who depend on milk and not on corn-growing," were reported
to have been "able to hold their own considerably better than those
who have had anything to do with trying to grow corn*." Where the
small holders sold milk and vegetables and "owing to the nature of their
husbandry are not corn -growing," no signs of depression were to be
found3. A witness informed the Committee of 1906 that "In certain
districts of Cheshire and Flintshire there are small holdings which are
all permanent pasture, where the production is cheese-making ; these
are almost invariably doing well4."

The demand for small holdings, too, proved greater where they
included little plough-land'. As an expert put it : — " I observe that a
small farmer who keeps clear of the plough generally does well ; but
whenever arable land is touched, his life appears to me to be one of
toil and penury8." For instance, on the great Stratton estate the
most successful and most coveted small farms were those which were
on grass lands7. That well-known agricultural writer Mr T. E. Kebbel
said in the 1893 edition of his book on The Agricultural Labourer that
" no argument is wanted at this time of day to show that a man can
thrive on a small grass farm, who would starve on a small corn farm8."
The same was true in an enhanced degree of allotment-holdings.
Their success, too, depended on their being devoted to live-stock and
pasture. When Lord Wenlock offered to form arable allotments on
his Yorkshire property, not a single application was made for them,
and it appeared that such holdings were intensely unpopular9. In
other districts there was so great a demand for grass allotments that
there were numerous competitors for every one available, and their
rents hardly fell at all even in the worst times10.

It remains to compare the position of the small holdings with
that of the larger farms. Where the former grew little wheat
as compared with the latter, they proved to be much more

1 Read, op. cit. p. 12.

2 Report of 1894, qu. 41,206 ; and Bear, A Study etc., p. 36.
8 Report of 1881, qu. 62,307 ; and so qu. 47,904.

* Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 6739 ; cp. also Mr Bear's instructive article
Prospects for Small Holdings, in The Bath and West and Southern Counties Journal, 1908,

P- 39-

8 Report of 1894, qu. 3546 (Mr Ingram): — "There is not nearly the same difficulty in
letting a farm, anything up to about 100 acres (as in letting the larger ones), assuming there
is not too much arable land in it."

8 See Read, op. cit. p. 23. 7 Stirton, op. cit. p. 93.

8 T. E. Kebbel, The Agricultural Labourer, ed. 1893, p. 160.

9 Earl of Onslow, op. cit. p. 41. 10 Ibid., p. 47.

1 i 2 Large and Small Holdings

successful1. Cheshire, which had long been celebrated for its small
and medium-sized dairy-farms, was said to have suffered less from
the depression than any other county in England2. Wherever stock-
feeding and dairy-farming flourished small holdings prospered, while
large farms did not do nearly so well3. Monmouthshire4, Leicester-
shire8, and other counties might be cited6. The same was true where
the small holders devoted themselves to fruit, vegetables, or poultry-
breeding. To fruit-farming, for instance, was attributed the superior
prosperity of the small holders and cottagers as compared with the
large farmers in Herefordshire. The latter gave no such intensive
care to the fruit as the former7. In East Sussex, where rents had as
a rule been very remarkably reduced, the small poultry-farms were in
many cases found to be paying as much as ever8. In many parts of
the country the small holders, selling no corn, had even profited con-
siderably by the fall in its price, since they got cheaper food for their
cattle, pigs and fowls9.

Speaking generally, therefore, the success of the small and medium
holdings in withstanding the crisis depended on the branch of agricul-
ture which they pursued. Even in the great days of corn-growing the
small farm had proved its economic inferiority to the large farm so
far as this commodity was concerned. When corn-growing fell on evil
times, the small arable farmers suffered even more severely than the
large. But comparatively few small holdings had been given up to
corn : and the branches of production to which they were mostly
devoted and in which they excelled were precisely those which after
1880 became most profitable. Therefore in general the small holdings
had a better chance than the large during the period of depression.
Accordingly the evidence as to distress among small holders, if rightly
interpreted, is seen to concern exceptions to the general rule ; only an

1 Cp. A. J. Burrows, The Agricultural Depression, 1882, pp. n f. : — "At this moment
very few small farms remain upon the hands of the landowners, and many of these have lately
been let at an increased rental ; while many large arable farms are unlettable even at con-
siderably reduced rents."

2 Report of 1894, qu. 10,407.

3 Ibid., qu. 4218-4220, evidence of Sir Gardner Engleheart : — " Looking generally at the
property under your management, would you say that the depression is more felt by the large
farms or the small ones ? — I think mostly by the large ones. — Is that specially in the case of
the grass districts ? — Yes. — You think small farms have answered better ? — Yes, I think so."

4 Ibid., qu. 35,126. B Ibid., qu. 13,313.

8 Ibid., qu. 13,668. 7 Ibid., qu. 5541 (Rankin).

8 Ibid., qu. 3533 ff. and 3828 ff.

9 Ibid., qu. 37,454 (Olver) : — "In the west of Cornwall they (the small farmers) are
practically dependent on the dairy, the making of pork and so on ; they buy a great deal of
their grain, and are gainers by the low price of corn."

Economic Aspects \ \ 3

uncritical reading of the facts could lead to any other conclusion.
The great majority of the allotment holders and small and medium
farmers, not being primarily interested in corn-production, suffered
much less than the large and very large farmers.

When this is understood it becomes possible to state the economic
causes of the tendency to cease enlarging farms and to revive the
system of small holdings. Landowners were forced to recognise that
from about 1880, with the change in market conditions, the question
of the unit of holding had entered on a new phase. Small farms,
if devoted to the now profitable branches of agriculture (as they were
in most cases), offered higher returns than large farms. The demand
for them was stronger than that for large farms. Less was heard of
distress among the small farmers than among their larger competitors.
Their rents as a rule dropped less. All this is surely an adequate
explanation of the tendency in question. It is true that it was only
a tendency, and certain counteracting forces remain to be considered.
But at least it is clear that under these conditions landlords, so far as
they were moved by economic considerations, considered themselves
fortunate if their property mainly consisted of small farms, and
attempted no further consolidation or "engrossing." The economic
motive for division was provided by the fact that under modern
conditions the small holdings system had become economically
desirable.

CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM

(a) Small Holdings as a Remedy for the Rural Exodus.

THE social and political aspects of the problem of the unit of
agricultural holding have never been more prominent than in recent
times. Alongside of the economic tendency making for the division
of large farms into small, two non-economic forces of almost equal
strength have been at work, one furthering and the other counteracting
that tendency. The first has already been glanced at ; it remains to
show its origin and its result.

Social politicians of the eighteenth century, in opposition to the
agricultural interest, attacked the large farm system on the ground
that it depopulated the land ; and in recent times Liberal reformers
have enthusiastically taken up the small holdings movement, as
seeing in it the one means of preventing the increasing rural exodus1.
Agricultural history justifies this view. It shows that a rural exodus
began precisely at the time when the evolution of the large farm
system began. The degradation of small farmers into day-labourers,
the expropriation of agricultural workers from the soil, the enclosure
of the commons, and the disappearance of the yeomanry, all resulted
from the economic pressure which developed large holdings, and
all at least contributed to drive the labourer from the land. The
proletarianised farmer or cottager had no longer any tie to bind him
to the soil, and under the bad conditions of rural life he turned his
eyes to the towns as his only hope. The yeoman, when converted
into a large farmer, no longer needed the help of all the members of
his family; he only directed the work of his farm, which was carried
out by wage-labourers. His sons, therefore, must either themselves
become farmers, or else go to the towns to become merchants or
factory owners. The development of the large farm system thus went

1 Samuel, op. cit. pp. loof.

Social and Political Aspects 1 1 5

hand in hand with that sharper definition of class distinctions at which
the social reformers of the eighteenth century were so much concerned.
Further, the rural exodus resulted largely from the swamping of the
agricultural labour-market, and this from the large farm system, which
did not develop a sufficient demand for labour to employ all the
newly-created proletariat. This over-supply of labour reached its
culminating point under the corn-laws, which diminished the indus-
trial demand for labour and as it were slammed the gates of the
towns in the labourer's face. He was now obliged to stay on the land
whether he liked it or not Young's theory was proved false; the
large farm system could not even approximately employ, under any-
thing like decent conditions, the crowds of labourers it created. Free
trade at last brought salvation, by giving a new impetus to industry
and so opening up again the way from the land to the town.
Labourers streamed in crowds into industrial employments, and
the agricultural labour-market was at last disburdened. Wages and
the whole standard of life went up for those labourers who remained
on the land1. The effect of the large farm system had thus been to
create an over-supply of labour, larger and increasing more rapidly
than the agricultural demand could suffice to take up. Only two
results were possible. The population might, for whatever reasons,
remain on the land, and if so, wages must fall. This actually happened
in the corn-law period. Or on the other hand migration might increase,
as was the case after 1846. Accordingly the rural exodus has been
to a very great extent a consequence of the large farm system. Trade
and industry developed a growing demand for labour, and the rural
population, bound by no ties to the soil, went where the best chances
were offered it. The large farm system did not of course create the
rural exodus, but it essentially strengthened the tendency.

The number of agricultural labourers (shepherds included) fell
from 1,253,786 in 1851 to 621,168 in 1901, or by more than 50 per
cent. This decrease has been explained by the development of
pasture-farming and the use of agricultural machinery, which, it is
said, between them rendered many labourers superfluous and so
caused the depopulation of the land. They had of course their
share in the movement, especially in certain districts. But they
cannot be said to have caused it, for both arable and dairy-farming
districts were left crying out for labour. The demand had not indeed

1 See the detailed description in Wilson Fox, Agricultural Wages, in Journal R. Statistical
Soc,, 1903. Also H. Levy, Landarbeiterfrage und Landfittcht in England, in Brauns
Archiv, 1903, pp. 497 ff.

8— a

n6 Large and Small Holdings

increased absolutely : but nevertheless the supply was diminished to
such an extent that labourers often simply could not be found, more
especially, as Mr Rider Haggard has shown1, when younger men
were wanted. If it was the extension of pasture or the introduction
of machinery which was driving the people off the land, they might
have gone to the districts where agricultural labour was in such great
demand, instead of to London, Birmingham or Manchester. To
explain why they did not do so would need a description at large
of the differences between the life of the labourer on the land and in
the towns2. The labourer left the land because the towns offered him
higher wages, more enjoyment, more physical and mental excitement,
greater freedom and a higher social position. He was not concerned
with the fact that the farmer had to pay higher wages and generally
to provide better conditions of life than had formerly been the case.
His comparison was not between past and present, but between two
present-day standards; and he preferred that of the town.

The large farm system had thus failed to fulfil the social hopes
which it had held out. It was to have provided the labourers with
steady work at high wages, and so to keep them on the land. As a
fact, its tendency was to develop a greater supply of labour than it
could use. And although in recent times the opportunities for migra-
tion have prevented the labourers from feeling the injurious results of
that tendency, and wages and conditions have on the contrary steadily
improved, they continue to leave the land. This is still partly to be
attributed to the large farm system. For it deprived the labourers of
their holdings, and so robbed agricultural employment of its chief
attraction. The use of a piece of land makes the delights of town
life look dull, and keeps the labourer in the country even when in
many respects he might do better in other employments. The large
farm system, therefore, aggravated the opposition between town and
country conditions, and in every direction strengthened the tendency
to migration.

This fact has been recognised of late years, and in consequence
the creation of small holdings has been regarded as of increasing
importance as a means of putting a stop to the rural exodus. It is
no longer simply a question of the need of the landed interests for
allotments as a means of retaining their labourers. The movement is

1 Haggard, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 105 f. (Sussex); Vol. II, p. 111 (Lincolnshire); p. in
(Oxfordshire) ; and cp. also p. 539.

2 For such a description see Levy, Landarbeiterfrage etc., pp. 503-6; and also Shaw
Lefevre, op. cit. pp. 31-33.

Social and Political Aspects 117

not simply " in the interest of the employers," in the sense in which
that is a doubtful benefit to the men. The question is understood to
be a question of social policy. Small holdings and allotments are to
bring the people back to the land. The aim of the Labourers' Friend
Society in 1832 had been simply to improve the lot of the labourers,
whose wages had fallen in view of the over-stocked market for their
labour and the impossibility of migration. But the modern move-
ment aims at moderating the rural exodus, and at re-populating the
deserted country.

It is very credible that labourers who are in a position to cultivate
a bit of land for themselves are more inclined to remain on the
land than the mere proletarian. There is something very attractive
to the labourer in the prospect of advancing from the status of
an allotment-holder to that of a small farmer, and of finally being
free from the necessity of working for an employer. He wants
something better to look forward to than his weekly wage on a
Saturday night, as Mr Winfrey put it1. In the most various cases the
provision of allotments and small holdings has proved to be favourable
to the increase of the population of a district, just as when they dis-
appeared the rural population was found to migrate if possible*. " It
is an established fact," says Mr Samuel, "that in the villages of
England where small holdings are numerous the population rarely
declines and often increases8." Statistics too may be cited in this
connection. In the Census of Occupations, under the head " Farmers'
Relatives assisting in the work of the Farm," the numbers fell from
111,704 in the year 1851 to 75,197 in the year 1881, but rose again to
89,165 between 1881 and 1901. These noteworthy figures are probably
chiefly to be explained by the development of small holdings. Small
farming needs, both absolutely and per acre, more labour than does
large farming; and therefore, with the decrease in small farms between
1851 and 1 88 1, went a decrease in the number of farmers' relatives
employed. Conversely such employment increased from the moment
when large farming began to give way to small4. Therefore, also,
as labourers were converted into allotment-holders and small farmers,
the possibility of keeping not only themselves but their sons and
daughters on the land increased. It was this fact which first turned

1 Report of Proceedings at the Fifth Congress of the Co-operative Alliance, 1907, p. 343.

1 Ibid., p. 369. See also W. J. Harris's paper in Land, its Attractions and Riches, 189*, I

p. 3°*- '

3 Samuel, op. cit. p. 104.

4 See also Druce, op. cit. pp. 3, 13.

1 1 8 Large and Small Holdings

the attention of the Liberal party to the social importance of small
holdings. The old attempt to provide the labourer with land to
cultivate or to keep stock on was revived, after nearly a century of
impotence, under the motto of "three acres and a cow1." Legislative,
as well as private effort, gave it expression. Before discussing the
legislative efforts in this direction, however, there are certain important
facts to be taken into consideration.

(b) The problem of landowners/tip in relation to the unit of holding.

The multiplication of small holdings may take place in two ways ;
namely either by a revival of small properties, i.e. by the purchase of
land by small cultivators, or by the division of large farms into small
ones, and the consequent replacing of the existing large farmers by a
greater number of small farmers. In either case the question of land-
ownership offers difficulties.

If the object in view is the multiplication of small properties, it
has first of all to be taken into consideration that relatively speaking
very little land comes upon the market in England. The greater
part of the land is entailed, and the owner is obliged to hand it on
intact at his death to his eldest son or other legal heir. He cannot
sell any of it, unless under the very unattractive conditions prescribed
by the Settled Land Act of 1882. In any case, many such owners
have no idea of selling, but only desire to buy land ; so that the
ownership of the soil continually comes into fewer and fewer hands.
It may be said that 50 per cent, of the land of England is owned by
between two and three thousand persons. A further result of the
system is that the actual process of sale becomes expensive, since the
possibility of the existence of an entail makes it necessary for the seller
to prove in each instance his right to alienate the land in question,
which adds to the lawyer's charges. And if the quantity of land upon
the market is limited in this way, the would-be small owner finds the
price of it enhanced in another way. In no country is the possession
of land so much desired for social and political reasons as in England.
Landownership gives the rich man social standing, and very often
the possibility of a political career ; and every great iron-master, ship-
builder or manufacturer must needs have his country house just as
the old county families have. Then there is the question of sport.
In the case of most sales the advertisements in the newspapers will

1 F. Impey, Three Acres and a Cow, 1885.

Social and Political Aspects 119

be found to contain some such important item as " shooting good " ;
or "good shooting, hunting and fishing"; or "choice sporting estate."
Obviously, the demand for land for such purposes as these, more
especially in view of the limited supply, must raise its exchange value
above the capitalised annual profit. Although the actual price of
land may have fallen in the last two or three decades, the wealthy
purchaser finds compensation for the small return obtainable for his ,
capital in the non-economic advantages of landownership. The rents \
may be small, but he has the satisfaction of being a landlord ; and so |
long as this is his object, he is ready to pay more for the land than I
its strictly economic value would warrant. "There are landlords
holding even large estates to whom it is not a matter of serious issue
whether they get any profit from their estates1 " : and there are others
who find farming "the pleasantest of recreations, giving health and
pleasure far beyond yachting and horses," even if the " farm accounts
year by year show a substantial balance on the wrong side2."

This difference between the capitalised annual profit and the
exchange value is however a serious matter for the man who wants
to buy a small property and to live on its produce. He has to pay,
in the enhanced purchasing price, for a quality of the land which is
of no value to him, since what he is concerned with is simply the
economic possibilities of the holding. All this is especially true of
the neighbourhood of large towns ; and as the excellent means of
communication in England bring the townsman rapidly and cheaply
into the country, the word " neighbourhood " is here of wide significa-
tion. If the purchaser of a small dairy-farm of, say, 20 acres, has to
pay, besides the price reckoned in the ordinary way upon the profits,
a " super-price " determined by the amount which a city capitalist is
willing to pay for the property as a shooting-box or country residence,
it naturally becomes doubtful whether the small owner, even if he
does well, will be able to get from the land an adequate return upon
his capital. This is the great difficulty in the way of a revival of j
small properties.

But the development of small tenant-farming, by the cutting up
of large farms into small, is also faced with difficulties arising out of
the problem of landownership in England. These difficulties become
burning questions where small agriculturists have not the capital for
the purchase of land, but have the means and capacity to rent a small
holding. The difficulty in this case arises from the fact that it

1 W. J. Maiden, The Conversion of Arable Land into Pasture, 1898, p. 25.

2 Haggard, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 160.

I2O Large and Small Holdings

depends on the will of the landlord to form small farms or not to form
them. Their economic interest, in the present day, often demands
that they should form them. The reason why they frequently
nevertheless fail to do so is partly to be sought in the high initial
expenditure required for the erection of farmhouses and outbuildings,
the provision of a water-supply, and so forth. They are afraid of
such an experiment. Often they hesitate to borrow the necessary
capital ; or if they have it themselves, some other investment seems
safer or more profitable. But still, so far as the hindrances to the
division of large farms lie in purely economic considerations such as
these, they might be regarded as not insuperable. If many landlords
had the experience of Lord Harrowby, who had five and twenty offers
for a holding of 23 acres, while for one of 1000 acres he could not find
a single purchaser, enlightened self-interest might be trusted to bring
them to the conclusion that they must surely if slowly cut up their
estates into small holdings unless they wish to see them vastly
diminished in value1. Probably such economic considerations would
already have led to a much more rapid development of small holdings
if other non-economic motives had not counteracted their effect. But
here again it has to be remembered that to the English landowner the
soil is not simply an instrument of production, out of which he seeks
to obtain the highest returns possible ; its value to him is very largely
in the social, political and sporting amenities which it offers. Small
holdings, however, are much less favourable than large to sport and
hunting. Lord Harrowby did indeed attempt to explain the antipathy
of landlords to the development of small holdings purely on the ground
of the expenditure involved, and laid before the Committee of 1906
calculations intended to prove this. But an incidental remark in his
evidence speaks more eloquently than those hypothetical figures.
" I think if you have a house with shooting it is a disadvantage to
have a lot of little holdings all about the place — there is trespass and
all that." He himself at that time reared, he said, 5000 pheasants on
, his estates8. In many neighbourhoods the landlord is an opponent
\ of small holdings for the reason that they demand the transformation
j of arable into pasture, which is bad for partridge shooting. In Norfolk
large districts were for some time let at an almost nominal rent,
although some of the land was well suited for fruit and vegetable
culture, and therefore for the formation of small holdings8. Nor is

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, qu. 2387 and qu. 2439.
J Ibid., qu. 1450. Cp. also qu. 2458, 2460.
\ * J. Simpson, in The County Gentleman's Estate Book, 1903, p. 114.

Social and Political Aspects 121

this the only non-economic motive which affects the landlord adversely
to small holdings. The cutting up of large fields and pastures, or the
multiplication of buildings, or even of houses with smoking chimneys,
may offend his taste and his sense of pride in his estate. Again,
many Conservatively-minded landlords are doubtful whether the new
race of small farmers, mostly raised from the ranks of the mere
labourers, will represent the political views of their squire as well as
the old true-blue large farmers ; or whether the creation of these new
holdings may not create a crowd of radical land-reformers on their
own preserves. This alone is sufficient to make many landlords
prefer lowering the rent of their existing tenants to cutting up the
farms with a view to obtaining a larger income. But their leanings
in this direction are strongly confirmed by the influence of their land-
agents. These latter have to administer the estates, to collect the
rents and to treat with the tenants. The landlord, who spends his
time hunting and shooting, the season in London, the winter in Paris
or on the Riviera, has comparatively little time on his own land, and
knows little of its economic aspects. He consults his agent on such
points ; and the agent is in favour of large holdings. The large
farmer is of the same social standing as himself, often his personal
friend, and all difficult questions can be settled between them over a
sociable glass of whisky. The trouble begins when the small farmer
has to be dealt with1. In this case the tenant regards the agent as a
capitalist rent-collector ; the agent regards the tenant as little better
than a proletarian. Consequently their relations tend to be strained.
Besides this, one holding of 300 acres gives the agent considerably
less trouble, less controversy over repairs and such matters, than the
same area when cut up into say fifteen holdings of 20 acres eachj
The large farmer does small repairs for himself; to the little farmei
every job seems big enough for a call upon the landlord. Hence the
dislike of the agents for small holdings : and they have as a rule the
ear of their employer. It must not however be forgotten that there'
are honourable exceptions to this rule. There are wide-minded or
energetic landlords (as for example the present President of the Board
of Agriculture, Lord Carrington) and agents under such landlords
who are really interested in carrying out their views1. But on the

1 The statement in the (distinctly Conservative) Report of 1906 that " of the agents who
appeared before the Committee none expressed themselves as hostile to the creation of small
holdings" is a somewhat naive defence in face of the facts, which are unfortunately only too
well-known. The land-agents naturally do not ascribe their prejudice to mere selfishness, but
to purely technical and economic considerations.

* Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 8059 (Mr J. Tomkinson) : and the evidence
of Mr H. M. Jonas, agent for Lord Carrington, pp. 358 ff.

122 Large and Small Holdings

whole the bitter words of that old Parliamentarian, Sir Francis
Channing, are true : " It is an age of extreme luxury, when estates
are bought by the enormously rich for social prestige, and without
thought of the duty that attaches to the owner of land as the nation's
trustee. With many, the passion for sport overrides everything, and
will throw every obstacle in the way of sub-division, which endangers
the interests of shooting or of hunting1."

Yet a third class of opponents of small holdings is formed by the
large farmers themselves, who are also strongly opposed to the letting
of allotments to labourers. Their objections seem to be only partly
due to the considerations of political or social advantage or general
amenity which are at the root of the opposition of landlords and land-
agents. They claim that their dislike is in the main based on economic
considerations : and their arguments are those which their predeces-
sors employed before them. They say that allotments will make the
labourer too independent, and will lead him to expend more and
better labour on his own holding than on theirs. Their ideal is still
a proletarian labouring class, as appears in every discussion on small
holdings and the rural exodus2. Yet it would seem a matter for
serious consideration on their part whether, in view of the exodus
from the land and the much-lamented shortage of labour, it would
not suit them better to have labourers holding land than no labourers
at all. Would not a constant supply of labour and the retention of
the young men on the land be better than insufficient numbers of
ageing men ? Kentish farmers are said to engage all manner of
people from the towns nearest to them for their harvest work — clerks,
petty officials, etc., who spend their holidays in this manner and so
combine pleasure with profit. It hardly seems reasonable that farmers
in such a position should grudge the labourer his allotment, instead
of rejoicing at a means which would put labour at his disposal when
he needed it. The smallest holdings keep the younger labourers on
the soil and so would supply him with regular daily labour. The
larger allotments should provide the necessary occasional labour,
especially where they consist of grass land, and the wife is able to
look after the cow-sheds and milk the cows when her husband is out
at work. It is frequently reported that such allotment-holders make
the best labourers3. In short, the economic objections of the large
farmer seem to be rather a traditional prejudice than a genuine argu-
ment, even if they are made in good faith, which is often doubtful.

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, p. 53.

2 Cp. e.g. Proceedings of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, 1901, p. 116.

3 Earl of Onslow, op. cit. p. 47.

Social and Political Aspects 123

Their dislike is really traceable to social considerations, which for
purposes of discussion are decently cloaked in economic garments.
As a matter of fact the large farmer has an antipathy to the small
man who claims or hopes to claim a position of independence. It is
largely due to this social prejudice that, as Mr Channing's Minority
Report put it : " The majority of the large farmers do not yet seem
to realise what the systematic development of allotments and small
holdings can do for agriculture in maintaining on the spot a perma-
nent supply of efficient and skilled labour1." The prejudices of the
large farmers and land-agents also mutually strengthen each other.

Mr G. C. Brodrick drew from such considerations as these the
conclusion that small holdings cannot make much progress unless
the great landed estates are broken up. Where the estate is com-
paratively small and the owner is his own agent the evils resulting
from the free hand given to the agent on the large estates are not, he
says, present; and on such estates the tendency to divide the holdings
is stronger2. No doubt the abolition of primogeniture and of entails
would be favourable both to the breaking up of large estates and to
the development of small holdings. But the division of the large
farms is making good progress in England in spite of the present
conditions of land-owning. The social and political counteracting
tendencies just described do indeed hinder, but do not prevent, the
economically profitable development. This, however, is a fact which
deserves some attention.

For the first time in English agrarian history, the system of
capitalistic concentration, as applied to the land, is showing serious
weakness. So far, it has developed hand in hand with the economic
needs of agriculture. Large estates and large farms went excellently
together. At the present time the interest of the landowner,
economically speaking, would be in the formation of small farms.
But his interests are only partly economic. They are also social
and political, and to these latter the small farm system does not
correspond. The social and political interests, moreover, are often as
strong as, or even stronger than, the desire to obtain the highest
possible money return. Here lies the danger for the future de-
velopment of English agriculture, and the defect of the hitherto
economically satisfactory system of capitalist agriculture. If land-
owners prize the non-economic aspects of their estates so highly as to

1 Final Report, 1897, p. 355.

2 Brodrick, op. cit. pp. 393 f. " The owner of many thousand acres... is almost sure to be
more or less in the hands of his agent," etc.

124 Large and Small Holdings

be willing to pay a considerable price for them ; if on political grounds,
or from negligence, carelessness or ignorance they prefer to lower the
rents of their large corn-growing tenants rather than to support those
tenants who are prepared to wring greater results from the soil by the
sweat of their brows, then they have certainly become monopolists of
the worst type, and from an economic point of view are a superfluous
class. Every modification of rent allowed to a corn-growing farmer
on land where small holdings would make a greater profit is a premium
offered by the landowner for the maintenance of an economically
retrograde agriculture. Land has so far become a luxury. It pro-
duces, with the help of privately provided bounties in the form of
lowered rents, commodities, such as corn, which could be imported
more cheaply from abroad ; whereas if managed on purely capitalist
principles it would only produce commodities in which it could com-
pete on equal terms with the foreigner.

Such is the conflict between the problem of the proper unit of
holding and the problem of landownership as the two stand in England
at present : and so much it has been necessary to premise in order to
explain the origin of the movement which from 1880 onwards has
demanded the multiplication of small holdings by means of State
interference. The measures passed for this purpose, and above all
the Small Holdings Act of 1907, may well be described as measures
of agrarian reform. For they are attempts to reform the present
conditions of landownership in England in so far as they have been
found a hindrance to a healthy development of agricultural small
holdings.

CHAPTER VIII

LEGISLATIVE ACTION IN FAVOUR OF SMALL HOLDINGS

(a) The Small Holdings Acts.

THE series of Acts aiming at the formation of small holdings
begins first of all with Acts for the creation of allotments. Such are
the Allotments Act of 1887 (50 and 51 Viet. c. 48) and the Allotments
Act of 1890 (53 and 54 Viet. c. 65). There follows the most significant
Act of the series, the Small Holdings Act of 1 892 (55 and 56 Viet. c. 3 1 ),
aimed exclusively at the creation of small holdings, whereas the Local
Government Act of 1894 (56 and 57 Viet. c. 73) is only of importance
as regards allotments, and therefore hardly concerns us here. Finally
comes the last and most important measure, the Small Holdings and
Allotments Act of 1907 (7 Ed. VII. c. 54), amending that of 1892,
and aiming at a fundamental reform of the previous methods of State
creation both of small tenancies and small properties. It was preceded
by the Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board
of Agriculture, which sat in 1905 and 1906, and took much evidence
as to the results and failures of the previous Acts. This Committee
consisted of men of the highest qualifications as authorities on agri-
culture or agricultural policy, among whom were the former President
of the Board of Agriculture, Lord Onslow ; its present President,
Lord Carrington, whose services to the small holdings' movement
have already been mentioned ; the well-known champion of " three
acres and a cow," Mr Jesse Collings ; Major Craigie, the official
agricultural statistician; Mr R. A. Yerburgh, M.P., the pioneer of
agricultural co-operation in England ; Sir F. A. Channing, and others.
Among the expert witnesses who appeared before it were small
farmers, land-agents, landlords, and various authorities on agricultural
policy ; but, unfortunately, no agricultural labourers. The Majority
Report (signed only with certain reservations by some members) was
presented to the President of the Board on December 10, 1906. But

126 Large and Small Holdings

its recommendations were only in part the basis of the Bill of 1907,
since the change of government which took place in the meantime
naturally meant that the Bill, when introduced, would represent the
views of the Liberal Party, which differed essentially from those of
the Committee and the Report. The Small Holdings Bill of the
Liberal Party it was which became law on August 28, 1907.

To understand the whole significance of this measure it is necessary
to outline the provisions of the Act of 1892, which the new Act
amended. Those provisions were briefly as follows: — Every County
Council was empowered to create small holdings if a sufficient demand
were proved to exist; that is to say, if any person laid a petition to
that effect before the Council, and the Council convinced itself that
there was such a demand. The State was to provide the necessary
capital for the purchase of land at a low rate of interest, but the
purchaser must pay down on the spot at least \ of the price. He
might leave upon the land a perpetual rent equal to the interest on
\ of the remaining capital ; but the other f was to be paid off in half-
yearly instalments of principal and interest. Where the applicant
was not in a position to purchase land, the Council might let a small
holding to him. But such a holding was not to be more than 1 5 acres
in area, nor of a higher value than would be represented by a rent of
£15 per annum. The main object was thus the creation of small
properties and not of small tenancies.

The result of this legislation by no means corresponded to the
hopes of its promoters. Although the Act obliged every County
Council to form a Committee to receive and consider petitions, and
although such petitions were received in 27 counties of England and
Wales and 14 Scottish counties, in the ten years 1892 to 1902 only
652 acres had been acquired for the purposes of the Act. Only five
English counties and one Scottish county bought land, and three
English counties rented land, for small holdings. Between 1902
and 1906 only two cases were known in which an English County
Council had purchased land under the Act. In one case 46 acres,
in the other 92 acres had been bought.

The question arises as to why so promising a measure failed to
accomplish the "home colonisation" expected of it.

The most natural explanation would be that the legislation
corresponded to no economic need. But neither the witnesses before
the Committee of 1905-6 nor the Report of the Committee gives any
countenance to such an hypothesis. On the contrary, the whole
enquiry showed plainly that a lively demand for small holdings

Legislative Action 127

existed throughout the country, and that any practicable method
of facilitating their revival would be more than ever welcome from an
economic point of view1. If no explanation of the failure of the Act
of 1892 is to be found in this direction, then the next possibility which
will suggest itself will be that the disappointing result was due to some
inadequacy in the administration of the Act. The Report of 1906
pointed to this as a possibility; and undoubtedly with justification.
Sometimes special reasons would lead a County Council to leave the
Act unused. In one county, where no less than 349 petitions were
received, "it was decided that as 'the rate-payers were already burdened
with heavy taxation it was unfair to impose upon them the extra cost
of carrying out the Act, an experiment which ought to be borne by
the State2.'" In many cases it was difficult to gauge the strength of
the demand for small holdings. Many of those who were quite likely
to desire them remained ignorant of the existence of the Act. In
Worcestershire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire the application of the Act
was traceable to the initiative of certain enthusiastic members of the
County Council, and their action was fully justified. The Report of
1906, which was in favour of leaving the main principles of the law
unchanged, laid special emphasis on these cases, as showing that the
difficulties were only difficulties of administration. It proposed that
a Central Board should share the administrative powers with the local
authorities, a proposal which was incorporated in the Bill ultimately
introduced, and now appears as the first part of the new Act (sections

i-5).

According to these sections, the Board of Agriculture is to act as
central authority for this purpose. It appoints certain Small Holdings
Commissioners, i.e. officials who are to seek to ascertain what demand
there is for small holdings in the various counties and how far it
appears practicable and desirable to satisfy this demand. It is an
important point that not merely the County Councils, but also the
smaller bodies, the District and Parish Councils, are able to supply
the Commissioners with materials on which to form their judgment,
so that the County Councils, which have so often shown themselves
disinclined to take the matter up, are no longer the sole judges of the
questions at issue. If the Board of Agriculture considers that the
creation of small holdings in a certain district is desirable and

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, pp. 444 and 445 of the index. Cp. also the
instructive book by Miss Jebb (now Mrs Wilkins) on The Small Holdings of England, 1907,
passim.

z Small Holdings Report, 1906, p. n, § 46.

128 Large and Small Holdings

practicable, it can require the County Council to produce a detailed
scheme for the purpose. If the Council fails to fulfil this duty, the
Board itself may prepare such a scheme, obtaining the necessary
information by means of a public enquiry, as it can always do in the
case of a difference of opinion between itself and a County Council.
The scheme must then be carried out, according to the Acts of 1892
and 1907, by the County Council. If the Council again refuses to do
its duty, the Commissioners may take over the work, and in that
case all rights given by the Acts to the County Council pass to the
Commissioners, but the County Council or other local authority
concerned is responsible for the expenditure incurred.

It is evident that these provisions put upon the County Council
the pressure which has so far been wanting. That the smaller local
authorities, which hitherto have had to proceed through the County
Council, can now appeal direct to the central authority (see Part III,
26 (7) of the Act of 1907), which is to be carefully and constantly
observant of the whole question, is in itself a great step in advance:
and the fact that in case of need the Commissioners can take action
at last provides a guarantee that any really well-founded demand for
small holdings will be satisfied.

Nevertheless it would be a mistake to ascribe the miscarriage of
the Act of 1892 solely to the failure of County Councils to carry it
into effect. In spite of the anxiety of the Departmental Committee
to put that cause in the forefront, it could not be concealed, in view
both of the evidence of experts and the facts they brought forward,
that the whole machinery of the Act was defective, and in parts
faulty, and that some of its most essential features needed radical
reform.

This was especially the case with the provisions respecting the
acquisition of land. Even where a Council did not lack the goodwill
and the energy necessary to carry out the Act, it was powerless to
proceed if there were no land suitable for division at its disposal.
"Large farms, it is true, come into the market from time to time,"
wrote a man of experience, Mr C. R. Buxton, in a memorandum which
is well worth reading1, "but small quantities of land are often quite
impossible to obtain." The conditions noted above as enhancing the
value of land in England increase the difficulty in this case also; it is
indeed partly created by the long-established customs and traditions
of English landownership. The exchange value of a large estate is,
for social and political reasons, higher than the price which small

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, p. 431.

Legislative Action 129

agriculturists can afford to pay for it when cut up into areas of 5 to
50 acres. In particular, the landowner hopes, by selling a com-
paratively large extent of land to some wealthy man, fond of sport
and not particular about making a profit on the estate, to get for
those parts of the land which are of little value for agricultural
purposes a price which it will indeed be worth the while of such a
purchaser to pay, from his point of view, but which no mere agri-
culturist could afford. When the Small Holdings Bill of 1892 was
before Parliament, a member of an eminent firm of land-agents wrote
a letter to the Press, quoted by Mr Shaw Lefevre1, in which he
stated: — "My firm has on its books for sale a considerable number
" of landed properties of from 1,000 to 10,000 acres or more. In most
" of them the land lies together, and many of them consist of a whole
" parish, or of two or three adjoining parishes. It cannot be expected
" that in these cases the vendors will be willing to sell to local
"authorities 50 or 100 acres... for the purpose of creating a number
"of small freeholders or leaseholders — The entirety of a property
"within its boundaries is a great attraction to purchasers. The
" planting of a number of small freeholders in the midst of it might
" greatly interfere with the amenities of the estate, as they are generally
" understood, and with the sporting rights over the same. We have
"many other smaller properties for sale, of ioo to IOOO acres. Most
" of these are of a residential character, where we could not advise
" vendors to sell off part for the creation of small ownerships." It was
therefore no wonder that in a report on the Act of 1892, published in
1895, the complaint was made that the County Councils were hardly
anywhere in a position to obtain land. Either it was not to be had
at all, or not upon reasonable terms. On the other hand it was a
perfectly justifiable provision of the Act that land should not be
bought unless the price was such that it could be repaid by the small
agriculturist who was to be the ultimate purchaser (cf. Section 18(1)).
The County Council was consequently obliged to avoid paying more
for the land than its capitalised annual value. But in the result it was
often impossible to purchase at all. Thus in one Lincolnshire parish
containing 21,133 acres, only 146 acres were available for the purposes
of the Act.

It was on the ground of this experience that a demand for

compulsory purchase began to be heard on all sides. When in 1892

the Small Holdings Bill of that year was under discussion in and

outside Parliament, there was no possibility of carrying such a clause,

1 Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. p. 268.

L. 9

130 Large and Small Holdings

though the idea had been carefully considered by the original pro-
moters of the Bill. The Conservative Party would never have con-
sented to such a thing. In their view the contemplated legislation
might be a useful means of keeping a greater proportion of the rural
population on the land, but they would have nothing to do with
anything which might recall the attacks of Land Reformers upon the
rights of property. "I myself am strongly against compulsion," said
Lord Salisbury in February 1892, "at all events at this stage; because
I do not believe it to be needed, and because I am sure that com-
pulsion will create ill-will1." Lord Salisbury thus left it to experience
to prove the necessity for compulsion. The evidence which he
demanded was certainly not slow to appear. Even by 1893 Mr Shaw
Lefevre, in his excellent book on Agrarian Tenures, was able to say
"there is little hope of obtaining such land, unless power to purchase
it by compulsion be conferred on local authorities2." The Liberal
Party were from that time forward zealous advocates of the intro-
duction of provision for compulsion. Mr Herbert Samuel, in his
book on Liberalism, published in 1902, describes this as the most
important necessary reform in the Act of 1892. The results of the
Committee of Enquiry of 1905-6, as already indicated, confirm the
proposition. In fact, the system of compulsory purchase had already
amply justified itself in the case of the creation of allotments, where,
under the Allotments Acts and the Local Government Act of 1894,
the District and Parish Councils could either buy or rent land
compulsorily, if so instructed by the County Council.

These Acts had obviously been much more effective than the
Small Holdings Act. Between 1887 and 1897, 12,516 acres had
been acquired under the Allotments Acts by the local authorities,
and 3785 acres between 1897 and 1902. No doubt the question of
allotments depends on other considerations of agricultural and rural
economy than the question of small holdings, and the chances of the
multiplication of the former were originally better. But the difficulty
of acquiring land is common to both problems: so that the working
of the Allotments Acts clearly proved that the possibility of com-
pulsory purchase by the authority concerned could considerably
lessen that difficulty.

It had also proved, however, that the possibility of compulsion by

1 Quoted in Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. p. 86.

2 Ibid., p. 273. It is remarkable that Mr Shaw Lefevre (now Lord Eversley) advocated
as long ago as 1893 precisely the measures which have now become law ; cp. op. cit.
pp. 170-173.

Legislative Action 131

no means necessarily meant that resort would be had to that weapon.
Between 1897 and 1902, 3576 acres were acquired by the Councils by
way of agreement with the landowners, and only 206 by compulsion1.
Various cases were brought to the notice of the Committee of 1905-6
where "the mere existence of the (compulsory) powers has secured
the provision of land where otherwise none would have been forth-
coming2." The possibility of expropriation put pressure upon the
landowner. It also prevented the evil often complained of before the
Committee, that the price of land offered to the authorities was often
far above the " fair market price." For if this happened to be the case
the Council could use their powers of compulsion. It was thus a
simple statement of fact when Sir F. A. Channing wrote that "com-
pulsory powers, if too costly for frequent use, at least tend to bring
about acquisition by agreement3."

Even the Conservatively-minded Majority Report could not leave
this proposition out of account. But it confined itself to the suggestion
that such powers should be vested in the central authority, namely
the Board of Agriculture, and only in the case of purchase. Even
that, however, was a step forward, as compared with Lord Salisbury's
pronouncement of fourteen years earlier. The Liberal Bill went
further. It did not take the Committee's view that the right of
expropriation should be confined to the central Department, which
would be unlikely to use it "arbitrarily4." On the contrary, section 6(2)
of the new Act provides that "If a County Council are unable to
acquire by agreement and on reasonable terms suitable land for the
purpose aforesaid, they may acquire land compulsorily in accordance
with the provisions of this Act." This power, as has been shown
above, passes in case of need to the central authority. It includes the
right of compulsory hiring, as well as of purchase. And in the former
possibility lies hid the most significant and decisive reform of the
whole measure.

For the great hindrance to the effectiveness of the Act of 1892
had obviously not lain simply in the fact that the County Councils
found it difficult to acquire land. From the very first, experience
under the Act brought a second problem to the fore: namely, whether
the purchase of land by the local authority and the formation of small
properties rather than small tenancies is the best means to pursue for
the revival of small holdings in England.

1 Return to the House of Commons, May 18, 1903 (Local Government Board), p. i*.

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, p. 432.

8 Ibid., p. 53, § 13. « Ibid., p. 33, § 43.

9—2

132 Large and Small Holdings

The pioneers of the whole movement were two men who at that
time were prominent Radicals, namely Mr Joseph Chamberlain and
Mr Jesse Collings. In a very interesting publication of the year 1885,
which bore the imprimatur of Mr Chamberlain and was entitled The
Radical Programme, it was expressly stated that — "It will be found
that in a rich country like England, with the desire for land which is
generally found among the wealthy classes, there will be but small
chance for either farmers or labourers who are not capitalists to raise
themselves out of the ranks of tenants and wage-receivers. Some
special legislation will be needed to prevent monopoly and accumula-
tion of land by a few persons, and to bring about, or rather to restore,
the interest and connection between the cultivator and the soil which
exist in other countries, and which in former times obtained in Eng-
land. Occupying ownership and peasant proprietary established under
certain conditions and by the aid of the State, acting through local
authorities, seem to be the direction in which these objects can best
be secured1." Peasant proprietorship was thus the aim of the first
promoters of the movement : and accordingly the Act of 1892
favoured the creation of small properties rather than of small
tenancies. Such tenancies, it will be remembered, might not be
of greater extent than 15 acres (whereas small properties might be
anything up to 50 acres), and then might only be let if the County
Council was of opinion that the prospective tenant was not in a
position to purchase such a holding.

But in spite of the intentions of the pioneers and the provisions of
the Act, the expectations of a revival of small ownership were dis-
appointed to a very remarkable degree. Of the 569 acres of land
acquired by the County Councils between 1892 and 1902, only 162 had
been sold to their occupiers, whereas 373 were let. The explanation is
not obscure. The interposition of the local authority did indeed facili-
tate the acquisition of land by the small agriculturist in many ways;
but it did not do away with the fundamental difficulty, viz. that he had
to pay, in the exchange value of the land, more than its capitalised
annual value. Also, though he only had to pay down \ of the total
price, that sum was no inconsiderable one, especially as, if the Council
provided the necessary buildings, etc., \ of their cost was included.
Or if the preparation of the holding was not undertaken by the
Council, then the purchaser had to be prepared with a still larger
amount of capital. He must also be provided with the necessary
working capital ; so that merely to take over such a property would

1 The Radical Programme, 1885, pp. 145 f.

Legislative Action 133

demand a sum of ready money which would be more than most of the
persons in question would possess. The amount may be reckoned at
about .£400 for a holding of 30 acres; and the small holder would
then still have the annual instalments of the remainder of the
purchase-money as a considerable burden lying upon him for the
future.

But if the purchase of a holding thus makes demands upon the
capital of the small agriculturist which he either cannot meet or does
not consider it worth his while to incur, he is on the other hand much
more frequently in a position to invest his capital profitably in renting
a small farm. If the County Council can take land at the usual rent,
and will re-let it to the small man at a rent only so much higher as
corresponds to the expenditure incurred, the latter is as a rule quite
able so to increase the profitableness of the holding as to pay the
enhanced rent. He can then apply his whole capital as working
capital, instead of sinking it in the land. A witness before the
Committee of 1906, Mr H. H. Smith, sets out very intelligibly the
considerations which affect the small agriculturist on the taking over
of a small holding : — " He does not look forward like the French
" peasant. County Council Committees who have sat to hear appli-
" cations for land under the Small Holdings Act have been sadly
"disappointed to find what a very small number of the applicants
" were willing to accept their holdings under the purchase system : by
" far the greater number of them are desirous of renting only, and that
" for short terms, the general desire being for a yearly tenancy. This
" may possibly have arisen from the fact that the future of agriculture
" in this country is still uncertain ; and no one can say that we have
" touched the bottom of the depression. Therefore the labourer who
" aspires to become a small farmer may hesitate to embark his earnings
" in an enterprise which binds him to a fixed rent, which rent must be
" paid, whether matters get worse or not... For the English peasant to
" become a proprietor under the existing Act means that he will for fifty
" years — that is the whole stretch of his life — have to pay a greater sum
" annually for the land which he is to make his freehold, than if he were
" merely renting it ; in addition to this he has to find a sum to be paid
" down representing one-fifth of the purchase-money. His proprietary
" instincts are not strong, and he does not care to pinch himself in
"order to benefit posterity. Moreover he argues 'the capital I am
" finding as part purchase-money of my holding if added to the money
" I must necessarily find to stock it, will enable me to take a larger
" farm as a leasing or renting tenant, than I can possibly take under the

134 Large and Small Holdings

" purchase system : I will therefore go for leasing, because I can get a
" bigger income for myself A Frenchman will probably argue the
"other way, and say: 'True, under the purchasing system I can only
" take a smaller holding than I could under the leasing system, but I
" am saving money under the first system in a sure and almost im-
" perceptible manner, as every day I am nearing the time when the
" holding will become a freehold which I shall be able to bequeath to
" my family.' This apparently does not appeal to the English peasants,
" and the passion for ownership does not exist among them to any-
thing like the same extent that it does in many other nations1."

It is a curious fact that the last remnants of the lesser yeomanry
disappeared in the period 1760 to 1815, because, in view of the high
price of corn then ruling, the small man found it more profitable to
take a large holding as farmer than to retain his position as a small
owner. He sold his land, attracted by the higher income to be made
on an arable farm of some hundreds of acres. The economics of the
unit of holding were the determining factor in that movement. But
it is not any question as to the unit of holding which causes the small
capitalist of the present day to prefer tenancy to ownership. A small
holding is now more profitable than a large holding. The determin-
ing factor today is the problem of ownership itself, namely the
contrast between the exchange value of the land and the comparatively
small return to be obtained from it

The Departmental Committee could not well ignore the various
cases cited and expressions of opinion given in proof of this tendency
to prefer tenancy to ownership. The Report mentions yet other
causes making in the same direction ; e.g. a fear on the part of the
small capitalist that some new agricultural crisis might depreciate the
value of his land after he had bought it; the difficult question of
inheritance; the desire of small agriculturists to begin with a few acres
only, but to be able to increase their holdings as their savings grow,
an aspiration more easily fulfilled by a tenant than by a proprietor.
These are all no doubt real elements in the preference for tenancy,
though the relatively high cost of land is certainly its main cause.
The Committee, however, did not draw the conclusion that the Act
of 1892 should be so amended as to correspond to the actual needs of
the day. On the contrary, it held fast to the principles of the old
Act, and only recommended certain changes directed to facilitate the
purchase of small holdings.

Its argument was that the great advantage to be expected from such

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 3733.

Legislative Action 135

legislation could only arise from the creation of a number of small
holders with a permanent interest in the land and in their own soil.
It had been proved, they said, "that in some parts of the country the
'magic of property' is entirely appreciated. It was pointed out that a
man who can give a year's notice to his landlord is much more likely
to be attracted to the towns than one whose all is invested in the
piece of land which he cultivates, and that a small occupying freeholder
will gladly do the work of two labourers for the earnings of one1."

Arthur Young, writing in the early years of the nineteenth century
of his visit to the small proprietors of the Isle of Axholme, had spoken
of "the magic of property" as there manifested. This phrase has sent
his name down to posterity as that of a champion of peasant pro-
prietorship, though as a matter of fact he was the most zealous of
advocates for capitalist large farming. Wherever the creation of
small properties is in question in England to-day, there that classic
phrase does duty. It naturally appears, therefore, in the Report of
1906. "The magic of property," it is there claimed, though not every-
where present in the England of to-day, might very well be developed
among small agriculturists. It might also be used as a means to bind
the countryman to the soil and to prevent the depopulation of the
rural districts. So far, in the Committee's opinion, "the advantages
of ownership" had not as a rule "been sufficiently forcibly put before
those who desire to cultivate land2."

Therefore, in spite of experience, which was all against the
possibility of the revival of peasant proprietorship on any consider-
able scale, the Committee only recommended that the sum to be paid
down by purchasers should be reduced from £ to ^, while it left un-
touched the question of any facilitation of small tenancies. The
proposal to offer landlords extensive facilities for borrowing from
public funds would indeed, if carried out, have increased the possi-
bility of the creation of such tenancies; but it would have had no
bearing on their formation by the local authorities.

This view of the Committee, that the Government should mainly
concern itself with the provision of small properties only, was shared
by, and indeed was largely based on the support of, Mr Jesse Collings,
the original champion of the Act of 1892. He remains now as then
a staunch upholder of the position that any multiplication of small
holdings must be in the first place a multiplication of small properties.
He protested in a Minority Report of his own against the Committee's

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, p. 29, § 123; see also the whole section on Tenants or
Freeholders, pp. 28-30. 2 Ibid., pp. 29 f.

136 Large and Small Holdings

proposal to give credit to the landlords, and emphasised, on the other
hand, the necessity for further measures favouring the creation of
small ownership. These measures he also discussed in a book
published in rox*)1, and embodied in a Bill brought in by him but
never passed into law. But the advocacy of "occupying ownership "
at least was common to him and to the Majority Report. From
this view there naturally developed strong opposition to the system of
compulsory hiring of land as advocated from the Liberal side for some
years previously. Mr Ceilings' arguments on this point were prac-
tically the same as those of the Report, which said that: — "The
exercise of compulsory powers of this kind would involve the creation
of a system of tenant right, under which the ownership of land
would, in effect, be divided between two or even more persons
and authorities. The result would be, in the opinion of the Com-
mittee, that the sense of responsibility which should accompany
ownership would cease to exist, and also that endless disputes and
litigation would arise between landlords and tenants. Another result
would be to provoke, quite unnecessarily, the hostility of all large
farmers and landowners — Experience has proved that a system of
dual ownership of land is one which, under ordinary economic con-
ditions, cannot be permanent, and which, while it lasts, is fatal to the
proper maintenance of holdings, to harmony between landlord and
tenant, and to the prosperity of agriculture*."

Some courage was required to appeal to this "sense of responsi-
bility," in view of the fact that so many English landlords regard their
land in the first place as a means of obtaining sport, social considera-
tion, or political advantage; but the reference is a clear indication of
the spirit by which the Report was inspired. So far as it recognised
the principle of compulsion at all, namely only in the case of purchase
and only by the authority of the central Department, it was where it
could be of little value. It was much more important that the right
of compulsion should be extended to the authority which first comes
into play, i.e. the County Council; and that it should be available not
only for the purchase, but also for the hire of land. These necessities
were taken into account by the Liberal Bill and by the Act of 1907,
and it may be said that it is precisely these provisions which give
the Act its character as a genuine measure of reform.

The Act of 1907, although it stands for the principle that the
creation of small tenancies is to be favoured, by no means refuses to

1 Jesse Ceilings, Land Reform, 1906.

J Small Holdings Report, 1906, p. 33, § 144.

Legislative Action 137

forward the formation of small properties. But by the abolition of the
limitation of small tenancies to an area of 15 acres and a rent of £15
(see section 4 (2) of the old Act) this form of holding is no longer put
at a disadvantage : and, as already stated, the right of compulsion is
extended to the case of hiring as well as to that of purchase. In both
cases it is naturally provided that the right shall only be exercised "if
a County Council are unable to acquire by agreement and on reason-
able terms suitable land for the purpose" (sec. 6 (2) and sec. 22).
Naturally also land which is not to be considered as in agricultural
occupation is exempted from the possibility of compulsory acquisition.
The limitations under this head (see section 30) are very extensive.
They apply to parks, gardens, recreation grounds, home farms, etc.,
so that the landlord cannot be expropriated from any of his proper
"demesne-lands." But as, in other cases, purchase as well as hiring is
included in the provisions for compulsion, and as on the other hand
hiring is no longer put at a disadvantage as compared with purchase
when the procedure is by agreement, it seems probable that the choice
as between hiring and buying will in future be decided mainly on the
ground of the economic needs in the particular case.

This important provision for compulsory hiring necessitated a
number of minor regulations, of which some account must be given
here. The hiring must be by way of lease, for not less than fourteen
or more than thirty-five years (section 26 (2)). But the authority
may, by observing certain terms of notice, renew the lease for another
period of at least fourteen or at most thirty-five years, again com-
pulsorily, if an agreement cannot be arrived at (section 27 (i)).

To determine the rent to be paid by the authority to the owner,
the valuer is to keep in view the following points (see Schedule I,
Part II (4)): — (i) the rent at which the land has hitherto been let,
and the value at which it is assessed for rating purposes, (2) the loss
(if any) falling upon the owner in consequence of the division of
a holding, (3) the length and other conditions of the lease. Under
this head any reservations made by the landlord, as of rights of
hunting or fishing, are to be taken into account. (4) But there shall
not be taken into account any future increment of value for any
purpose other than that under consideration, in so far as the landlord
has the right to demand the land back for such expressly defined
purposes. That is to say that if a landlord, within the duration of
the lease, wants his land, or a part of it, for building, mining or any
other industrial purpose, it will, under certain conditions, be put
at his disposal (section 33 (i)); so that there is no need to take

138 Large and Small Holdings

account of such possibilities in setting the rent. Provision is also
made for a re-valuation for the purpose of determining the rent if the
lease is renewed (section 27 (2)). The valuer is not to take into
account (i) improvements for which the authority could have
demanded compensation in case it had not renewed the lease.
(2) Any increased value of the holding arising from possible other
uses to which the landlord might put it within the duration of the
lease, in so far as he has the right to reclaim the land for such
purposes. (3) Any increased value arising from the fact that the
authority has created other small holdings in the neighbourhood.
(4) Any decrease of value for which the landlord could have claimed
compensation from the authority in case the lease had not been renewed.

It will be seen that the aim of these regulations is so to fix the
rent that throughout the lease the landlord may be receiving about
the sum he was receiving before the Council took over the land.
Any increase of value which may arise from the creation of the small
holdings upon it belongs to the Council, or, if the latter so arranges,
to the small holder. In this way it was sought to meet the fear so
often expressed that any such enhanced value would in the long
run simply fall to the landowner in the form of an increased rent.

But if at the termination of a lease the land is again placed at the
disposal of the owner the further question arises as to the manner in
which the Council or its tenant is to be compensated for improve-
ments. The Act provides (section 35 (2)) that for this purpose the
Agricultural Holdings Acts of 1883-1906 shall apply, and that "the
amount of compensation payable to the Council for those improve-
ments shall be such sum as fairly represents the increase (if any) in
the value to the landlord and his successors in title of the holding
due to those improvements." These Acts aim at ensuring to any
outgoing tenant proper compensation for his expenditure and im-
provements. But it has been found by no means easy to guarantee
to such tenants easy and effective settlement of their complicated
claims. Even the latest measures have not satisfied the representatives
of the farming interest, as may be seen by a resolution passed at
a recent meeting of the Central Chamber of Agriculture1: — " That
the Agricultural Holdings Act being the basis on which farming is
conducted, should be so amended that the capital which the farmer
invests in his holding is as safe as if the holding belonged to him,
and that nothing should stand in the way of the tenant making
the land produce all it can." " This resolution is well conceived,"

1 Cited by Ceilings, op. cit. p. 244.

Legislative Action 139

comments Mr Jesse Collings, "but it is absolutely impossible to carry
it into law. The question is full of complications. A farmer may be
a man of good judgment or bad, and to enact that he should receive
compensation on leaving his farm for all that he has done, without
the consent of his landlord, in the way of what he considers to be
improvement, would lead to difficulties, and certainly to litigation.
Some of the outlay he had made might be considered by an incoming
tenant, as well as by the landlord, as useless or of small value. Other
work, such as the planting of orchards, etc., would require some years
to show whether or not it was worth paying for at all1." It must be
remembered, however, in reading Mr Ceilings' comments, that to him,
as a champion of small ownership, the present failure to satisfy the
claimants of tenants' right is a useful weapon for attack upon the
whole system of tenancy. Things are not quite so bad as he sees
them. But still it is obvious that this question of compensation does
offer peculiar difficulties in the case of small holdings. For the
small farmer is probably a poor man, to whom every shilling sunk
in his land represents much more than it does to the well-to-do large
farmer; it is generally recognised that he improves the land, by his
more intensive methods, much more than the large farmer does ;
while on the other hand, being as a rule a man of comparatively
little education, he is hardly in a position to realise and enforce his
rights. If it is attempted to give him protection by means of special
legislation, as in the case of the Market Gardeners' Compensation
Act, a danger arises that the landlord will be still less inclined to
create such holdings, for fear of having to pay down large sums in
compensation to his tenants at the end of their lease. This tendency is
aggravated when, as in the particular Act cited, such compensation has
to be paid for improvements undertaken without the landlord's consent.
The difficulty of the question, however, is considerably mitigated
when a mediating body, namely the local authority, intervenes
between the landlord and the tenant. For it is to be supposed that
the Council, upon which will fall the duty of compensating the small
farmer on his giving up his holding, will recognise his just claims
more readily than would the landowner himself; and that the tenant
will find it easier to get those claims settled than if he himself had to
treat with his landlord. It is specially important to note that the
Act of 1907 enacts that the provisions of the Market Gardeners'
Compensation Act shall be applied to all small holdings created by
local authorities, so that their tenants can demand compensation for

1 Ceilings, loc. cit.

140 Large and Small Holdings

improvements made without their consent, unless they had expressly
prohibited the improvement in question (see section 35 (i)). The
landowner in his turn becomes liable for such improvements, so far
as they have actually increased the value of his land, when the
Council's lease comes to an end.

When all these implications of compulsory hiring of land are
taken into consideration, a circumstance which at first sight seemed
surprising becomes quite comprehensible; namely, that the great
majority of English landlords, together with the closely-connected
Conservative Party, fought much more strenuously against compulsory
hiring than against compulsory purchase. Even the Committee of
1905-6, as has been noticed above, was prepared to come to terms
with the principle of compulsory purchase: but it was hotly opposed
to any idea of compulsory hiring. It was this point, too, that met
with the strongest opposition from the Conservatives when the Bill
was before Parliament. For, as will be now evident to the reader,
compulsory hiring meant that the landlord would be stripped of his
right to set the conditions of a lease at his pleasure1. The greater
part of the demand made under the name of " the three Fs " is thus
indirectly conceded.

These " Three Fs " consist in a series of principles which have
been incorporated in the land laws of Ireland, and which certain
reformers have from about 1890 onwards desired to see applied to
English conditions also. They concern (i) Fair Rent ; that is to say
the fixing of rents by authority at an amount which will leave
a suitable amount of profit to the tenant ; (2) Fixity of Tenure ;
i.e. provision that a tenant who cultivates his land reasonably well
and duly pays his rent may not be given notice to quit ; and finally
(3) Free Sale ; i.e. the right of the out-going tenant to demand from
his successor compensation for improvements made by him, or in
some way to be able, on leaving the farm, to treat such improve-
ments as saleable property. The Conservative Party in England has
strongly protested against these demands in the interests of the
landed aristocracy, using the argument that to concede them would
create a divided property in land, and that in consequence the
relation between landlord and tenant would be vitiated. On the
other hand the demand has developed specially strongly among

1 A characteristic expression of the landlord's point of view is to be found in the Estate
Book, 1908, p. 56: — " Compulsory sale is often hardship enough, though it is necessary in
certain circumstances ; but to recognise a man's right of property in land, and yet to take it
out of his control, and to keep it or return it at will is tyranny and injustice " (Mr Bear).

Legislative Action 141

the small farmers, who are naturally interested in every attack upon
the right of the owner to do what he will with his own land. They
recognise that as tenants they are in a worse position relatively to
the landlord than are the large farmers. Large farmers, at the
present day, are comparatively few and are therefore sought after.
When they come to take a farm, they are often met by no
competitors. They can therefore dictate their terms in a way im-
possible to the small farmer, faced as he is in many cases by twenty
or more rival bidders. Fair Rent and Fixity of Tenure are under
such conditions much better assured to the large farmer than they are
to the small man, and the former is therefore less interested than the
latter in the possibility of State intervention.

The Act of 1907, as has already been shown, provides for a Fair
Rent, so far as newly-created holdings are concerned. The land-
owner is obliged to let to the local authority, and to take a rent
estimated by a "fair" valuation, not unduly driven up by the presence
of a crowd of small agriculturists outbidding each other, but based in
the first place upon the amount hitherto received for the area. He
cannot demand an increased rent at pleasure when the first lease has
run out, and so exploit the increased profit which the tenant has
perhaps just begun to draw. For the Council is at liberty to conclude
a new lease and again to fix the rent according to the same "fair"
considerations as before.

Fixity of Tenure is also guaranteed by the Act to some extent,
since the Council, acting as landlord, may only give notice to quit to
any tenant on grounds defined in the Acts of 1892 and 1907, or
because he does not fulfil his obligations. The occupier can no longer
be turned out of his holding, at least within the duration of the
Council's lease, for such reasons as the improvement of the shooting
or hunting of the estate, or some personal antipathy towards him on
the part of the landlord ; on the ground of his political opinions, or of
his system of cultivation ; or simply from the landlord's sudden desire
to add the acres in question to his home farm. Even if conditions
arise which allow the landowner to reclaim his land, the tenant has a
right to compensation (see Schedule I, Pt II (5)).

As regards Free Sale, it has been pointed out above that the
small holder's claim to compensation can be much more easily and
effectively made when the local authority intervenes between him
and the landlord ; and this is considerable progress in the direction
indicated by that phrase.

Every landlord, however, is perpetually faced, under this Act,

142 Large and Small Holdings

by the possibility that he may lose, over some part of his property,
what have hitherto been the most important of his functions as
a landowner. The rent to be paid for the land may be authoritatively
prescribed for him, if the County Council should see fit to hire it by
compulsion. The duration of the lease will also be dictated to him.
Improvements made by the occupier without his consent must, if
they increase the value of the land, be paid for by him at the
conclusion of the lease. Very little is left of his rights of property,
and it is quite comprehensible that a Party which represented his
interests should have objected more strongly to such an attack on
those rights than to the proposal to compel the sale of a few hundred
acres at a reasonable price.

The powers of the County Councils were still further extended
by the Act of 1907 to enable them to support co-operative associa-
tions which may aim at the creation of small holdings or at assisting
their occupiers by means of credit, co-operative purchase or co-
operative marketing of goods. The Councils may even call such
Associations into existence and use them as their " agents " (section
39 (i — 4)). This provision opens the way to a combination of official
action with voluntary effort which may prove of the greatest benefit.
Co-operative purchase of land and the foundation of a sort of colony
of small holders by co-operative means (not, of course, cultivation on
a co-operative basis) may have excellent results. This has been
proved by the various Small Holdings Associations, especially those
of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, which have done remarkably well in
the creation of prosperous little farms. In fact, the results of such
co-operative undertakings have tended to produce an opinion that
the official attempts were often fore-doomed to failure precisely
because a County Council cannot proceed in the same eminently
sensible manner as a private association. The division of the land,
the erection of buildings, the fencing, drainage work and so forth
are all certainly effected more cheaply by private effort than by
a local authority. From this point of view the well-known agricultural
author, Mr Edwin A. Pratt, is right in commending the co-operative
creation of small holdings as against State action1. But before the
co-operative association can act it must be able to acquire the
necessary land, and that under conditions such as to make the forma-
tion of small holdings possible. How dark the outlook was in that
direction was shown by the evidence given to the Committee of
1905-6 by Mr Winfrey, himself the President of two such Associa-

1 E. A. Pratt, The Transition in Agriculture, 1906, pp. 260 f.

Legislative Action 143

tions. Mr Pratt indeed argues that "a trustworthy society or
combination " would offer to the landlord the necessary security for
his purchase-money or his annual rent. But the division of the land
is necessarily an experiment even for an association, and the landlord
might well remain long in doubt as to its power to pay, however
convinced he might be of its goodwill.

But where an Association is backed by a County Council, so that
the fear of compulsory hiring is before the landlord's eyes, and the
Council becomes security for the Association for a certain amount, as
by law it may, the way to a satisfactory agreement becomes much
easier. The powers given by the Act of 1907 enable the official body
to work in with the voluntary association. The latter retains its
economic advantages, but it is strengthened, where it feels the need,
by the authoritative backing of the Council. It is always to be
remembered that the authority of the State only comes into play, in
this matter of the creation of small holdings, for the purpose of
removing hindrances from the path of a socially and economically
beneficial development. Where small holdings develop spontaneously,
or where voluntary associations find it easy to call them into being, there
the Council remains out of action. But where difficulties stand in the
way of the satisfaction of a real demand for such holdings, there is the
sphere of the Acts of 1892 and 1907. And here again the authority
attempts in the first place to bring about a voluntary agreement.
Only if such an agreement cannot be arrived at does the provision for
compulsion come into force. The greater the hindrances, the stronger
are the means at the disposal of the authorities for their abolition.

The essential provisions of the Act of 1907 have now been out-
lined ; and it should have become evident why it is that the Act may
justly be entitled an agrarian reform. It aims at so transforming the
conditions of landownership that they may no longer be a hindrance
to the development of small holdings in English agriculture, suited as
that development is to the modern circumstances of the agricultural
market. The miscarriage of the Act of 1892 in no way proved that
the small holdings movement has no future. On the contrary, the
strong demand for such holdings, as brought before the County
Councils, and the manifold successes of grouped small holdings where
such were created, showed that the economic conditions, so far as
they depend on the unit of holding, are favourable to the develop-
ment. But what the results of the Act did prove was that the
existing conditions of landownership were so unfavourable as to
counteract the favourable economic conditions ; and that some more

144 Large and Small Holdings

radical and incisive action on the part of the authorities was necessary
if any solution of the question of the unit of holding were to contribute
to agrarian reform generally.

It was necessary in the first place that there should be some
central authority in a position to take over the powers of recalcitrant
local authorities, and so to ensure a better execution of the law than
had so far obtained. But in the second place the introduction of
a really new principle was required. It had become evident that
mere permission to the County Councils to acquire land was quite
ineffective in cases where land monopoly and the resisting-power of
the great landowners prevented an agreement. Power of expropria-
tion had become absolutely inevitable. Even this important reform
did not suffice to solve the difficulties arising as between the problem
of the ownership of land and the problem of the unit of holding.
Compulsory purchase could indeed make the acquisition of the
necessary soil possible. But the market price of land in England
being so much above its capitalised agricultural value, and this price
being still further enhanced by the cost of expropriation, it remained
doubtful whether the land so acquired could be made to pay in the
form of small properties. Compulsory purchase could not abolish the
fact that it was often necessary to pay for qualities of the land which
were of value to a wealthy landowner, but not to a small cultivator.
Hence the third and most important change in the law, the change
which more than either of the others expressed the demand for
a change in existing conditions as a measure of social reform ; in
view of the difficulties created by land prices and landownership as
they stood, the hope of creating a class which should in the main be
a class of peasant proprietors was given up, and compulsory hiring
was instituted, with the intention of bringing the creation of small
tenant-farmers into the foreground.

If under modern conditions the large farm had remained the most
profitable unit of holding, no one would have attempted to limit the
right of landowners to the free disposal of their land. For, as
Mr G. C. Brodrick remarked as early as 1881, "it is a trite saying
that large farms always go with large properties1." The law of
compulsory hiring expresses the fact that the form of landownership
created by historical conditions and now existing in England does
not correspond to the needs of modern agriculture so far as the unit
of holding is concerned : that is to say, that large properties and
small holdings cannot go "hand in hand." The recent legislation

1 Brodrick, op. cit. p. 393.

Legislative Action 145

endeavours to modify the harmful conflict of interests thus set up.
It leaves to the landlord his property in the land, but it obliges him,
where the need arises, to let it in accordance with the modern
economic pressure for small holdings. The English landlord may in
future still value his land for the sake of the sport it provides, the
social consideration it ensures him, or the political opportunities it
offers him, and may pay as high a price as he pleases for these
qualities of land regarded as a luxury. But its value for these
purposes can no longer prevent the increase of small holdings, for if
the landlord refuses to meet an existing demand for them, the State
will force him to use his land as is most desirable from the economic
and socio-political points of view. If in this way a divided owner-
ship of land arises in certain cases, it is because the increasing
tendency to regard the land in the first place as a luxury and only in
the second place as an instrument of production has made such a
divided exercise of the rights of property necessary.

Such considerations are however rather of theoretical than of
practical importance. For the compulsory clauses only come into
operation where no voluntary agreement can be arrived at ; that is to
say, in case of necessity. This is a point which has often been over-
looked by the opponents of the measure. The Quarterly Review, for
instance, writes : — " So far as owners of land and other property are
concerned, almost any bold measure of socialism would be less
harassing and oppressive than the annual crop of semi-socialistic
measures which has been the characteristic feature of recent legisla-
tion, particularly that of the present government1." And the writer
concludes his annihilating criticism of the new legislation by suggest-
ing that the only really effective method, if any change is to be
brought about at all, is to buy out the landowners of the country
according to the receipt of Henry George. He thus overlooks the
fundamental difference between the existing legislation and any such
sweeping measure ; the difference which makes the Act of 1907 one
of reform and not of revolution. The Act does not undertake any
general transformation of the conditions of landownership. In the
first place, it only interferes where the creation of small holdings is
economically justified ; and in the second place it only interferes
where the conditions of landownership prevent such a development
on non-economic grounds. In contradistinction to the plans of
communistic land reformers it refuses to limit in general the rights
of property in land ; it will only limit them just at the point where

1 Quarterly Review, 1907, p. 222 n.
L. 10

146 Large and Small Holdings

they oppose a development which is desirable from the purely
economic point of view.

The Liberal Party has thus succeeded on the one hand in keeping
itself clear from the fantastic proposals for a general nationalisation
of the land1, and on the other hand, unfettered by the antiquated
dogmas of an older Liberalism, in opening up the way of progress.
The second point is specially worthy of notice. What would the pre-
decessors of the modern Liberals — Cobden, Hume, Bright or Roebuck
— have said to State attacks upon landed property as contained in
the Act of 1907? They would probably have felt inclined to leave
for other countries, where sufficient virtue still remained to stigmatise
such proposals as preposterous Socialism, totally unworthy of men
who claimed the name of Liberal. But modern English Liberals are
not terrified by the idea of property as conceived by their forbears.
They aim at forming a programme which shall correspond to the
needs of their time, independently of the history of the dogmas of
political economy. " Liberty," writes Mr Asquith, " is a term which
grows by what it feeds on, and acquires in each generation a new
and larger content2." Hence they have created a programme of
agrarian reform based not simply on the abolition of entails or
on the avoidance of protective tariffs, but aiming at a positive,
constructive end, namely at the creation of a new class of small
cultivators. Thanks to the English Parliamentary system, under
which no Party can afford to be without a programme on any
question of living economic importance, the Conservative Party, as
has been seen above, has also adopted proposals for the State creation
of small holdings. The two Parties are divided only on the question
of the means to be used for the purpose. Moreover it is interesting
to notice that the original pioneers of the movement, Mr Joseph
Chamberlain and Mr Jesse Collings, who were in the eighties
regarded as mere dreamers* when they contemplated the possibility
of compulsory purchase, are now able to advocate the same measure
with a peaceful conscience from the bosom of the Conservative
Party. For compulsory purchase is now a Conservative method, as
contrasted with the compulsory hiring advocated by modern Radical
reformers. So adaptable are political opinions in a country where
political parties on the whole compete, not to represent the special
interests of some particular class, but to serve the general interests

1 As represented by the Land Restoration League and Land Nationalisation Society.

9 Samuel, op. cit. p. ix.

8 Cp. Sir E. Colebrooke, Small Holdings, 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1886, p. 17.

Legislative Action 147

of the national economy, regarding its claims as more pressing than
those of special interests or party dogma.

(b} The working of the Act of 1907.

Such being the provisions, and such the aims, of the Act of 1907,
the question naturally arises as to the degree in which it has so far
justified its existence. It is however obviously difficult to give a
satisfactory answer, in view of the short time for which the Act has
as yet been in operation, viz. only since January I, 1908. In the two
years 1908 and 1909, 60,889 acres were acquired by the County
Councils for the purposes of the Act, of which 34,234 were purchased
and 26,655 were taken on lease1. As compared with the results of
earlier legislation these figures appear very satisfactory and full of
promise for the future. It is true that up to the end of the year 1909
the whole of the area had not yet been apportioned to small
cultivators. The actual process of home colonisation takes place
slowly, and in many cases the figures given above represent contracts,
either of sale or lease, which did not come into force till after 1909.
But it is certainly a remarkable fact that by December 31, 1909, 2793
small holdings had been created by the County Councils, representing
an area of 36,845 acres. Only 28 acres had been acquired by their
occupiers by way of purchase2.

The provision for expropriation contained in the new Act has
also been used to a considerable extent. Altogether 169 Compulsory
Orders have been laid before the Board of Agriculture in the first two
years of the Act's existence ; 59 of these have been " for the com-
pulsory purchase of 7676 acres," and 1 10 " for the compulsory hiring
of 4670 acres." By the end of 1909, 79 of these Orders had received
the sanction of the Board. A still more important point is that in
the case of compulsory hiring the Board, through its employment of
an arbitrator or valuer, has obtained land at a considerably lower price
than had originally been asked for it. In one case land for which
the vendor had demanded £28,967 was compulsorily acquired for
£23,485. In another, about £48 rent had been demanded for a
farm of some 19 acres, and this was reduced by the valuer to £34S.
On the other hand the County Council concerned had in almost all
such cases to pay more than it had originally offered. As a rule the

f

1 Annual Report on Small Holdings, Pt. i, 1910 (Cd. 5180), p. 5.

2 Ibid., p. 6. s Ibid., pp. 7-8.

10 — 2

148 Large and Small Holdings

price set by the arbitrator practically split the difference between the
price or rent asked by the vendor and the price or rent offered by
the Council.

The state of affairs does not look quite so satisfactory when the
number of applications for holdings is compared with the number
actually created. In 1909 the County Councils received 3157 appli-
cations for land which altogether amounted to 54,572 acres. But of
these applications only 1770 were approved, for an area of 26,611
acres1. Conclusions by no means favourable to the practicability of
the Act have often been drawn from these facts, and more especially
from particular cases where applications have been refused. In
many circles and among many politicians the view predominates that
the administration of the Act is not being adequately carried out, and
that its success is in this way being imperilled. A not unimportant
movement has in the course of 1909 taken shape in the Land Club
League2, an organisation whose aim is avowedly to improve and
accelerate the working of the Small Holdings Act. At a meeting of
the League on March 4, 1909, complaints were heard from various
quarters to the effect that County Councils had refused many perfectly
justifiable applications, and had shown altogether too much tender-
ness for the interests of the landlords and holders of sporting rights,
while the Board of Agriculture had often remained inactive, so that
the law, excellent in itself, could only succeed in meeting a fraction
of the real demand3. The Board of Agriculture seems itself to be
conscious that some such view is widely held : for its latest Report
(1910) contains the following significant remark : — " We think that in
the great majority (sic) of cases there is no justification whatever
for the view that hostility or apathy exists on the part of those
responsible for the administration of the Act4." In spite of this
denial, the impression remains that the Small Holdings Commissioners
are attempting to defend themselves against complaints of which they
are very clearly conscious.

It would certainly be unjust to complain of the administrators of
the Act simply because they have refused certain applications for
land. Undoubtedly it is in many cases difficult, and even impossible,
at once to meet the demand for small holdings. Undoubtedly too in

1 Annual Report on Small Holdings, Pt. I, 1910, p. 24.

1 See The Land Club Movement, a descriptive pamphlet issued by the Land Club League,
2nd ed. 1910.

8 See the League's periodical, Our Land and Land Club News, Feb. 1910, pp. 9-1 r.
4 Annual Report on Small Holdings, 1910, p. 18.

Legislative Action 149

other cases either technical agricultural conditions in the particular
district, or the personal qualifications (or absence of qualification) of
the applicants, make it undesirable to provide such holdings, if not
altogether, at any rate immediately. But on the other hand
hindrances certainly do occur in numerous instances which are not
based on such material or economic circumstances. Since the
interests of the landlords, land-agents and large farmers are strongly
represented on the County Councils and the Small Holdings
Committees appointed by them, while the small men get very little
representation, it is unquestionably the case that the dislike of those
classes of the community for small holdings may prove a very serious
difficulty in the way of the effective administration of the Small
Holdings Act. On the other hand the past two years have clearly
shown that where a few active and energetic men take up the
question, there small holdings rapidly increase. Cambridgeshire, for
instance, stands before all other counties for the number of its newly
created holdings : a result which is admittedly due to the energy and
talent for organisation of the Chairman of the Small Holdings and
Allotments Committee, Mr E. O. Fordham1, who has entirely devoted
himself to the service of the movement. But in general it would
certainly seem desirable that the Board of Agriculture should
exercise its powers where the County Council refuses to act, and that
if these powers are not yet sufficient they should be further enlarged.
The Act of 1907 would undoubtedly be in evil case if the central
authority should prove negligent. The two first Commissioners,
Mr E. J. Cheney and Mr M. T. Baines, have worked hard to increase
the number of small holdings. Their reply to the pessimism of
certain sceptics or opponents is most encouraging : — " It is commonly
supposed," they say, "that small holdings can only succeed in
certain localities, where the soil is particularly good and where
there are special facilities for the profitable marketing of the
produce. But as a matter of fact the conditions which make for
success are much more widespread than might be at first imagined8."
But on the other hand it is a matter of common knowledge that the
Board of Agriculture contains very influential men who are naturally
prejudiced in favour of the landlords and the large farmers of the
older agriculture, and are not merely sceptical about, but actually
opposed to, the new movement. These men do not change when the

1 Report of a Conference as to the Administration of the Small Holdings Act, 1908
pp. 6 ff. and 31-33.

2 Annual Report on Small Holdings, 1910, p. 18.

150 Large and Small Holdings

Government changes ; and although the permanent Civil Service of
England is not supposed to represent any particular political party,
it is unavoidable that its private opinions should to some extent
influence its administrative functions, so that the line of action
adopted receives a distinct political bias where personal initiative
is required, or where personal influence comes into question. A
Minister cannot get away from the influence of his politically opposed
subordinates, unless he is a man of quite unusual energy and capacity.

Here again, therefore, political considerations make themselves
felt in regard to a purely economic question. And unfortunately it
seems as if the Liberal reform had rendered the political friction in
the small holdings movement more acute than before. For the
Conservative Party continues to hold fast by the ideal of the peasant
proprietor1, and defends its ideal nominally on economic grounds,
whereas in reality it is determined by the dislike of landlords for
compulsory hiring, the " three Fs," and limitations upon the rights of
property. The consequence is that the small holdings question is
increasingly side-tracked out of its proper lines of economic discussion,
to become the plaything of political programmes. "The small holdings
problem," as Mrs Wilkins writes2, "has been dragged into the arena of
party politics ; the battle is raging round the questions of ownership
and tenancy." However the struggle may end, its mere existence
must be fatal to the chances of any well-considered policy of home
colonisation.

State action, however, as has already been indicated, has by no
means been the only method by which the multiplication of small
holdings has been attempted. Along with State action has gone a
great deal of effort in the same direction set in motion by private
initiative. All such effort has depended more or less upon the
co-operative principle. Agricultural co-operative associations were
to be called into existence for the purpose of acquiring and cutting
up properties. Of these, the associations formed by Mr R. Winfrey
are perhaps the best examples. Mr Winfrey first founded a Small
Holdings Syndicate3 in the neighbourhood of Spalding in Lincoln-

1 A Small Ownership Committee has been formed under the presidency of Sir Gilbert
Parker, M.P., to which very prominent Conservatives belong, its object being to further
the creation of small properties. As the best defence of this point of view the reader should
consult Sir Gilbert Parker's book, The Land for the People, with a preface by the Rt. Hon.
A. J. Balfour, M.P., 1909.

2 Mrs Wilkins (Miss L. Jebb), The Small Holdings Controversy, 1909. Mrs Wilkins
here expounds clearly and instructively England's need of a class of tenant farmers.

3 Report of the Co-operative Alliance Congress, 1902, pp. 343, 3+5, 349.

Legislative Action 151

shire, where he was able to rent holdings from Lord Carrington, who
is strongly in favour of the modern revolution in methods of holding.
By 1904 the syndicate held 650 acres let to 200 tenants. Mr Winfrey
came to the conclusion that considering the price of land and the
general conditions of landownership the small man did best to rent
and not to buy his holding1. He only bought land even for the
associations when he found it impossible to obtain it on lease, as
in the case of his second foundation, the Norfolk Small Holdings
Association, which held 339 acres in 1904. Another similar under-
taking, in which Sir James Blyth and Mr J. H. Whitley took part,
was the Small Holdings Association of Newdigate in Surrey. This
association devoted itself to the creation of small properties, the area
to be from 3 to 25 acres. The purchaser had to pay down ten per
cent, of the price, and then paid half-yearly instalments of capital and
interest, the rate of interest being five per cent, and the total capital
being paid off in ten to fifteen years2. Such co-operative procedure
has considerable advantages over either self-help or State effort in
the matter of the creation of peasant properties of larger or smaller
extent. An area of two or three hundred acres can be bought cheaper
than a single holding: and indeed many landlords who may be willing
to sell a good-sized slice of their property would not consent to alienate
a farm here and another there. As against the local authority, these
private associations have the advantage of being able to carry out the
necessary preliminary works, such as the erection of buildings, fencing,
drainage and so forth, at a much cheaper rate than a public body3.
It is a further advantage when these associations take from the
beginning a genuinely co-operative form, and bind their members
to common buying and marketing of goods. Nevertheless it seems
doubtful whether the fundamental difficulty of the cost of land can
be overcome even by co-operative purchase and other co-operative
or quasi-co-operative methods. According to the prospectus of the
Surrey Association, their land, though said to be bought well below
the market-price, cost £20 — £30 an acre. Whether small men, unable
to save a great deal, and not having any profitable by-employment,
can pay such a price seems very problematic. It appears likely that
such associations will mainly benefit small shop-keepers, industrial

1 Cp. also the views of another keen supporter of small farming, W. L. Charleton, in
Small Holdings and Co-operation, Newark, 1901, p. 10.

2 Other similar associations were the Aylestone Co-operative Allotments Society Ltd. in
Leicestershire, and the Land Association Ltd. in Nottinghamshire, the latter being pro-
nouncedly co-operative in character.

3 Bear, A Study etc., p. 86.

152 Large and Small Holdings

workers, little capitalists and so forth ; that is to say, the class which
is prepared to pay something for the non-economic advantages of
landed property. The experience of Lord Wantage's Land Company,
for example, was that this class was the first to make use of such
opportunities1, rather than the small holders and agricultural labourers
for whom they were intended.

The Act of 1907, however, strongly favoured the formation of
Agricultural Co-operative Associations (cp. s. 9); and accordingly
new results are to be recorded since the date of its coming into force.
In 1909 fifteen Small Holdings Societies or similar associations of a
co-operative character hired land, amounting to 1893 acres, under
the Act. And the Small Holdings Commissioners wrote in their
most recent Report that " the experience of the last two years has
strengthened our conviction that the method of establishing [such
holdings] with the best prospect of success is to acquire an area of
land and to let it to a properly constituted Co-operative Association
under section 9 of the Act1."

It is necessary nevertheless to beware of ascribing such an extension
of small holdings as has yet been achieved either to voluntary reform-
ing zeal or to the Small Holdings Acts. Neither has been in any
sense a main cause of the progress shown by the statistics. Even so
far as they have been effective, it has not been because their aim was
socially justified, but because it was economically possible. For more
than a century similar efforts had been made without any success
worth mentioning. That legislation and association for these ends
was even possible was due to economic conditions. Up to 1880
the champions of the small holdings system had the economic
tendency of the time against them ; the more recent agricultural
developments have been very much in their favour. Since then also
dates the small but perceptible result achieved. If the branches of
agriculture which form the proper domain of the small farmer were
still unprofitable, all attempts artificially to create small holdings
would be as unsuccessful as ever. Indeed, the importance of market
conditions and choice of employment to the small holder are generally
recognized. Thus the Surrey Association carefully chose for its
holdings grass-land of the first quality, as being specially suited
for the purposes of both stock-farmers and fruit-growers : i.e. it

1 Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. pp. 254 ff.

2 Annual Report on Small Holdings, 1910, p. 14. Permission to let land to such an
Association has to be given by the Board of Agriculture, which has laid down rules on the
subject, widely distributed by the Agricultural Organisation Society.

Legislative Action 153

recognized that the profitableness of those branches of agriculture
was a fundamental condition of the success of small holdings. Many
theorists deduce from these facts the proposition that all such socio-
political action is quite unnecessary ; that the economic tendency will
make its own way. Mr Kebbel, for instance, says : — " The number of
small farms seems to me to have declined with the extension of arable
land. May it not be that their revival will be a natural consequence of
the restoration of this land to grass? I think this is worth waiting for;
and that any legislation would be premature till the probable extent
of the change which is already in progress can be first calculated1.".
But it would be, to say the least, one-sided to regard these State and
voluntary efforts from so fatalistic a standpoint : and this because the
question of the unit of holding is only in part an economic question.
If the course of its development were simply dependent on economic
or capitalist conditions, it would be quite correct to say with Mr Kebbel
that the increasing profitableness of pasture-farming and market-
gardening would bring about a rapid change in the size of farms
without any interference by the State or by social reformers. But
though the fundamental economic conditions are favourable to the
rapid extension of the small holdings system, non-economic forces
are making in the contrary direction: and against these the conscious
attempt to revive the system on the ground of its social advantages
may be a very effective weapon.

1 Kebbel, op. cit. p. 160.

CHAPTER IX

THE RESPECTIVE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF THE

LARGE AND SMALL HOLDING

INTRODUCTORY

IN the preceding chapters the recent evolution of the system of
agricultural holdings in England has been sketched. It was seen to
be characterised by a diminution in the number of large and very
large farms and an increase of small and medium-sized and also of
allotment holdings. This tendency to diminish the area of the unit
of holding has been shown to be due to the changes in the conditions
of sale and production since 1879, the decreasing profitableness of
corn-growing and the increasing profitableness of stock-feeding,
dairying, fruit and vegetable culture, etc. These latter branches of
production prove to belong, on the whole, to the domain of the small
farmer, who on the other hand only undertakes corn-growing as an
altogether secondary matter : so that the change in the relative
profitableness of the various branches of production necessarily
favoured the small as opposed to the large holding. It remains to
consider why the various units of holding are particularly fitted for
certain branches of production : why one kind of product belongs to
the domain of large farming, and another to the domain of small
farming or petite culture. The answer to these questions will throw
much light on the connection between the current conditions under
which production and marketing are carried on in any country and
the system of agricultural holdings adopted. The problem is, what
are the economic laws which govern the relation between a particular
branch of agriculture and a particular type of holding? Thus stated,
it appears as a compromise between the two theories on the question
of the unit of holding which were defended by earlier students of
agricultural economy. One set defended the large farm and another
the small farm : some were convinced that the former was the one

Economics of the Size of Farms 155

desirable type of holding ; others, with equal conviction, declared for
the latter. The actual historical development in England has proved
both sides to be mistaken ; the champions of the small farm were
contradicted by the facts of 1760 to 1880, their opponents by more
recent developments. Their common error was in discussing the
question of holdings apart from any reference to the uses which they
might serve. They aimed at discovering perfectly general advantages
and disadvantages of this or that type of farm, and so determining
the type which at all times and for all purposes was absolutely the
best. It is true that some such general advantages and disadvantages
do exist, irrespective of the particular branch of agriculture pursued.
But history has proved that the economic superiority of one type
over another is mainly dependent on their respective relative ad-
vantages in regard of certain kinds of product The large farm, for
instance, flourished when the price of corn was high and failed to
maintain itself when the price fell. Moreover many of the particular
superiorities adduced as absolutely valid were really only valid in
regard of some special branch of production. The large farmers
of the eighteenth century were undoubtedly better educated than the
peasant holders : but whereas this was held to be a general advantage
of the large farm system, it was really only of importance where arable
farming made demands upon the intelligence of the agriculturist in
order that the new scientific and technical discoveries might be applied.
The lack of such intelligence was of no great importance on, say, a
small dairy farm, which depended mainly on the intensive personal
activity of the occupier. Again, the great advantage which the large
arable farmer had in the purchase and use of labour-saving machinery
was indeed significant so far as concerned the competition between
large and small arable farmers, but not for any comparison between
large arable farms and, say, small pasture farms, where such machinery
was either not needed at all, or at any rate was not a conspicuous
item in determining the profitableness of the holding. If these
mistakes of the old — and indeed of many recent1 — students of the
question are to be avoided, the advantages and disadvantages of the
various units of holding must be considered separately in regard of
the various branches of agriculture. By this method the danger of
ascribing general importance to relative advantages will be avoided.
Such a discussion must of course be limited to the chief points in
each case, all secondary matters being dismissed as briefly as possible.

1 See my review of Dr Eduard David's book, Sozialismus und Landwirtschaft, Vol. I,
Berlin, 1903, in Deutschland, November 1903, pp. 191 ff.

156 Large and Small Holdings

When the good and bad qualities of the various types in regard of
the various products, or the special qualities of each unit of holding,
have been established, it will remain to consider what general qualities
may be ascribed to each ; qualities, that is to say, which belong to a
particular type of holding whatever use it may serve. The cost of
buildings is always higher per given area under small farming than
under large, for example, and this is a disadvantage of small holdings
which has nothing to do with any question of the branch of production
pursued : for the cost of buildings varies very little whether a farm is
devoted to corn or to vegetables. The influence of these general
advantages or disadvantages on the competition between the various
units must therefore be estimated, as also their effect in weakening or
strengthening any special qualities of a unit. These special qualities,
however, will first be dealt with.

A. IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF AGRICULTURE.
(a) Corn- Production.

Small farms have proved profitable in recent times, but, as has
been shown, they are still not as a rule devoted to corn-growing,
which remains the prerogative of the large farm. Small farms which
did grow corn felt the crisis severely, and their occupiers apparently
suffered even more than the larger holders under the depression.
The question is therefore as to the causes of the superiority of large
farming in regard of corn-production.

It will be remembered that Arthur Young laid much emphasis on
the relative cost of ploughing on large and small farms, and the point
seems still to be one of great importance. The expense of purchasing
horses obviously falls very heavily on the small agriculturist. In
addition, he is not as a rule in a position to make full use of these
expensive animals when he has bought them. Mr C. S. Read stated
that to give full employment to two horses an arable holding must
cover at least 40 acres1. Small holders, if they keep horses, are
consequently obliged as a rule to find some by-employment for them*.
Often they send them to work on the holdings of other small farmers
when they are not using them themselves. Others undertake carrying
work in addition to their farm work, and so make use of their horses

1 Read, op. cit. p. 8.

2 See e.g. Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 2647-2648.

Economics of the Size of Farms 157

in their spare time; or they may take passengers to and from market1,
or into the neighbouring towns, covering by this by-employment what
they lose through their incapacity to give full employment to their
beasts. But such by-employments can only be undertaken by
allotment holders, and not by the small farmer, whose holding will
claim the whole time of himself and his family. And even allotment
holders cannot be sure of fully compensating themselves in this way
for the necessary expenditure on their horses. In districts where
small holdings are common, for instance, there is no sufficient demand
for this superfluous horse-power. In such cases the small agriculturist
tries if possible not to keep a horse at all. He gets his ploughing
done by some neighbouring farmer. A large farmer will often do this
for him at cost-price. But naturally he has to wait until his neighbour
has done his own work, with the result, very often, that his holding is
ploughed in wet weather and sown at the wrong time2. A small
farmer3 holding 40 acres told the present writer that he had at one
time eight acres of arable, but had given this up, because the necessary
horses cost too much in view of his rent. Small patches of arable
could only pay, he said, if the farmer had other work for the horses
on the roads. The case is altered, of course, when the horses are not
required in the first place for plough-work, but for carrying the produce
of the holding to market, perhaps daily, or several times a week.
In such cases it will pay the farmer to keep one or two horses :
ploughing will be a mere by-employment for them, their chief work
being the carrying business. Thus in giving evidence on the small
holders of Shropshire Mr W. H. Lander stated that they kept
horses for the purpose of carrying poultry to market and of taking
passengers, and also used them in the actual farm-work. "If he has
to hire a horse to plough his ground of course that alters the question
altogether, for if he has to pay for horse labour it would very soon
take away all the profit4." On the other hand, as the area of the
holding increases the relative number of horses required decreases.
The small arable farmer holding 20 acres needs as many horses as
one holding 40 acres, for, as has been seen, not till the latter area is
reached can two horses find full employment. An arable farm of
80 acres, under ordinary circumstances, will not require more than
four horses ; while one of 160 acres will only require six5. Statistics

1 E.g. Report of 1894, qu. 33,310. 2 Read, op. cit. p. 9.

3 Mr Ackland, of Long Bennington, near Newark, Notts.

4 Report of 1894, qu. 33,298 ff.

6 According to Mr Davis of Pensaxt and Mr Selby of Epworth (Lincolnshire). Mr Rider

158 Large and Small Holdings

show this relative decrease of horses kept as the holding grows, though
it must be remembered that the statistics showing the number of
horses on the various units of holding refer to holdings of all kinds,
pasture as well as arable : and also that the number of horses kept
does not depend simply on the requirements of the plough, but on
various other circumstances, especially in the case of small holdings.
Taking the first point into consideration it is evident that the number
of horses per 100 acres on small arable holdings must be much larger
than would appear from the figures given below : for the holdings
enumerated must include thousands of small pasture farms on which
no horses at all were kept. But the second consideration mentioned
makes in the other direction, since if all horses not kept for ploughing
purposes were deducted there would be a great diminution of numbers,
especially in the case of the smaller holdings. Only within these
limits can the figures be used to show that arable farming on a small
scale entails a greater relative expense for horses than on a large
scale. The following table gives the percentage of arable land in the
total area under consideration, as well as the number of horses kept
per 100 acres.

Class Percentage Horses kept

of Holding of Arable land per 100 acres (1885)

i — 5 acres 26*87 7'4

5—20 „ 2470 5-6

20—50 „ 33-31 5-3

50 — loo „ 42 '48 4-9

100—300 „ 47-92 4-3

300—500 „ 53-09 3-8

500 — looo „ 58-06 2'3

over looo „ 53'9o 2*6

Thus while the percentage of arable land increases in the larger
holdings, the number of horses kept per acre decreases considerably.
Even under the limitations indicated above, the result shows clearly
that fewer horses are needed for large than for small arable holdings.
It appears that while on holdings of I to 5 acres, about 29 horses are
kept per 100 acres of arable, holdings of 5 to 25 acres have about 22,
but holdings of over 1000 acres not more than 5. It is clear that
the main proposition is established, though the difference would not
be so extraordinarily great if it were possible to take the necessary
limitations into calculation.

Haggard also gives some instructive figures (in op. cit. Vol. II, pp. 190 f. ) as to the horses
kept on 14 holdings in Epworth. According to these, holdings of 20, 25 and 30 acres keep
two horses, while holdings of 50, 80 and even 100 acres only keep three.

Economics of the Size of Farms 159

A second advantage possessed by the large over the small arable
farmer is the cheaper use of labour-saving machinery. The steam-
plough is a machine which is quite out of the question on a small
holding, since a large area is absolutely necessary if it is to be used
profitably. However, this is not a point of much importance, nor has
it had much effect in the competition between large and small farms
in recent times. The steam-plough has not fulfilled the hopes which
were once set upon it1. It is now only used in England on holdings
having very large cornfields : nothing is heard of that general use of
it which was justifiably expected about 1870.

The steam threshing-machine, on the contrary, has found much
more extensive application. Middlemen keep such machines and
hire them out to farmers who cannot afford to buy them or whom
it would not pay to keep one for themselves. Not only allotment
holders and small farmers take advantage of this system, but also
the occupiers of middle-sized holdings. Large farmers, on the other
hand, almost always have their own. It pays them to buy a threshing-
machine because they can almost always use the engine for other
purposes. A certain Kentish farmer1, for instance, has bought a
crushing-mill for the purpose of making the steam-engine belonging to
his threshing-machine useful. This steam-driven machine produces all
the food-stuffs which he needs for his numerous cattle ; and as he uses
his own raw material he is sure of having them of the best quality and
unadulterated. Such a machine costs .£25. A straw-chopper is often
driven by the same engine which is used for the threshing-machine,
and sometimes actually at the same time3. The small farmer cannot
put an engine to use in such ways, because he has not the capital to
buy the various machines. Even the occupier of a medium-sized
holding cannot afford to do so, as a general rule. And as the corn to
be threshed by men of these classes is not sufficient to make it worth
while to buy an engine for this alone, they find it much better to hire
their threshing-machines as required. But by this method they pay
more for threshing than their larger neighbours, who can make full
use of a machine and soon pay off its cost. Also it must be re-
membered that the transport of the threshing-machine from farm to

1 See e.g. W. J. Maiden, Recent Changes in Farm Practices, in Journal R. A. S., 1896,
p. 39 : — "Steam cultivation, which twenty years ago bade fair to become more general, has
receded in popularity, and the advantage which was expected to result from it has not been
realised."

* Mr Douglas, of Fish Hall Farm, Tonbridge.

3 Stephens' Book of the Farm, 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1891, Vol. l, pp. 449, 454.

160 Large and Small Holdings

farm is expensive, and has to be paid for by the hirer. Farmers who
hire their machines, too, are tied down to certain days, whereas the
farmer who has his own has it at his disposal at any day or hour.
In consequence of these difficulties small holders are often obliged
to resort to hand threshing-machines. The latter thresh about
10 — 25 bushels an hour, whereas the steam-engine threshes 48 — 65
bushels.

Nor is the case of other machines used in arable farming more
favourable to the small man. For example, almost every farmer has
a drilling machine. It costs £,2% to £30, or on a farm of 30 acres
about ^i an acre. The same machine can do the work needed on a
farm of 300 to 400 acres, when the cost will be only about is. 6d. per
acre1. Then there are winnowing machines, corn fans, straw elevators,
sowing machines, the very widely used reaping machines and the
reaper and binder. All these are found almost exclusively on the
large arable farms. The small farmer cannot afford to buy them, and
these particular machines are not to be hired. Unless he can borrow
them from a large farmer he has to do without them ; that is to say
to carry on his farm without the aid of the modern improvements in
technique.

A few words will suffice as to the qualities of the various types of
holding in relation to the cultivation of green and root crops, a matter
which only comes into consideration here in so far as such crops play
an important part on farms devoted to corn-growing. Where they
are only grown for the purpose of feeding the stock on the particular
farm, their production is not, of course, to be regarded as a branch of
agriculture pursued for its own sake. Here the question is as to their
production concomitantly with corn-production and for the market,
that is to say, generally speaking, simply as an item in the system of
rotation adopted on large arable farms. Large farming appears to
have the same advantages in the case of these crops as in corn-
growing. All that has been said as to the lower cost of ploughing
naturally applies to them also. Nor is there any essential difference
between the two kinds of crops as regards the application of machinery.
Turnips, in particular, require a great deal of machinery if cultivated
scientifically. And even if the small farmer can get the use of the
machines, he still cannot obtain the same results as the large farmer.
To obtain a good turnip-crop it is necessary, among other things, that
the very complicated process of sowing and manuring should be carried

1 Small Holdings Jteport, 1889, qu. 7492 (evidence of the Secretary of the Farmer's
Club, Mr Druce).

Economics of the Size of Farms 161

through as far as possible without interruption. Various stages inter-
vene between the opening of the furrows by the drill-plough and the
final sowing of the seed. On a large farm with plenty of horses
and a well-developed division of labour they can be made to follow
at once one upon another, or even carried on side by side : and this
is a great technical advantage1. Again, for all these crops plentiful
and well-applied manure is important : and here again the large
farmer, comparatively strong in capital, has the advantage. He can
use a manure-spreading machine, which lays the manure evenly and
without waste over the fields. Such a machine costs .£18 or ^19*,
and it would therefore be too expensive for the small holder. Another
disadvantage which hampers the small man considerably, both in regard
of corn-growing and of green crops, is the unfavourable position in
which he stands when buying either seed or chemical manures. The
large farmer gets cheaper rates and better goods because he buys on
a large scale. The small farmer often has to put up with poor and
adulterated goods.

The many qualities in which the large arable farm is superior to
the small are thus evident. The small farmer, on his side, has hardly
anything to set against them so long as he remains an arable farmer.
No doubt, working himself with his family, he gets his labour cheaper
than his rival, as even the occupier of a medium-sized holding does
very often. But the saving so made is far from compensating for the
large farmer's command of labour-saving machinery. And what is
even more important, the labour of the occupier and his family has
here no peculiar qualitative value. Corn-growing depends on relatively
simple mechanical processes, and makes no special demands on the
interest and industry of the labourer. It allows of, and even demands,
more than any other branch of agriculture, division of labour as
between the manager and the operative, the head and the hand. It
can be admirably carried out by wage-labour, supervised and directed
by the occupier or by a farm-bailiff. So far as the large farmer does
take a personal share in the work, it is, as pointed out above, not for
the sake of economising labour, but because it puts him in a better
position to direct the work of his employees. In corn-growing the
qualitative properties of the work of the owner play a very small part ;
and thus the small farmer has nothing to compensate for the various
advantages of large scale production in this particular branch of
agriculture.

1 Stephens, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 348.

2 See the catalogue of the firm of Sergeant, Northampton.

L. II

1 62 Large and Small Holdings

(£) Vegetable and Fruit-growing.

In English agriculture the most important vegetable and fruit crops
are as follows : of vegetables, cabbage, cauliflowers, brussels sprouts,
carrots, celery, beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes ; of
fruits, (i) orchard fruits, apples, pears, plums, apricots and cherries,
and (2) garden fruits, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and
currants.

As to the cost of cultivation, the first noticeable point is that the
great difficulty of the small corn-growing farmer, namely the dispro-
portionate expense of the necessary horses, disappears. In fruit and
vegetable culture the horses employed are not as a rule needed simply
for ploughing, but chiefly for the purpose of carrying the goods to
market. The produce must be carried into the town or village at
least on market days. Fruit and vegetables are not sold in great
quantities and at a certain time, but as they ripen from day to day :
and a horse and cart are therefore necessary even on such holdings as
send their goods by rail to the larger centres, unless they lie in the
closest possible proximity to the station. Accordingly the small
holder has employment for a horse in his own business, for other
purposes than the actual cultivation of the soil : and in fact on the
smallest holdings the main use of the horse is for transport purposes.
This is especially the case where a little grower has customers in
the neighbourhood, and takes fresh fruit and vegetables to them
almost daily.

Where a small holding is in the immediate neighbourhood of
the market or of a railway station no horse may be needed for trans-
port. But in such cases the use of a horse for cultivating the soil is
also often unnecessary. In these favourably situated holdings, if not
larger than i — 5 acres, the plough can be replaced by the spade.
Spade-culture is suitable almost solely for fruit and vegetable-growing.
The relative cheapness of the product makes it economically impossible
in the case of corn. It would not pay to cultivate a corn-field of four
or five acres with the spade, even though the gross produce might be
increased. But the higher price obtainable for fruit and vegetables
might make the use of the spade worth while. On the other hand
spade-labour is much too expensive to be used on larger areas, even
when devoted to these crops. The excellent results it gives are there-
fore a distinct prerogative of the smallest holdings. The little holder,
helped by his family and working longer and harder than a hired

Economics of the Size of Farms 163

labourer, finds spade-culture much less expensive than would the
occupier of a larger holding. To the latter the cost is prohibitive1.

The question of machinery does not enter into this sphere except
so far as potato-growing, a subject to be considered below, is concerned :
so that the large farmer gains nothing from his capacity for acquiring
expensive machines. In regard of these crops human labour is the
essential matter, and more particularly those qualities of human
labour which can least be replaced by mechanical means. Fruit and
vegetable crops thrive best where every individual plant, bush, tree or
fruit has received the greatest amount of individual care and attention.
Standardised treatment, such as is possible in the case of corn, is out
of the question here. The constant watchfulness of the labourer and
a loving attention to every detail are what is needed1. In other words,
a different kind of labour is required for this branch of agriculture,
namely work of a qualitative intensity. Ploughing, harrowing, drilling,
sowing, reaping and so on are processes which allow of more or less
mechanical activity on the part of the worker. But in setting plants,
cutting cabbages, choosing out ripe fruit or properly grown vegetables,
picking and packing soft fruit, etc., care and intelligence are indispens-
able. The treatment of fruit-trees and the successful cultivation of
garden-fruit also make great demands on the attention of the worker.
But the less mechanical work there is to be done, the less suitable is
hired labour. " Fruit-growing and market-gardening would not be so
prosperous were it not for the attention given to the crops by the
excellent and hardworking cultivators of Evesham and district," says
the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society3. Personal interest is
the only force strong enough to call out the care, attention and pains-
taking exactness required for petit culture. It is not enough for this
personal interest to be directed to the mere organisation of work
which is to be mechanically carried out by other men's labour, as
in corn-growing ; it must be concentrated on the actual labour itself.
The greater the share of the work taken by the occupier and his
family, the better will the conditions be fulfilled which are essential
to success. This explains why this branch of agriculture is proper to
small holdings ; the personal labour of the occupier can naturally only
be applied over a limited area.

Accordingly it is found to be the general rule in England, that
the larger farmers, who undertake corn-growing and pasture-farming,

1 R. Scott Burn, Systematic Small Farming, 1886, pp. 159 f.

2 James Long, A Handbook etc., pp. 129, 131.

3 Journal R. A. S., 1908, p. 104.

II-

164 Large and Small Holdings

produce scarcely any fruit or vegetables for the market. On the
other hand there are holdings, and whole districts of such holdings,
entirely devoted either to fruit or vegetables or to both together ;
and in these districts some large holdings will be found. The present
writer saw a market-garden of 600 acres in Lincolnshire, almost
entirely under vegetable crops. A hundred acres were devoted to
celery1. Mr Bear mentions two brothers in Kent who hold 1000 acres
almost exclusively devoted to strawberries and currants2. But market-
gardens on such a scale are exceptional. They often have extensive
forcing houses, the use of which has very much increased of late years
in England. Such houses naturally require a considerable expenditure
of capital, and are therefore out of the reach of the small man. But
this is not the chief reason for the existence of these very large fruit
or vegetable farms alongside of the smaller gardens. Mr Bear, who
has given much attention to the development of hot-house culture,
considers that its importance in the competition between large and
small holdings is less than that of the advantage in marketing
possessed by the large holder3. Two methods of sale must be dis-
tinguished. The gardener may himself sell his produce in his own
neighbourhood ; or he may sell it through a middleman in some
market either near or distant, either selling outright to the trader
or giving him some sort of commission on the sale. The latter
method is generally in use when the goods are sent by rail to a
market at some distance : and in this case the small holder is at a
great disadvantage as compared with his larger competitor. In the
first place the railway tariff4 is almost always so arranged that the
relative cost of transport diminishes with the amount to be carried.
Consequently the man who can send the greatest quantity has pro-
portionately least to pay. In the second place, the large grower,
selling wholesale, can as a rule make much better bargains with the
trader than the small holder can5. In the large grower the middle-
man meets a man accustomed to business transactions ; in the small

1 Mr Blaides' holding, Epworth, Lincolnshire.

1 W E. Bear, in Journal R. A. S., Vol. IX, Part I (1899), pp. 14 f.

* Ibid., Vol. x, Part n (1900), p. 44.

* See the figures given by Sir Francis Channing, op. cit. pp. 268 ff. They show that the
so-called "reduced tariffs" always begin at z. certain minimum quantity only, and that this
minimum is often set very high. Consequently those who have less to send than this
minimum are at a great disadvantage. Cp. also Bear, A Study etc., p. 20.

5 Eyre, op. cit. p. 6 : — " I have heard very various reports as to the prices obtained,
which, on the whole, go to prove that the man who deals in small quantities always gets less
than the man who can send large supplies."

Economics of the Size of Farms 165

man he finds an inexperienced agriculturist, with whom he can have
his own way. These circumstances have probably contributed to the
custom by which the large growers almost always produce for the
great central markets, whereas the small holder — i.e. in this case
the man with 3 to 8 acres — only supplies the neighbouring district,
unless he happens to be close to some great centre. But this state of
things has not so far proved injurious to the small holders. Often
they get from their private customers, or selling retail in their own
shop or "stand," better prices than the large growers selling wholesale
to the dealers1. Indeed, the price of fruit and vegetables often rules
higher in the neighbourhood of the producing districts than it does in
the great markets, where it is often rapidly depressed by the quantity
of goods sent in2. In the year 1903, for instance, the great markets,
such as London, were glutted with celery, while in the neighbour-
hood where it is chiefly produced, namely the Isle of Axholme, there
was a positive dearth of it3. Such occasions naturally profit the
small holder who does not work for the central markets, whereas
the large holder suffers under the depressed prices there. The very
small gardeners, holding ^ to 2 acres, and keeping neither cart nor
horse, sell in their own immediate neighbourhoods, as do the allotment
holders, who have often produce for sale even from a holding of
£th of an acre only, if their family does not happen to be large4.
They sell either to large farmers, or to artisans, or small shopkeepers,
inn-keepers, etc. Such a market is ruled more by custom than by
any other factor, and the sellers can generally dispose of their wares
to their satisfaction.

Thus the inability of the small and very small holders to reach
the central markets, and their limitation to the local market, is
certainly a disadvantage to them arising from the competition of
the large growers. It is desirable that all markets should be open
to all goods. But still this disadvantage has not so far seriously
injured the small market-gardeners. The markets which are open to

1 Bear, A Study etc,, p. 57: — "In the course of my investigations I met with many
examples of the advantage to small fruit-growers of selling their own produce, either to
consumers or to stall-keepers, shop-keepers, or hawkers. In most of the great towns of the
midland and the northern counties there are large fruit and vegetable markets, in which
growers have stalls, attended by their wives or other members of their families, who sell
at retail prices. In one instance a small grower said he had realised nj. a bushel for his
apples, while a large one, who sold at wholesale prices, had averaged only 4^."

2 Long, op. cit. p. 133.

3 So the present writer was informed by Mr Blaides of Epworth.

4 Onslow, op. cit. pp. 49 f.

1 66 Large and Small Holdings

them often suit them better than those which the large grower supplies.
Methods by which they might command all markets will be discussed
below.

It is often said that the large, capitalist grower can manure his
land better, and therefore obtain a larger gross product, than the
small man. The premise may be correct, but the conclusion is not so.
For the small holders can make up for the disadvantage of a some-
what less intensive manuring by the use of spade-labour, an advantage,
as already pointed out, peculiar to the small grower of fruit and
vegetables.

Thus neither the advantages arising from a larger disposable
capital, such as the provision of forcing-houses or of better manuring,
nor those in regard of marketing, can produce a decided superiority
of large over small holdings in the growing of fruit and vegetables.
The large holdings lack as a rule the essential condition for the
profitable pursuit of this branch of agriculture, namely the intensive
application of labour. The small fruit-growers in the Evesham and
similar districts are said to be at work by three in the morning in
the height of the season. Of the small holders in Devonshire a
correspondent of Mr Read wrote: — "The farmer himself with his
eldest boys works harder, and many more hours, than a paid labourer
does nowadays1." Such industry results from the keen interest
of the men in their own holdings, and the returns they look for not
simply in money, but in the establishment of their independence.
The work they do is not only quantitatively more than, but qualita-
tively different from, anything which the large holder can obtain by
investment of capital or hiring additional labour : and this qualitative
intensity is precisely what is above all demanded by market-gardening.
Hence the small holder has always one great advantage over the large
grower*.

Potato-growing, as already mentioned, is an exception ; but it is
an exception which proves the rule. Where potatoes are grown for
the market, and are the first or even the second object of the grower,
the large holding appears to be the most suitable unit Like corn-
growing, potato-growing depends on simple processes which can be
carried out mechanically. The importance of individual attention is

1 Read, op. cit. p. «.

2 Mr C. Whitehead, Agricultural Adviser to the Board of Agriculture, also came to the
conclusion that fruit-growing "is specially suited to the cultivators of small holdings,"
owing, as he says, to the fact that " fruit, as well as vegetable production, is an engrossing
occupation, requiring immediate and personal attention, which a small cultivator would
delight to give." See Long, op. cit. pp. 135, 131.

Economics of the Size of Farms 167

small as compared with the importance of an abundant application of
capital. Machinery, which in regard of other vegetables is practically
useless, comes into play again here, especially in potato-harvest.
The potato-digger, with three horses, can work three or four acres
a day where the field is large enough, and the necessary assistants are
at hand to gather the potatoes, and " on most large holdings the
potato-digger is therefore called into use," says The Book of the
Farm1. On a small holding not more than two to two and a half
acres can be dug in a day, according to the same authority. Other
machines too, effecting an enormous saving of labour, are only
applicable on large holdings. On one such in Hertfordshire2, with
100 acres under potatoes, the present writer saw in use a potato-
setting machine which did in one day, with one man, work that would
otherwise have taken three men four days, and did it much more
regularly. The same farmer had also a potato-sifter which sifted ten
tons a day, employing four men, whereas the old sieve, attended by
two men, disposed of one ton a day only.

In potato-growing, therefore, the quantitative intensity of the labour
of the small holder and his family can hardly compensate for the
absence of machinery : the qualitative intensity of such labour is not
needed for the mechanical processes to be performed. Potatoes also
require a great amount of chemical and natural manure, which the
large farmer is in a better position to obtain than the small. Spade-
work, which compensates for this disadvantage in the case of other
vegetables, is not so profitable in potato-culture, owing to the rela-
tively low value of the product. The allotment holder, growing for
his own use or to sell in very small quantities, may make use of
spade-labour. But the holder of 3, 4 or 5 acres, desirous of making
potatoes his chief crop, will hardly find spade-work pay. If he
has to use the plough, the difficulty of finding other employment for
his horses arises. Potatoes are not marketed in small quantities, but
are harvested all at one time and sold wholesale. Unless the small
holder grows other vegetables, or fruit, in addition to his potatoes, he
will hardly be able to make full use of his beasts. His case is the
same as that of the small corn-grower.

When market-gardening is said to offer special advantages to the
small holder, therefore, potato-growing, unless in combination with
other crops, must be excepted. Where potato-growing by itself, and

1 Stephens, op. cit. Vol. in, p. 118.

3 Mr Muir's farm, Burslon Manor, Park Street, Herts.

1 68 Large and Small Holdings

for the market, is concerned, large and medium holdings are superior
to the small farm. But this superiority is obviously due to the fact
that the technique of potato-growing is altogether different from
that which makes the other branches of vegetable-growing a suitable
sphere for the small holding and the small agriculturist.

(c) Stock-farming.

Stock-farming is a title which includes very various branches of
agriculture. Breeding, rearing young cattle, fattening, dairying, sheep-
farming, pig-keeping, poultry-keeping and the breeding of pedigree or
herd-book stock may all be included under this head, although there
are very great differences between them as regarded from the point of
view of the holding economically suited to each.

(i) Cattle-breeding. In the first place the breeding and fattening
of cattle and sheep may be considered : and here it is necessary to
draw a distinction between farms which are mainly arable, and grow
their own feeding-stuffs and straw, and those which are mainly pasture,
and buy what other natural or artificial foodstuffs, etc. they may need.
As has been seen above, until the abolition of the corn-laws stock-
farming was quite subordinate to corn-growing as an object of English
agriculture. Corn and the three-field system were characteristic of
the average farm. The rotation of crops did not become general until
the rise of meat-prices after 1846, when it served both to make corn-
growing more profitable, and to enable the farmer to keep a much
larger number of cattle. Between 1850 and 1880 corn-growing and
stock-farming were combined, in such a way that on arable farms
corn-growing did indeed keep the first place, but nevertheless the
production of meat was regarded as of nearly equal importance. In
more recent times it has come to be the chief object. The corn,
where any is grown at all, is often simply grown for the benefit of the
cattle, and not as an independent branch of production. On many
arable farms of 1 50 — 300 acres it is only grown to provide winter food
and straw, the farmer preferring to produce these for himself. On
smaller holdings this is naturally still more markedly the case1. But
arable land being proportionately more expensive on small holdings

1 W. J. Maiden, Recent Changes in Farm Practices, in Journal R. A. S., 1896,
pp. 31 f. : — " Farmers have consumed more of their own produce on the farm, when
circumstances have permitted. There is a decided advantage in thus consuming home-
grown grain, as the in and out profits to the middleman, where grain is sold and cake is
purchased, are saved."

Economics of the Size of Farms 1 69

than on large, it is evident that so far as regards stock-farming on
arable farms the large farmer has a considerable advantage over the
small. He ploughs more cheaply, and can afford to use labour-saving
machinery, and so gets his straw and winter fodder at less cost. He
feeds his stock, therefore, more cheaply than the small holder. This is
true of sheep-feeding as well as of cattle-farming. Where the farm does
not include great sheep-walks or large areas of pasture, sheep-feeding
can only properly be carried on by means of turnip and clover fields
to be fed off by the flock : and this, as already explained, the large
farmer can arrange more cheaply than the small. As regards root-
crops which are not fed off on the field itself, as e.g. mangolds, the
small farmer has indeed the advantage of harvesting them by means
of cheaper labour : but this does not compensate for his loss at the
time of ploughing. These considerations do not apply where sheep-
breeding is conducted on pasture-farms. But here too the large
farmer has the advantage. He can take the so-called " sheep-walks "
— wide stretches of poor grass-land, often mountainous. To succeed
on these, a man must have large flocks of sheep, which the small
farmer has not the capital to obtain. Cut into small areas such farms
would never pay1. The cost of the necessary fencing alone would be
too heavy as compared with the value of the land. Therefore the use
of such pastures, which are often excellent for the purpose, remains a
prerogative of the large farmer2.

As regards cattle-breeding on arable farms, the large farmer has
other advantages besides those already mentioned. A small holder
can often grow only part of the foodstuffs necessary, and is therefore
obliged to buy. The large farmer, on the contrary, often buys only
if he can on the one hand get what he wants at a low price, and on
the other sell his corn dear. In Westmorland, for instance, I was
told3 that farmers fed their oats to their own beasts, or sold them,
according as the price of maize and oilcake was high or low. So
that the large farmer is less dependent on variations in the price
of foodstuffs than the small. Again, the large farmer can obtain the
expensive artificial foods at a relatively low price, while the small
farmer, as a rule, finds them altogether too costly4.

1 This is admitted even by enthusiastic supporters of the small holding system. Cp.
J. L. Green, Allotments and Small Holdings, 1896, p. 89 : — " It would be absurd to cut up a
large hill sheep farm, for instance, which is practically fit for nothing else but sheep feeding
and breeding." Also Sir M. Hicks Beach in the Report of 1894, qu. 6058.

3 Walker, Small Farming, in Journal of the Bath etc. Society, 1902, p. 85.
* By Lord Brougham's agent on his Eamont Bridge estate (Westmorland).

4 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 7481 (Mr Druce).

170 Large and Small Holdings

When pasture-farming is in question, the large farmer has still
great advantages as regards the purchase of foodstuffs, which, whether
natural or artificial, are very necessary on such farms. And here
again he has the use of machinery, as e.g. grass-cutting and hay-
making machines, which the small man cannot generally afford.
Even if a small farmer does make up his mind to provide himself
with them (for allotment holders, even of the larger type, it is of
course out of the question) he has to pay at a higher rate for a
machine of smaller capacity 1. Kelsey's Patent Chaff Cutter and
Sifter, for instance, cost in 1904 : —

To treat per hour Price

12 cwts. ^37

16 „ £43

20 „ £52. roj.

24 „ •" ^58

3° i, ^62

So that the farmer who bought the most expensive machine did
not pay nearly double what the cheapest cost, whereas his machine,
though only about 67 per cent, dearer, was of 1 50 per cent, higher
capacity. The large farmer, therefore, saves both time and labour
through being in a position to buy and make full use of a better
machine than his small rival can do. Here again he has an advantage
in pasture-farming over the small holder.

The invention of hay-making machinery has been particularly
important to the large farmer. Without it he would be at a consider-
able disadvantage in this part of his business. The small farmer, in
consequence of the more intensive labour (here quantitatively
intensive) which he applies, can get through his hay-making much
more quickly than the large farmer employing day-labour. Conse-
quently he can often take advantage of favourable weather, and finish
his harvest before bad weather sets in, while the large farmer takes
longer about the work, and can seldom get in all his hay before a
break in the weather occurs. To employ extra labour at a time when
its price is high is a doubtful benefit. But the use of labour-saving
machinery solves his difficulties. It does not indeed give him any
superiority over the small holder in this sphere, but it does put him
on the same level. In the result, the large pasture farmer, though
the use of machinery helps him greatly, does not obtain by its means

1 See the catalogue of Kelsey and Co., Sheffield, p. 13.

Economics of the Size of Farms 1 7 1

such a decided advantage over the small farmer as the large arable
farmer does in his branch of farming. The use of machinery is among
the points which make the large farm distinctly superior to the small
for arable purposes. For pasture-farming it can only lessen the
disadvantage at which the large farmer stands, especially in hay-
harvest.

Small farming has one specific advantage which is of the greatest
importance in stock-farming, and even outweighs all the advantages
which have been mentioned on the side of the large farmer. These
advantages have all been concerned with processes only indirectly
affecting the ultimate object in view, namely the beasts themselves.
The actual work among the cattle has not yet been discussed. This
is however the most important part of the whole business ; and it
is just here that the small holder has an advantage so great as to
make him master of the situation in many cases. In no other agri-
cultural employment is so much individual attention and personal
interest, that is to say such qualitative intensity of labour, needful.
Careless or even rough handling of the animals may do very serious
harm. Cows in calf or at the period of calving, young calves, sick or
weakly beasts, all need most careful attention. So does the cleaning
of the sheds and stalls, and many other matters essential to good
cattle-farming. To all these things the small holder attends personally.
He, with his small stock, is not obliged, like the owner of a great
herd, to leave the handling of his beasts to the uninterested hands of
the hired labourer, contenting himself with the supervision which
naturally cannot be everywhere at once. The modern small holder
is not behind his predecessor of the eighteenth century in his love for
his beasts and the sacrifices he is willing to make for them. No detail
escapes him, and the interest he has in them, and the pride with which
he regards them, make him hesitate at no amount of labour which
may improve their condition. A very able Gloucestershire landlord1
told the present writer that he thought small holdings best suited for
calf-rearing; and that he let the hilly district which he owned in
Shropshire to small farmers, as being appropriate for the purpose.
In fact, in this sphere small farming seems to have a clear advantage
over large, in consequence of the qualitatively intensive labour it
demands. The same advantage applies to some extent to the fattening
of cattle ; but it is not here of such pre-eminent importance, so that
the small holding cannot be said to be absolutely superior to the large

1 Mr Granville E. Lloyd-Baker, of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester.

172 Large and Small Holdings

for this purpose. The qualitative intensity of labour which it affords
here rather serves to compensate for the advantages possessed by the
large farmer in other directions : so that the two types of holding are
practically on an equality.

(2) Dairying. The great prerogative of the small holding, namely
the personal work of the occupier and his family, is nowhere of such
great importance as in that branch of stock-farming which plays a
leading part in modern English agriculture, namely dairying. The
small holder is at a great advantage in butter and cheese-making and
in the sale of milk and cream, and very largely as a result of his
superiority in the fundamental matter of milking. English agriculture
is, as has been said, suffering under a very serious exodus from the land.
The labourers who remain not only take advantage of their position to
demand higher wages than heretofore, but they make more demands
of all kinds ; they are more cultivated and more fastidious — results
which from the point of view of civilisation in general are certainly
desirable. Women's labour has very much diminished, and in many
districts has ceased altogether1. The high wages earned by the men
enable them to keep their wives (and also their children up to a
certain age) at home, instead of sending them out as formerly to
wage-labour for an outside employer. Moreover, under modern
conditions the wives and daughters of agricultural labourers can often
find very paying employment on their own allotments. But this
impossibility of commanding women's labour is a serious difficulty
for the employer, and more especially for the dairy-farmer. The
larger farmers, whose families do not take part in the work of the
farm, have been obliged to give up women milkers altogether : but
they have not found that men are equally satisfactory in that capacity.
This is a complaint which may be heard whenever a large farmer is
encountered. The owner of a great steam dairy and of a large
dairy-farm in Devonshire2 told the present writer that he gave his
labourers idf. a week, with a free cottage and garden, on condition
that they undertook to send their wives to do the milking daily.
But few farmers are in a position to make such a stipulation. Most
of them have to face the dislike of the women for wage-labour, and to
put up with men as milkers. But even men are difficult to get. The
younger labourers hate milking. They regard it as work to be despised.

1 Wilson Fox, Agricultural Wages, pp. 297 ff.

3 Mr Loram, the owner of the Cathedral Dairy at Exeter.

Economics of t fie Size of Farms 173

They specially dislike all Sunday work, such as is of course required
on a dairy-farm1. They want to have their Sundays free for enjoy-
ment and for their best clothes, and not to be obliged to be at the
cow-sheds at certain hours to milk or feed the cows. Nor is it the
Sunday work only, but the kind of work involved in dairying, which
makes them object to service on a dairy-farm. A Yorkshire labourer1
told me that both he and others had found that the younger men
liked attending to horses, but not to cattle. The work was dirty, and
in the evening the intolerable milking, with the accompanying dirty
boots, came all over again. The older men, he said, had enjoyed looking
after the cows, but the younger ones preferred any other kind of
work. Such being the case, it is not wonderful that loud complaints
are heard that the milking is done carelessly, lazily and dirtily. Such
complaints come not only from large employers, but also from scientific
students of English dairying methods8. " Cultivate the acquaintance
of your cows, treat them kindly, and teach them to regard you as their
best friend ; cows love kind treatment, and we may rest assured that
it will pay," says Professor Thonger* with undoubted truth. But his
words prove the necessity that the handling and care of the cows
should be done by their owner. " Friendly " treatment is not to
be expected from wage-labourers. If a farmer succeeds in finding
men to do the hated milking, no doubt with suppressed ill-will, he
has to be constantly on the watch lest their dislike of the work should
find expression in some careless or unkind handling of the beasts, and
so injure their health and the quality of their milk6. Nothing but
the lively interest taken by the occupier and his family can produce
the loving attention needed for the work. Agriculturists are to be
found all over the country who have given up their dairies at the
moment when it became impossible for members of their families
themselves to do the work, whether because the wife became an
invalid, or because the daughter married, or from whatever other
cause. They preferred (and especially is this the case with the
tenants of medium-sized farms) to turn to other branches of agriculture
rather than to employ outside labour in the cow-sheds when home
labour failed. But the large farmer is from the very beginning subject

1 Report on the Earnings of Agricultural Labourers, 1900, p. 54.
a Mr William Johnson, High Farm, Brandsby, Yorkshire.

3 Sheldon, The Farm and the Dairy, p. 7 1 . Cp. also what is said on this point in the
Estate Book, 1906, p. 278.

4 C. G. Freer Thonger, Some Essentials of Successful Dairying, in the Journal of the
Bath etc. Society, 1903, p. Si.

5 Burn, op. cit. p. 320.

174 Large and Small Holdings

to this serious difficulty if he wishes to take up dairy-farming. He
must pay very high wages, and even then not obtain anything like
the work which he admires in the small holder and his family, and
which is the fundamental condition of success in this direction.

Nor is it only in the actual milking that the qualitative intensity
of the work of the small holder and his family is so essential. The
same demand is made by the other work of the dairy, and especially
by butter and cheese-making. Professor Sheldon points out that it is
desirable in the interests of cleanliness that the maid who does the
churning should also undertake the milking. But this is only possible,
as he says, in a small dairy. On a larger farm the most she can do is
to supervise the milking so as to see that it is done with as much
regard to cleanliness as possible. It is above all things necessary that
she should have a real sense of responsibility. " Herein lies the reason
why farmers' wives are, as a rule, the best dairymaids — they feel the
responsibility, and take a pride and an interest in their work," as the
Professor puts it1. The same thing is seen in the case of cheese-
making, and especially in the classic country of English cheese-making,
namely Cheshire2. The best economic results are produced where no
outside labour is employed, but the cheese is made by the farmer and
his wife themselves. It is their personal interest in the work which
leads the small holders positively to enjoy those details which the
hired labourer regards as most irksome : and which produces effort of
a qualitative intensity which wage-labour can never attain, but which
is very necessary in the branches of production in question.

The large holding has, it is true, some advantages over the small
even in this sphere; such as slightly, though only slightly, to lessen the
superiority of the latter. In the production of milk the large farmer
has only one thing in his favour ; namely, a lower cost of transport.
The small holder, owning from one to six cows, is at a great dis-
advantage in regard of the marketing of his milk : so much so that it
is often the large farmer only who supplies the great central markets.
The case is the same as with the transport of fruit and vegetables.
Most railway companies have tariffs for the transport of milk with rates
diminishing as the quantity sent increases. Thus to send anything
up to 12 gallons from Westmorland to certain districts costs is., while
every further gallon costs id. only. Taking the average yield per cow
per day as i^ gallons, the owner of six cows will have to pay is. per
day for the transport of his milk. But the owner of twelve cows will

1 Sheldon, The Farm and the Dairy, p. Jt.

2 Brodrick, op. cit. p. 397.

Economics of the Size of Farms 1 75

only have to pay is. ^d. This grading of the tariff results from the
simple fact that the railway companies can transport large quantities
at a relatively lower cost than small. The result is the same as with
the market-gardeners. Part of the milk market is closed to the small
holders. The same is true of butter for similar reasons. But, again
as in the case of the market-gardens, this fact is often no real injury
to the small holder. The small allotment holders, living in the village,
often sell their milk to customers who themselves take their jugful
home, so that no question of cost of transport arises. Or the producer
may send his children out with the milk, and may find plenty of
customers, at any rate in the summer, among visitors from the towns,
excursionists, etc. These methods of sale do not concern the large
farmer at all, as he never sells in such small quantities1. The butter
of the allotment holder may be disposed of in similar ways. The
larger allotment holders and the small holders proper have moreover
a real advantage in this sphere, in the way in which they are able
to sell to their own special customers in the neighbouring towns or
villages. Even Mr Read, who is in general an advocate of large
holdings, and fails to estimate the advantages possessed by the small
holder at their real value, is obliged to admit that "in its distribution
(i.e. the distribution of butter, etc) the wife of the small farmer, if
a good market-woman, can generally make a considerable profit2."
Naturally the small farmer often fails, through negligence or laziness,
to make use of all the advantages which he has at his disposal. But
some of them, at any rate, take the pains to carry their own butter
into the town, and get from their customers throughout the year ^d.,
4*/. or 5</. above the market price. They did not, according to their
own account3, feel the fall of butter-prices in the nineties as the large
farmers, dependent on the wholesale prices or indeed on the prices of
the world market, did. Thus while the small butter-makers are to a
great extent excluded from the wholesale market by the competition
of their larger rivals, they have a retail trade of their own, resulting
from their peculiar methods of work, which cannot be touched by the
large farmers. The qualitative intensity of the labour of the small
holder is here shown not in production, but in distribution. The
large agriculturist can only sell in gross and make his agreements
en bloc. The small man takes the trouble to sell in small quantities
to customers with special tastes, and so often gets the highest prices.

1 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 1370 (Mr Pell).

3 Read, op. cit. pp. 10 f.

* Report of 1894, qu. 939 and 940.

176 Large and Small Holdings

No doubt, however, it is desirable for the small producers that they
should be able to reach the central markets, especially in cases where
they have no secure and profitable sale in their own neighbourhood.
The best way of opening up such markets to them will be considered
below.

The large and medium-sized dairy-farms have another great
advantage in the labour-saving machinery of which they can make
use. Indeed it might be said that but for this it would be impossible
for the larger holders to compete at all with the small in this particular
sphere. Even so, no satisfactory machine has yet been invented for
the most difficult and most characteristic part of the work, namely
milking : and in this particular the superiority of the small holder
remains undiminished. But for other purposes there are very useful
machines which, on account of their cost, can only be applied on the
larger farms. The large farmer, too, is not merely in many cases the
only one in a position to pay the price of such machinery ; he also
gets it at the lowest price. For example, one of the most important
accessories of the modern dairy, the separator, is priced as follows
for its various numbers1 : —

fed For farms

Price

£S- I2J.

. I2J.

25.
£17. 2S.

£21. 5-r-
£26. i?s.

The owner of 30 — 50 cows will therefore provide himself with a
separator dealing with 1 1 times as much milk per hour as that bought
by the small holder owing only I — 3 cows. But for this machine
with a capacity 1 1 times that of the other he will pay only five times
the price paid by the small man. The case is similar with the
Pasteurising machines2, the price of which is such as to be quite
prohibitive to the smaller holders. Here the question is as to com-
petition between medium and large farmers. With the cooling
apparatus3, too, the large man is at an advantage as compared with
the small. Churning-machines are sufficiently low in price to be at
the disposal of the small holder. But here again he has to pay

1 Cp. Catalogue of Dairy Machinery Appliances, published by the Dairy Supply Co. Ltd.,
London, 1903, pp. 9-11.

8 Ibid., p. 25. 3 Ibid., p. 31.

Gallons separated For farms

No.

per hour

keeping

I

9

i — 3 cows

2

27

4—io „

3

45

ii— 18 „

4

55

19—25 „

5

65

26—30 „

6

IOO

30—50 „

Economics of the Size of Farms 177

relatively more than his larger rival. A churn to work two gallons
of milk per hour costs £2. 15^., while one with a capacity 12 times as
great costs only .£8. lew.1 Thus it is by no means correct to say,
as Dr. David has said2, that there is no question of competition
between large and small farms in the matter of machinery, because
the machines are at the disposal of the latter as well as the former.
The initial cost of the machines, and especially of the machines of
greatest capacity, is relatively lower for the large farmer ; and their
use is therefore cheaper for him. It is of course quite another
question whether the use of machinery is of such great importance
in dairy-farming as to result in an absolute superiority of the large
to the small holding. This does not seem to be the case. So long
as no satisfactory milking-machine can be found, the small holder
has the advantage, not only in the sale of fresh milk, but also in the
production of dairy-products, the cheaper and better milking being of
fundamental importance. As regards marketing, the two types of
dairy-farm are fairly on an equality. As regards labour, machinery
does not play such a role, whether in butter or cheese-making, as
does cheap and good hand-labour, in which the small holder always
has the advantage. The machines can to some extent compensate
the large farmer for his weakness as compared with the small farmer:
they do not, as in the case of corn-growing, increase his superiority.
A dairy-farmer producing on a large scale, selling wholesale, and
using machinery, has few advantages and very important dis-
advantages as compared with a small farmer who does the work
himself with the aid of his family, sells his products in person
(or through his wife) and employs little or no outside labour. The
division of labour itself, which elsewhere, as e.g. in corn-growing,
is so profitable, is on the large dairy-farm often simply a necessary
evil. The reader will remember, for example, that it is said on high
authority to be desirable that milking and butter-making should be
undertaken by one and the same person.

No fact goes further to prove the superiority of the small holding
for dairy purposes than the remarkable custom which exists in some
parts of the country under the name of sub-letting the dairy3. That
is to say, that the large farmers sub-let small dairy-farms out of their
own holdings. They supply all the stock, including the cottage
and the cows. The small sub-tenant does the work himself, with
his family, and pays the large farmer a certain rent per annum —

1 Catalogue of Dairy Machinery Appliances, p. 47.

J David, op. cit. p. 691. 8 See e.g. Colebrooke, op. cit. p. 50.

L. I2

178 Large and Small Holdings

in Devonshire about £13 per cow. The large farmer also has the
calves : and the remainder of the profit goes to the sub-tenant.

(3) Pig-keeping. The next two branches of stock-farming to
come under consideration are pig-keeping and poultry-keeping. Both
are among those branches of agriculture which at the time of the high
corn-prices were regarded as "trifles," and which nevertheless are
playing a part of increasing importance at the present day. In the
case of pig-keeping the small holder has many advantages as com-
pared with the large. In the first place, the household waste, with
some of the garden produce, is usually sufficient to feed a few pigs, in
addition to what they can pick up in the fields or elsewhere. The
large farmer, keeping a large number of pigs, finds his household
refuse go less far among them : so that as a rule his pigs cost more to
keep than the small holder's. As Professor A. W. Shaw puts it, " pig-
keeping to the small farmer is the portion of his business which, con-
sidering the return, monopolises the least capital1." Another point in
favour of the small pig-keeper is, once again, the peculiar intensiveness
of the labour of the small agriculturist. As Mr Burn has pointed out
in his instructive book, cleanliness in the keeping of the animals is of
primary importance if pig-keeping is to be profitable. The reason
for the complaints of its unprofitableness so often heard is precisely
that this fundamental condition is not fulfilled2. The large farmer
would need to pay more for this purpose than is worth his while in
view of the relatively low price he obtains for the beasts : and indeed
under modern conditions he would find it difficult to get labourers to
undertake this "dirty work" with the necessary care. The small
holder with his personal labour and personal interest has here again
a decisive advantage.

(4) Poultry-keeping. Poultry-keeping like dairy-farming, only in
a greater degree, is a branch of agriculture which makes more demands
on the farmer's wife than on himself3. The first question in regard of
it therefore is whether the wife of the occupier is prepared to take
part in the work of the farm, not merely with her head, but with her
hands. The wife of the large farmer (the "fine lady" of an eighteenth
century brochure) will only undertake the care of poultry so far as they
are destined for home consumption. She does not keep them for
market. But the personal care of the owner (or in this case of his
wife) is an indispensable condition of a flourishing poultry-yard. The

1 Long, op. cit. p. 90. 2 Burn, op. cit. p. 358.

* Ibid., p. 349.

Economics of the Size of Farms 179

individual birds need attention ; the henroost must be clean ; feeding
must be regular and the food clean and properly prepared ; and
all this needs a loving carefulness not to be expected from wage-
labourers or hired servants. It is beyond dispute that the wife of the
large farmer is not inclined to devote such intensive labour to the
purpose1. It was quite characteristic that a farmer should tell the
Commission of 1894 that poultry-keeping would not be worth his while,
since he would have to pay some one to do the work8. Poultry will
only pay where the farmer's wife and daughters will themselves look
after them. Another advantage of the small holder is that, as is
often said in England today, a small flock of poultry lays better
than a large one. " Six hens," writes Mr Read, " will generally lay
more eggs per fowl than a dozen, and a dozen than a score3." So
Mr Lawry writes4 that a small flock on a small area will do better
than the large farmer's flock, which is always given a wide range. An
incidental advantage of the smaller area is that fewer eggs will be
lost than where the hens can wander over a large field or fields. To
provide impenetrable hedges, or even wire fences, over a large area is
too heavy a task to be undertaken on an ordinary farm, so that the
hens easily get into places where they are not intended to be. Still,
the main advantage of the small holder is here again the intensiveness
of his labour and his heightened interest in the work. The con-
sequence of the conditions indicated is that large farmers seldom
manage poultry-keeping profitably. " Whenever large poultry-farms
have been started in England, as, for instance, at Bromley in Kent,
they have failed," says an expert, writing in 1891°.

(5) Pedigree Stock-breeding. One other branch of stock-farming
remains to be considered : viz. the breeding of pedigree or herd-book
stock. Here, in contradistinction to all the other branches, the large
farmer has almost a monopoly. It is not wonderful that this should
be the case. The purchase of such stock demands a considerable
capital ; the prices sometimes obtained have already been mentioned.
No small holder can hope to provide himself with a pedigree bull or
registered ram. Then besides the initial cost the breeder has to provide
expensive foods, exquisite stabling, and the transport of animals to

1 Cp. a defender of the large farm in this sphere ; Read, op. cit. p. 1 2.

2 Report of 1894, qu. 16,976-16,978.
s Read, op. cit. p. n.

4 J. W. Lawry, Small Holdings in Cornwall, in Journal R. A. S., 1891, pp. 391 f.
8 W. B. Tegetmeier, Farm Poultry, in Journal R. A. S., 1891, p. 68.

12 2

180 Large and Small Holdings

exhibitions and competitions, and a variety of other items, all necessi-
tating the command of a large capital. On the other hand undoubtedly
personal care, personal judgment and attention to details are required.
But if these are often wanting in the employee of the large farmer, it
is nevertheless true that this branch of production can be pursued
by them, while want of capital absolutely prohibits the small holder
from undertaking it. The breeding of pedigree stock is accordingly
the economic privilege of the large holdings of England.

Summarising the conclusions of this section, it may be said that
there are very few departments of stock-farming in which the large
holding is superior to the small. There are cases in which their
chances are practically equal. In others the small holding has a
decided economic advantage over the large. This is especially so
in the rearing of young cattle, in the sale and manufacture of
dairy-products, in pig- and poultry-keeping. The main reason for
this advantage is that these branches of agriculture demand as a
fundamental condition of success that qualitative intensity of labour
which is only to be found where the occupier and his family them-
selves do the work of the farm. In this lies the great advantage
possessed by the small holder, and in these branches of stock-farming
it suffices to throw into the shade any advantages on the side of the
large farmer.

(d) Summary and Conclusions.

The economic advantages of the various types of holding in regard
of the main branches of agricultural production have now been con-
sidered. Large and small holdings have been the terms chiefly
employed : the medium-sized holding has received less attention.
This is because the economic characteristics of the various units can
best be understood by a study of the extremes. The medium-sized
holding has much in common with the large holding, and much in
common also with the small. In some departments therefore it will
have advantages as compared with the large holding and disadvan-
tages as compared with the small, while in others the reverse will be
the case. For example, if a medium-sized corn-growing farm, or
on the other hand a medium-sized dairy-farm, is in question, it is
only necessary to apply the laws discovered in regard of the relation
of these particular branches of production to holdings of the two
extreme types, and the position of the middle type will become
evident. Instead, therefore, of tracing out in detail the particular

Economics of the Size of Farms 1 8 1

advantages of the medium holding, it will be better briefly to sum-
marise the general results obtained.

It has been shown that the large holding is absolutely superior to
the small in regard of corn-growing and mixed husbandry, and in the
breeding of pedigree stock ; that in potato-growing it has the advan-
tage, while in stock-feeding it is on an equality with the small holding.
The reason in each case is that all these branches of agriculture
demand in the first place intensive application of capital. That is in
the foreground, while the need for labour of a special quality and an
individualised nature falls into the background, these employments
permitting of reduction to a series of mechanical processes and the
substitution of machinery for hand-labour. This is not to say, however,
that the individualised attention would not be desirable even in these
large-scale businesses, as for example in pedigree stock-breeding.
The point is simply that this desirability shrinks into insignificance
as compared with the absolute need for a free expenditure of capital.
Small holdings, on the other hand, excel in fruit and vegetable growing,
in poultry-breeding and in stock-farming generally with the excep-
tions noted above. In the fattening of stock, large and small holdings
are fairly balanced. The question as to whether the feeding is on an
arable or on a pasture-farm is important, since the small holder is at
a considerable disadvantage on the former as compared with the large
holder. It follows that the chances of the small farm are at present
improving in this sphere, the mixed husbandry of an earlier period
having become unprofitable, while stock-feeding as the sole object of
an arable holding is much less common than as the object of a holding
entirely or almost entirely devoted to pasture. The advantage (or
in some cases rather the capacity to compete) on the part of the
small holding in these, the most profitable agricultural occupations of
the present time, depends on the fact that in these cases the demand
for a quantitative and qualitative intensity of labour is greater than
that for intensive application of capital. The question is not of
mechanical processes, but of matters needing individual attention and
of the care of living creatures. The prime condition of success in all
these branches of production is therefore qualitative intensity of
labour in the highest sense of the phrase ; work in which the heart
and mind and individual capacity of the worker, and not some
external rule, must be the teacher. Such work has never been
obtainable from hirelings at any time ; it has always been charac-
teristic of the head of a concern. Therefore it is that wherever such
work becomes of fundamental importance, there the small holder can

1 82 Large and Small Holdings

at least compete with the large farmer, and in some cases obtains the
decisive superiority.

Naturally there is as a rule a combination of various branches of
production on a small holding. That which is most natural and
economically best is also most usual, viz. a combination of such
branches as are individually most suited to the unit of holding in
question. Thus large growers of corn and fodder are also frequently
breeders of pedigree stock, or growers of potatoes on a large scale,
and may at the same time have extensive sheep-walks. As to the
combinations found among small holders, they will be best described
in the words of Mr Read's Devonshire correspondent : — " The small
farmer, with his wife and children in most instances, not only milks
and feeds the cows, rears the calves, looks after the poultry and the
pigs, but the wife, often also attending to her dairy and butter-making,
takes all the produce she can spare from the dairy, poultry, all kinds
of vegetables, fruit, and even flowers to market herself; and by these
means generally provides the rent by the time it is due1." These
words might well have been written of one of those small farms whose
disappearance was so bitterly lamented by the social reformers of the
eighteenth century. After decreasing in number for a century or
more these little farmsteads seem to be making their appearance
again. And whereas the large farm has altered to an extraordinary
extent within that period, so far as regards the technique of production,
the small holding, centred as it is in the personal labour of the
occupier and his family, hardly presents any difference of aspect.
Tools, machines, science and technique have all changed, and the
general appearance of the large farm, to whose domain they belong, has
changed with them. But that most important of all instruments of
production, the man himself, has been much less markedly altered2:
and therefore the unit of holding which is mainly dependent on the
man's own personal work has altered little or not at all in its general
characteristics.

Most writers on English agriculture at the present day are clear
as to the economic significance of both the large and the small unit
of holding. At any rate, the old prejudiced critic who ascribed un-
conditional superiority to the large farm is now hardly to be found.
The prejudice is rather in favour of the small holding. But speaking
generally it is recognised that the small holding is in many ways

1 Read, op. cit. p. 11.

2 For the sociological aspect of the changes which the small occupier of today has under-
gone as compared with his predecessor of former days, see Appendix I below.

Economics of the Size of Farms \ 83

superior to the large1. And on the other hand even those who regard
the question not from an economic but from a socio-political stand-
point have arrived at the conclusion that the superiority of any
particular type of holding depends upon the branch of production to
be pursued. There are of course plenty of enthusiasts prepared to prove
that the small holding is best for all purposes. But intelligent
reformers are shaping their views more and more in accordance with
the economic laws which have been clearly manifested in the varying
circumstances under which agricultural production and distribution
have been carried on in the last hundred and fifty years. Even if Mr
Jesse Ceilings — the Nathaniel Kent of the present age — has not yet
admitted that the large farm is better suited to corn-production than
the small, at all events he has not yet undertaken to prove distinctly
what special advantages the small holding would have in that sphere.
Like his predecessors of the eighteenth century, all he can succeed in
showing is that the small holding is the unit best suited for stock-
farming and petite culture.

B. GENERAL ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES.

It appears to follow from what has been said above, that every
English landlord, so far as he regards the question solely from an
economic point of view, should be a friend and fosterer of small hold-
ings. For it has been shown that with few exceptions precisely those
branches of production which belong to the sphere of the small holder

1 Cp. Lawry, op. cit. p. 391 : — " It will be admitted that they (small holdings) are best
adapted for dairying, the rearing of cattle, and the production of pork, poultry, and eggs ;
also for the growth of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, inasmuch as these require a larger
amount of skilled labour and personal supervision than the growth of cereals, and the pro-
duction of mutton, beef and wool." Also W. E. Bear, The Survival in Farming, in Journal
K. A. S., 1891, pp. 274 f. : — " Large and small holdings have their respective advantages
for various purposes and in different localities. In arable districts at least, and so far as the
production of the ordinary crops of the farm is concerned, I do not believe that a holding
not too extensive to be efficiently superintended by one man can be too large for the most
economical results, provided that he has capital enough for his acreage ; or that fifty-acre
farmers can get a good living by growing corn and keeping a small number of live stock. In
favourable situations for marketing milk, butter, fruit, vegetables, eggs and poultry, small
farmers who are shrewd and industrious may do well ; and cheese-makers on small holdings
have always been able to hold their own, if they and their wives were good and skilful
managers." Also Brodrick, op. cit. pp. 396, 397, 399-402 : and the very instructive
evidence given in Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 7351. And finally, see the Small
Holdings Report, 1906, p. i, where this point of view is at last officially accepted: — "A
profitable farm may be large or small according to the class to which the bulk of the
produce, animal or vegetable, to be raised for sale, belongs."

184 Large and Small Holdings

are today most profitable. And it is unquestionable that a landlord
who owns small holdings, provided that they are devoted to those
branches of agriculture for which they are best suited, is much better
satisfied with the economic results obtained by them than by his larger
farms. The natural conclusion would seem to be that where the agri-
cultural and market conditions were favourable, the landlord, so far
as he was moved by capitalistic considerations, would aim with all his
might at the division of his larger farms. But this is by no means
universally the case. Many landlords, in spite of the fact that their
smaller tenants succeed better than the large, are afraid to proceed
to any further formation of small holdings, and that on economic
grounds. The explanation is that besides the special advantages
which the large holding has in corn-growing etc., and the small holding
in stock-farming and market-gardening, there are general qualities of
the various units which exist unchanged to whatever use the holdings
may be put : and these qualities decrease the profitableness of the
small holding at the present day, just as they once increased the
profitableness of the large farm.

In the first place comes the question of the cost of buildings.
Quite apart from any agricultural conditions, it is always an advan-
tage to the landlord to have few rather than many farm-houses. The
throwing together of holdings in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies meant an enormous decrease in expenditure on buildings. The
cost of building one new large farm in the place of many cottages was
very small. One of the old cottages could be enlarged ; or even if it
was necessary to build a new house altogether, the expenditure was
soon recouped, since the cost of repairs would be much less than on
the numerous old small houses. These latter were either allowed to
fall to pieces or turned into cottages for the labourers ; as a rule the
first alternative was followed. This process went on uninterrupted up
to the penultimate decade of the nineteenth century. But in pro-
portion as this question of building expenses was favourable to the
formation of large farms it is an obstacle to the revival of small
farms at the present day. To pull down is easy; to rebuild is much
more difficult. Landlords who are inclined to divide their farms
feel this acutely. The cost of building has risen greatly of late
years in consequence of the rise of industrial wages and the strong
organisation of the building trades. A landlord who wants to create
small holdings perceives that to do so will involve him in consider-
able expenditure, since he will have to put up a house, barns and
cow-stalls etc. for every tenant. If the old houses were still standing,

Economics of the Size of Farms 185

it would certainly pay him better to divide the fields and the holdings,
and get the consequent higher rents. But he doubts whether those
rents would be high enough to compensate him for the capital expen-
diture he would be obliged to incur as things are. He has further
to consider that his expenditure on repairs would necessarily be
increased. Under these circumstances he not seldom comes to the
conclusion that the profits of the agricultural products proper to the
small farm, though greater than those obtainable at present from the
large farms, would not be high enough to make such an outlay
worth his while1. It is clear that these considerations did much to
prevent the extension of small holdings in the last decade of the
nineteenth century2. At a time when they were rapidly losing their
rents, landlords were not inclined to lay new burdens upon them-
selves.

Another general advantage of the large farm system, though only
general so far as large landed estates are the rule, is that it entails
smaller costs of administration than the small farm system. This
has been already discussed when the attitude of the land-agent
towards small holdings was under consideration. Since the work of
administration is much greater where there are many small farms
than where there are a few large ones, an estate on which a division
of holdings is undertaken will have to be provided with more agents,
unless those already employed are able and willing to do the extra
work.

1 Mr Fyffe said before the Committee of 1889 (qu. 6163): — "I do not think that we
can solve the small holdings difficulty, that is, the creation of them, by merely expecting
that landlords will let enough small holdings. The difficulty of buildings comes in there....
To provide buildings for the small holder is so expensive a matter for the landlord, that
practically there are very few cases in which you can have a new small holding made."

1 Mr Huskinson said in 1894, as to Nottinghamshire {Report of 1894, qu. 765) : —
"Wherever they (the farms) have been made large by the amalgamation of two or three,
there were two or more homesteads, and we have divided them where we possibly could ;
but, of course, in many cases the house was made for a larger description of farm, and in
that case it is impossible to divide it into smaller farms." Mr Jesse Collings said {Small
Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 765) : — "One great reason against the sub-division is the want of
money to restore buildings and other appurtenances which have been destroyed by the policy
of consolidation which is now found to be a wrong one." A land-agent said (ibid. qu. 3783) : —
"I should be willing to advise the splitting up 10,000 acres of land on two estates in that
neighbourhood at once into small holdings, if it were not for the awful consideration of the
homesteads and buildings." See also Report of 1881, qu. 62,293 and 55,794 ; Small Holdings
Report, 1889, qu. 4006, 5096, 6076, 6607, 6364 ; Report of 1894, qu. 6059, 6291, 13,419)
14.37'- 34.256, 1700, 3574, 567 ; also Mr Wilson Fox's Report on Lincolnshire, 1895, p. 19.
Also Small Holdings Report, 1906, Index, p. 479, under "Buildings," and especially the
evidence given under the head " Finance Question."

1 86 Large and Small Holdings

Still, too much importance must not be attributed to this point.
It is much less essential than the question of building expenses. It
is the latter which puts small holdings of all kinds at a real disad-
vantage as compared with large holdings, and is the main factor in
hindering their revival. It is the saving in cost of building and
repairs which is the peculiar advantage of the large holding, inde-
pendent of any question as to the branch of agriculture pursued.
Here is the explanation of the fact that though where the small
holding has survived it flourishes under modern conditions, the
extension of the system is often not economically profitable. The
essential question in determining whether or not such an extension
will pay is whether the advantage possessed by the small holding in
regard of certain branches of agriculture is greater than the disad-
vantage at which it stands in regard of the cost of building. If it is
greater, the formation of small holdings proceeds apace. And the
statistics as to the increase of small and medium holdings and the
decrease of the largest farms prove that in the majority of cases the
advantage is on the side of the small holdings. In proportion as the
profitableness of those branches of agriculture which are suited to it
increases, the question of cost of buildings and repairs becomes of less
importance. And in proportion as those branches of agriculture in
which large farming has the advantage, as corn-growing in particular,
become less profitable, so does this general advantage lose in practical
significance.

But in view of all the circumstances which go to hinder the
development of the small farm system, the question whether the
various units of holding can in any degree overcome their character-
istic weaknesses becomes one of great interest. It remains to enquire
whether the large holding can overcome the disadvantage at which it
stands in regard of stock-farming and market-gardening, and whether
the small holding can get rid of its disabilities in the realm of corn-
growing and more particularly in regard of the other branches of
agriculture. These questions will be treated below. But it is already
evident that if the large farm can in any way overcome its disadvan-
tage in what are today the most profitable agricultural pursuits, it will
be the victor in the struggle between the various units of holding.
Otherwise, if the small holding can overcome its characteristic agri-
cultural weaknesses, it will have the decided superiority over the
large farm in spite of the difficulty created by the cost of buildings.

CHAPTER X

AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATION

THERE is no need to waste many words on proving that the
characteristic disadvantage of the large holding in the matters of stock-
farming, market-gardening and petite culture generally is one which
no ingenuity can abolish. The personal interest of the occupier
doing his own work cannot be supplied by any outside labourer.
Moreover, as the rural exodus proceeds, it becomes increasingly diffi-
cult to find any labourers to undertake work which is irregular or
unpleasant : and therefore the personal work of the occupier becomes
increasingly important. The fact that the large farmer is unable to
increase the quantitative, and still more the qualitative, intensiveness
of the labour applied to his holding is bound to drive him more and
more into the background, especially where such increased intensive-
ness of labour is the essential condition of the profitableness of the
undertaking. The case is otherwise, of course, where corn-growing
still remains profitable, and large and small holdings compete in
this branch of production. The question which then arises is whether
the small holder can in any way overcome the disadvantage at which
he stands.

It has been held that this can be done by means of co-operation.
More particularly it has been supposed that small arable farmers
might acquire machinery in common, and plough, thresh and so forth
in association. In this way a number of small holdings could achieve
the same economies as one farmer on a large holding is able to do.
Such co-operative association has theoretically much to be said
for it ; but when the corresponding practice is looked for, English
agriculture has little to show. The student naturally enquires why
such co-operation did not arise long ago; why between 1760 and
1880, the period when corn-growing flourished, the large farm and
not some association of small farms was the predominant form of
holding. The enquiry is the more justifiable inasmuch as attempts
were not lacking during that period to organise small corn-growing
holdings into co-operative associations. The chief of these was per-
haps the Assington Agricultural Co-operative Society, founded on

1 88 Large and Small Holdings

March 25th, 1830. Its originator was a landlord named Gurdon.
He was, as he himself has explained1, favourable to small holders on
general humanitarian grounds, and accordingly cut up a farm of 100
acres into four small holdings, to be worked by four farmers in
association on the four-field system. The existence of this associa-
tion is seldom remembered at the present day, and nothing is heard
as to its results. Even Mr Rider Haggard was unable to find much
to report about it8. Another attempt was that of Mr Lawson, also
a landlord, who founded a co-operative farm, the Blennerhasset
Farm in Baggrow, Essex, on which the labourers had a large share
in the profits and where the provision of machines etc. was also on a
co-operative basis. But the farm had to be sold in 1871, the tenants
being unable to keep their heads above water3. The idea of co-opera-
tive corn-growing was thus not wanting ; but the results achieved
were very small. At the present day no one with any knowledge
of English agricultural conditions thinks of starting a co-operative
colony of small farmers on economic grounds, in a case where one
large farmer with good machinery and relatively few labourers can
do the work. In this communistic form (as it may be called) co-
operation is very difficult to establish in England, and is particularly
inapplicable to corn-growing agriculturists4. But although this
particular method is not of practical importance, other forms of co-
operation might perhaps still be found to protect the small corn-
growing farmer from the competition of his larger rival. There still
remains the possibility of co-operative purchase, e.g. of threshing-
machines, by which the middleman might be ousted, and of other
machinery, which might in this way be bought more cheaply; and
the same principle might be applied to the purchase of seed etc.
All this is undoubtedly possible in theory; but in practice the aspect
of affairs is not found to be quite so promising.

1 ^^ Journal R. A. S., 1863, p. 165.
8 Rider Haggard, op. cit. Vol. n, p. 393.

3 W. Lawson, C. D. Hunter and others, Ten Years of Gentleman Farming, 1875,
pp. 20-22, 41, 71.

4 Mr Graham's description seems excellent: — "Visionaries have drawn many fancy
pictures of the ideal village community, where every householder will have his plot of earth
and the cultivation will be accomplished by co-operation. One would possess a harrow,
another a plough, number three a cart, number four and number five each a horse, and so on,
and they would manage to get on by a system of borrowing and lending. The dreamers of
such fantastic dreams as these know extremely little either of English villagers or English
agriculture. It is a regrettable feature of humanity that wherever a few people are gathered
together, envy, hatred, backbiting and jealousy exist to an extent unknown in larger
communities." P. Anderson Graham, The Rural Exodus, 1892, p. 120.

Co-operation \ 89

Every form of agricultural co-operation in England meets at the

outset with one great difficulty, which is particularly serious in the

case of corn-growing farms; namely the want of uniformity in the size

of the individual holdings. Anyone who has travelled through the

country, and especially through the corn-growing districts in the

eastern counties, will have remarked this. In one place there may be

a large farm of perhaps 600 acres, and bordering on it a little holding

of some 40 acres ; then some allotments, or a farm of a medium size,

or another large holding, and so the variegated scene goes on. There

are hardly any districts given up to small or medium farms on which

corn is the chief product. The Isle of Axholme, so often cited, is in

this respect an exception, and a very instructive one. For, as has

been seen above, the agriculturists of that district are said to possess

a great degree of the co-operative spirit. That spirit is not to be

found where small holdings lie scattered about among large and

middle-sized farms. In fact, it is difficult to see how co-operation

is possible for small and medium holders in such a case. If they

purchased some machine for their common use, it would be for ever

on the road : and even if the middleman's profit was got rid of, the

large farmer, working with his own threshing-machine, would still

have the advantage owing to economy in transport. As to machinery

for use on the fields, it is true that association might put the small

holder in a position to use this, whereas he has not sufficient capital

to obtain it for himself. But again the advantage remains with the

large farmer, whose machinery is applied over wide stretches of

contiguous land, where the work is naturally done more economically

than on the smaller fields of the scattered small holders. Whether the

various corn-growing districts contain small holders enough for

co-operative purchase of seed, food-stuffs and manures to be worth

their while seems doubtful : and any co-operation of large with small

holders in this respect is altogether improbable. As Mr Clare Sewell

Read, a well-known large farmer of the east of England, has pointed

out, the large farmers of Norfolk have no cause to complain of their

opportunities for the purchase of manures, tools, etc. " A large

farmer," as he says, "should be his own co-operator1." In other

words, large farmers have no interest in ousting the middleman

or reducing his profits ; they are in a position to dictate terms,

whereas the small man is dictated to. Thus the large corn-growers

have no fellowship with their smaller neighbours : and the latter are

too scattered for any district organisation. Co-operation by small

1 In the Mark Lane Express, June 8, 1903, p. 721.

190 Large and Small Holdings

corn-growing farmers is thus hardly workable in practice, however
possible and desirable it may appear in theory. And even if it were
practicable, it would only lessen and not abolish the superiority of the
large holding.

More important, however, than the declining business of corn-
production are those branches of agriculture whose profitableness
is now continually increasing, namely stock-farming and market-
gardening. The weakness of the large farm in these spheres cannot
be abolished, since the large farmer can never obtain that quantitative
and qualitative intensity of labour which is native to the small holder
working for himself. The only question is whether the small holder
can in any way counteract the advantages, various though not
decisive, possessed by the large farmer. Little as co-operation can
do for the small corn-grower, it is full of promise for the small holder
in these other branches of agriculture. Two facts will suffice to justify
this general statement.

In the first place it is since the decay of corn-growing and the
great development in these other spheres that agricultural co-
operation has really begun in England. The movement cannot be
dated back beyond 1901. It is true that individual societies were to
be found earlier1. But their number was very small compared to the
growth which has taken place since the systematic activity of the
Agricultural Organisation Society began. The object of this society,
which is in the main a copy of the Irish organisation created by
Sir Horace. Plunkett, is precisely to develop co-operative action
throughout English agriculture. It owes its origin and effectiveness
to the interest taken in it by certain men who have proved their faith
in the cause by the energy they have devoted to it and the pecuniary
sacrifices they have made for it. At their head stands the well-known
agriculturist Mr R. A. Yerburgh, M.P. But the highest recognition
is also due to the services of the Secretary of the Society, Mr T.
Nugent Harris, who with untiring enthusiasm has achieved success
after success in the introduction of co-operative action into agriculture.
The A. O. S. has recently received a grant from the Board of Agri-
culture for its work of furthering co-operation among small holders.
It is of course a great centre of propaganda. Its first work was to
organise farmers in certain localities into Co-operative Societies, in
communication with the Central Society in London. The branch

1 According to the Second Annual Report of the Agricultural Organisation Society ',
p. 31, there were in 1902 eight Co-operative Societies for the sale of eggs and poultry, six
for dairy-products and six Agricultural Societies for Co-operative Purchase.

Co-operation 191

societies were in the main autonomous, but the Central Society
retained certain rights, mostly in regard of organisation, as e.g. the
right to interfere in the administration of the daughter association
supposing that this were badly managed. The branch societies, on
the other hand, received from the centre advice and help in case
of difficulty, information on technical questions, suggestions made by
means of the circulation of useful pamphlets etc. Even by 1903 the
number of branch societies had risen to 63. By the end of 1909 this
number had increased to no less than 321, a remarkably satisfactory
result of the efforts of the A. O. S.1 Of these, 132 were societies for
the supply of requirements or sale of produce, 134 small holdings or
allotments societies, and 30 dairy societies. The remainder served
the most miscellaneous purposes.

In the second place, not only have the beginnings of a conscious
movement for agricultural co-operation coincided in point of time
with the growing profitableness of stock-farming and market-gardening,
but it is remarkable that these societies have been formed precisely
in the places where such branches of agriculture have so far
flourished most. In December 1902, of the 40 branch societies then
existing only one, a Norfolk association, lay in what was described
above2 as District I. The remainder were all in Districts II, III and IV,
and in Wales, which of course is rich in pasture-land3. An interesting
geographical study, to be seen at the office of the A. O. S. in
London, showed on the map of England, by means of little paper
disks affixed, the places where daughter societies were to be found.
While the disks were practically wanting in the east and south-east,
they were numerous in the midlands and west. Thus the develop-
ment of co-operation coincided not merely in time but in place with
the development of stock-farming and the lesser branches of agricul-
ture. The latter are to be included, since the development of the
societies was rapid not merely in the pasture-districts of the west, but
also in such market-gardening midland counties as Worcester and
Warwickshire. It is thus correct to say that the development of
co-operation in English agriculture was conditioned by the presence
of small stock-farms or market-gardens. The occupiers of such
holdings were able and willing to organise in co-operation, while so
far such organisation has proved impossible among small arable
farmers. It remains to show why this should be the case.

1 See Report of the A. O. S. for the year ending December 31, 1909, p. 2.

1 See p. 103 above.

8 See Second Annual Report of the A. O. S., p. 30.

192 Large and Small Holdings

The table given above1 shows that in the western counties, and
in the so-called mixed and purely pasture counties, the size of
holdings is much more uniform than in the corn-districts of the east.
In District I, of every 100 acres 58*55 were in holdings of I — 300
acres. In District IV, no less than 82*83 in every 100 acres were so
held. In other words, the small and medium holdings were more
numerous per area, as compared with the large holdings, in the
western than in the eastern counties. Such holdings, of I — 300 acres,
have a common interest in the co-operative purchase of seed, manures,
foodstuffs, dead stock of all kinds, and so forth. For even the
medium -sized holdings find themselves at a disadvantage in these
matters as compared with large holdings. They are therefore
willing to combine with the small and very small holders ; and
naturally this can be most easily effected where small and medium
holdings are most numerous. Further, to all appearance the uni-
formity in the size of holdings is particularly great in certain districts
in the west of England. As contrasted with the eastern counties,
there are districts in which whole colonies of small and medium
holdings lie together, sometimes of quite recent origin. Thus
Worcester, Warwickshire and Devonshire have their market-gardening
districts, and Cumberland, Westmorland, Cheshire, Gloucester and
Somerset their dairy-districts. Then again there are neighbourhoods
devoted to great sheep-walks, and therefore exclusively held in large
holdings. These three circumstances, taken together, suffice to
explain why co-operation, and especially association for co-operative
purchase, has developed first and chiefly in the western part of the
country. They are, to recapitulate them briefly, first, that small and
medium-sized holdings have a common interest in the purchase of
certain goods ; secondly, that the greatest number of such holdings is
to be found in the west and wherever stock-farming and market-
gardening flourish ; and thirdly, that in the west such holdings lie less
intermixed with the large holdings than they do in the east.

Where such associations have been successfully founded, the
small holders have certainly overcome to a considerable extent one
great disadvantage of their type of holding as compared with the
large farm ; namely that of the higher price they must without such
co-operation pay to middlemen and contractors for worse goods.

But besides the disadvantage at which the isolated small holder
stands in regard of the purchase of the necessary means of production,
he is also, it will be remembered, at a disadvantage in the process of

1 See p. 104.

Co-operation 193

production itself. In particular, he is unable to make satisfactory use
of agricultural machinery. Even if by co-operation he is able to
obtain such machinery at a fairly reasonable cost, its necessary
expensiveness, especially in the case of the larger machines, will still
render its application on a small holding economically impossible.
The comparative uniformity in the size of holdings in the western
counties would seem to make it not improbable that small and
medium holders should co-operate not only in the purchase but also
in the use of certain machines, as e.g. the reaper and binder. But
so far little has been heard of such procedure. Co-operative use
of machinery has however proved easier of attainment where the
machines required are not moveable but fixed, as those which serve
for butter and cheese-making and for the production of cream. Co-
operative steam-dairies enable the small holder to obtain cheaply the
benefit of the use of the most perfect cooling-machines, separators, etc.
Such dairies can buy the most expensive machines, which, as has
been shown, are also the cheapest, and make a profitable use of them ;
and the small holder who sends his milk thither obtains a share in
the economic advantages of large-scale production such as he could
never have as an isolated producer. Where such co-operative dairies
have been attempted in England they have proved very successful.
That at Brandsby (Yorkshire) has increased its profits year by year.
It dealt with 4000 gallons of milk per month in the summer, accord-
ing to my information in 1903, and was provided with the most
effective machinery for both cheese and butter-making. Here too it
was striking to notice that the whole district could show very few
large farms. Those of six or seven hundred acres were altogether
unknown ; small and medium holdings were the rule. The smallest
holding which sent milk to the dairy was one acre in extent ; and
the largest was not above 250 acres. So that here again comparative
uniformity in the size of holdings may have contributed to the success
of the co-operative venture. That such dairies are profitable to the
small holder is further proved by the success of steam dairies on
a non-co-operative basis. These have arisen where agriculturists
have had too little initiative to form co-operative associations, and so
have to look on while private capitalists exploit the system which
might have brought profits to themselves. This is shown by the
history of Lord Fitzhardinge's steam-dairy, which was at one time
offered to the farmers using it, in the hope that they would make it
a co-operative concern. But at that time they refused the offer.
Later on the profits on the business were obviously so great that they

194 Large and Small Holdings

would gladly have acquired it. But it was then too late ; the owner
was no longer willing to sell1. Mr E. T. Loram, too (the successful
owner of the Cathedral steam-dairy at Exeter), told the present writer
that the farmers who provided him with milk might themselves have
made the growing profits on the business if they had organised.
Again, certain dairy-products cannot be produced at all on a small
scale, on account of the cost, as e.g. sterilised milk or condensed milk.
But the manufacture of these products has greatly increased in
England of late years. Unless by means of co-operation, the small
and medium holders cannot compete with the capitalist in this sphere.
Only by means of co-operation can they get the full profit on their
milk instead of selling it at the ordinary price to be re-sold at one
much higher. That the profits to be made, where the market
conditions are favourable, are very considerable I saw when I visited
the co-operative society for the sterilisation of milk founded by
Mr W. L. Charleton at Long Bennington, near Newark. This society,
in 1903, had twenty members, only one of them being a large farmer.
They received for their milk about ^d, per gallon more than they had
done before the foundation of the society, and the prices to be
obtained for the bottled milk seemed to be steadily improving.

It is thus proved to be possible for the small holder by means of
co-operation to overcome not only his disadvantage in the purchase
of goods, but also his disadvantage in production. But his difficulties
in marketing his products still remain to be considered. Here too
co-operation has a part to play. Co-operative sale can often be very
effectively combined with co-operative purchase or production ; more
especially is it often included in the activities of an organisation
devoted to the latter purpose, as e.g. in the case of the steam-dairies.
It has to abolish two main disabilities of the small holding; in the
first place, the impossibility of selling large quantities, and in the
second place, the impossibility of guaranteeing uniform quality.
Where the small holder has not the command of some local centre of
distribution, or some private list of customers, or a stand of his own
in some market-place, this double disability makes him inferior to the
large farmer, excludes him from the great central markets or delivers
him over to the tender mercies of the middleman. Nor does it only
put him at a disadvantage in competition with the large farmer at
home, as e.g. in the milk trade, but also in competition with those

1 See Graham, The Revival of English Agriculture, pp. 49 f. A similar example is
provided by the success of the Wensleydale Pure Milk Society : for which see E. A. Pratt,
The Transition in Agriculture, 1906, pp. 15 f.

Co-operation 1 9 5

foreign producers who are organised for co-operative export1. If
English small holders are to be protected from foreign competition it
is of the first importance that co-operative sale, by means of the
concentration of the produce at one centre, should be organised. If
this were done, the small holders would be able to demand for their
now concentrated productions better prices and better transport terms
than the owner of sixty or seventy cows, and even large farmers
would probably soon find it advisable to join the association. In the
case of butter the steam-dairy is already the centre for sales. Much
complaint of Danish competition is heard among English butter-
makers : and it is not seldom ascribed to the " unfair " railway tariffs,
which are said to differentiate in favour of the foreign product. But
the reason for this differentiation is simply that the English makers
for the most part send small quantities at irregular intervals.
Mr Harris, the Secretary of the Agricultural Organisation Society,
told me that various railway companies had informed him that they
were quite ready to give the English producers the same tariff as
they gave the foreigners, if the former could undertake to send similar
quantities and with equal regularity. But it is not only in cost of
transport that the small sellers would find co-operation useful ; they
would get much better prices than they are able to get as individuals;
better, very likely, than the individual large farmer himself. The
association would set such a price on its milk or any part of it as
would be most profitable in view of the existing state of the market.
It would engage special agents charged with finding the best markets
and making the best bargains possible, and such agents would
be in a better position to do so than the most influential large farmer.
In this way the disadvantage at which the small holder stands in the
marketing of his produce could be entirely overcome. Where such
attempts have been made they have proved successful. Thus for
example Lord Hampden formed an organisation for the purpose of

1 The evidence of Mr Biddell, a Suffolk farmer, as given in the Report of 1894
(qu. 39,432), is instructive : — " The complaint is that we cannot make butter to sell in
London as the foreign butter is sold, that no merchant in London can secure a supply
worth any consideration at all. While each individual farmer makes his own butter he has
to sell it in small quantities, and you cannot get it twice alike ; the farmers do not make it
alike ; no merchant in London will come and buy it, so it will have to be sold in a kind of
local retail trade ; but if we can secure butter factories by having them in certain centres,
and the butter companies would send round and fetch the milk, and would apportion the
returns according to the milk produced, I think something might be done. A farmer only
keeping eight to ten cows cannot profitably send the milk in the morning to a station unless
it is quite close by, and therefore that stops the milk trade, and the milk trade is better than
the dairying at any time."

13—2

196 Large and Small Holdings

collecting milk and dairy produce and sending it to the large towns,
which proved very beneficial especially to small holders1.

Similar advantages are to be expected from organisation on the
part of small growers of fruit and vegetables. Their case is very
similar to that of the butter-makers. The small gardeners too
complain of the preferential tariffs obtained by foreign growers from
the railway companies, and the cause is the same, viz. that the
English growers can neither send large quantities nor keep regular
times. The companies have to some extent met the small growers in
the same way as they promise to do for the butter-makers if these
will organise. The initiative, in fact, was not taken by the growers,
but by one of the railway companies themselves. Baskets of a certain
uniform size were offered to the fruit-growers at a low price, and the
tariff was lowered for those who made use of these baskets. This
unique system of collection was introduced by the Great Eastern
Railway Company in December 1895. The number of such baskets
used was2

In the 1st year 60,034

„ „ 2nd „ 112,098
„ „ 3rd „ I35,86o

The mere substitution of uniformity for diversity in the size and
shape of basket used in packing was thus sufficient to enable the
company to lower its charges. It is evident that much greater results
might be expected from the establishment of co-operative depots,
which would not simply pack the goods in a uniform manner, but
would secure what is still more important, the sending regularly and
in large quantities. Nor would the benefits to be derived by the
small holder from co-operative organisation be limited to the lessen-
ing of cost of transport. Here again the establishment of depots
would enable the producer to get better terms from the purchaser.
The goods, say for example apples, would be carefully graded at the
depots, and whereas the small grower gets little more for his com-
paratively few first-class fruits than for his ordinary medium or poor
produce, the association would have a large amount of each quality
at disposal. The best specimens would be chosen out, carefully
packed, and sold in quantity by experienced dealers at much better
prices than the unorganised individual could get, selling the whole of

1 See Report of 1894, qu. 3841.

1 Graham, Revival etc., pp. 211 and 112.

Co-operation 197

his fruit together in one market1. It remains to add that the
co-operative sale of eggs is also a great advantage to the small holder
in his competition with his larger rivals : and that it can easily be
organised in connection with other co-operative undertakings.

It is satisfactory to find that as early as 1898 a propagandist
society of the same nature as the Agricultural Organisation Society
was founded for the special purpose of organising poultry-breeding
and the sale of eggs on a co-operative basis. This association, the
National Poultry Organisation Society, is now in close touch with
the Agricultural Organisation Society; it has an increasing number
of branches in connection with it, and their success has been such as
to prove how great a service such co-operation may be to the small
poultry-farmers2. The days are over when the farmer's wife found it
profitable to go to market with her basket of eggs on her arm. The
market of today demands even of this branch of agriculture the
regular transmission of large quantities and uniform quality. The
individual small holder cannot possibly respond to this demand, and
if it were not for the help afforded him by the co-operative collecting
depdts he would be altogether at a disadvantage in the marketing of
his goods as compared with the large farmer.

It is therefore possible for the small holder to rid himself by-
means of co-operation of the disadvantages at which he stands as
compared with the large holder in stock-farming and market-
gardening. Co-operation can abolish his difficulties in regard of
purchase, production and sale. In this way he is able, in those
branches of production where he already is superior or at least on an
equality with the large farmer, to do away with whatever advantages
had remained with the latter. Co-operation can turn what was
previously simply an advantage in certain points on the part of the
small holder into an absolute and unconditional superiority. The
consequence will be that the large farmer in his turn will join the
co-operative association, to avoid being crushed by it, realising of
necessity that e.g. a co-operative steam-dairy can produce and distri-
bute much more economically than any one person's dairy, however

1 Cp. Second Annual Report of the A. O. S., p. 7, where it is said to have been the
experience of the Bewdley Society that goods properly sorted, of which the buyer can be
certain that he will get always the same quantity and quality, command a much higher pric
in the market than unsorted wares even of equally good quality : so that, as no one but a.
large grower can sort and send his goods in such a manner, co-operation is the true means
whereby foreign competition can be met.

2 See The Marketing of Eggs and Poultry, Leaflet No. 8 of the National Poultry
Organisation Society.

198 Large and Small Holdings

large and excellent. However, co-operation in England has by no
means yet arrived at this stage. Although it has begun to develop
along with the growing profitableness of the small holding and the
branches of production proper to it, its progress is as yet very slow.
The causes of this slowness of development are not difficult for
anyone acquainted with English agriculture to recognise.

If the co-operative system is to flourish, it presupposes a co-
operative spirit ; that is to say a certain brotherliness, possibly even
some sentimentality, of disposition. In little village communities,
with old-established and traditionally respected members, families
which have held together, in spite no doubt of many family quarrels,
for hundreds of years, the ground is prepared for co-operative action.
Such is the case in Hesse or Denmark or Schleswig-Holstein.
But England is the land of capitalist agriculture. Neighbours are
not known to one another as they are in the village community. Few
of the occupiers or cultivators have their homes in the village. They
live outside, more as in the Celtic type of settlement, and this in
itself prevents the intimate and friendly relationships to be found
among the true villagers. The English countryman can hardly be
defended from the charge of being extraordinarily suspicious. He
does not trust his neighbours, and would rather go alone than in
company. Moreover the whole idea of association is much more
strange to him than to the peasantry of a country where the village
community is still a reality. In the village community any number
of things are already done in common ; here and there, as in the
southern part of Germany, in Switzerland, and elsewhere, even common
pastures still exist ; but the English farmer has been educated in
complete independence and isolation since the agricultural revolution
of the eighteenth century. He has to be entirely re-converted to the
co-operative mind. And the success which the co-operative move-
ment has already attained in some instances seems to show that the
farmers, and especially the small farmers, are increasingly realising
the blessings it may bring1.

Co-operation is indeed full of promise for the large holder as well
as for the small ; but in a different manner. The large farmer finds
in it a means of increasing his net profits. The question of com-
petition between the various units of holding is not what moves him

1 Cp. Mr E. A. Pratt on this subject in his Small Holders : What they must do to succeed,
1909, a very useful book so far as the presentment of facts is concerned, but to be used
with caution in regard of its conclusions and theories of a general and economic nature.
Mr G. Radford's Agricultural Co-operation, Westminster, n. d., is also worthy of mention.

Co-operation 1 99

to become a co-operator. He can already, without any help from
associations, buy cheaper than the small holder, sell on better terms,
and so forth. He regards the co-operative system as a profitable
thing, but not as a means of protecting himself from the competition
of some other type of holding. The small holder, on the contrary,
sees in it a means of securing certain advantages hitherto peculiar
to the large farmer. The question is therefore of much more vital
significance in his case. On the other hand it is quite possible,
as has been shown, for co-operation to unite various small under-
takings in one large business, so that the large farmer finds that he
has been brought comparatively speaking into the position of a small
producer, and that he cannot do better than join the association
himself. The immediate task of co-operation, however, is to increase
the superiority of the small holding in stock-farming and market-
gardening, by means of abolishing the weaknesses it possessed in
buying, selling and production.

CHAPTER XI

HISTORICAL RETROSPECT AND PRESENT OUTLOOK

THE development of English agriculture and of the unit of
agricultural holding have now been traced in some detail over
a period of almost two hundred years and as they stand at the
present day. It remains to consider briefly the probable future of
the two main types of holding in England.

The answer to this problem is to be sought in the fundamental
laws of the unit of holding, as they have emerged in the course of our
historical study. This has shown that the problem of the unit of
agricultural holding is one which is not to be solved in the same way
at all times and in all places. There is no type of holding which can
be said to be the ideal type for all agricultural purposes. Such ideal
holdings can only be found for each individual branch of production.
Consequently the problem of the unit of holding is dependent on the
particular agricultural conditions of a country at any given moment.
These conditions change in the course of time, and among the causes
which most essentially influence such changes the circumstances of
the market play the chief part. They, therefore, in the last resort
determine the problem. As the market conditions change the
agricultural production changes, and as the production changes the
unit of holding changes too. But the market conditions are mainly
dependent on the home consumption of agricultural produce. In
the history of the century and a half preceding the year 1875 these
circumstances of consumption and consequent market conditions
were favourable to the production of corn. It was impossible to
obtain corn to the extent to which it can be obtained today from
the virgin soil of newly-cultivated countries, and therefore, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, England found herself obliged to
use her own soil for the extension of her supply of grain. According
to the law of diminishing returns, this could only be done at a con-
tinually increasing cost, while the population was growing. The less

Conclusion 201

the country was able to cover its demand for corn, as it had done
formerly, by foreign imports at a steady or decreasing price, the more
did every new addition to the population suffer under that law, as the
bread it needed could only be obtained at a higher and higher price.
Relatively more labour and capital were needed to produce the
necessary quantity of corn, since as the numbers of the people
increased less fertile soils had continually to be brought under
cultivation. In other words, the relation of the labour expended to
the results achieved was continually altering for the worse, in propor-
tion as the growing population had to put out a comparatively greater
effort in order to supply its demand for the chief means of subsistence,
or as, in accordance with the law of diminishing returns, the same
effort produced less corn than previously. To work more and to get
less was the lot of the labouring people of England so long as they
were compelled to wring an increasing part of their subsistence from
unfruitful soils. This state of affairs was manifested in the fact that
between 1760 and 1846 wages never rose in proportion to the very
marked rise in the price of bread. As regarded the conditions of
agricultural production, however, these high corn-prices had a two-
fold effect. In the first place corn became an increasingly profitable
crop ; and in the second place the profits from the other branches of
agriculture fell and indeed in some cases almost vanished. The
standard of life of the lower classes deteriorated as the price of
corn rose ; and hence the profitableness of stock-farming and petite
culture decreased, in proportion as the high price of cereals together
with the fall in real wages diminished the consumption of meat
and vegetables. Corn dominated the situation. Now corn is the
special property, so to say, of the large farmer. Corn-growing
can be most profitably conducted on large holdings. For it demands
the greatest possible expenditure of capital, and can be satisfactorily
carried on by means of wage-labour and machinery. Accordingly
when corn-growing came to the front, the chances of the small
holding decreased. The speciality of the small holding is its quan-
titatively and qualitatively intensive application of labour. It
finds its proper sphere in stock-farming and petite culture, which
demand a detailed care and an amount of painstaking effort not to
be obtained from hired labour. Hence it had prospered up to the
middle of the eighteenth century. Then the change in market
conditions began ; they favoured corn-growing, and the production of
meat and vegetables became of less and less importance. Wars and
bad harvests, and later on a corn-law policy calculated to have the

2O2 Large and Small Holdings

same effect as wars and bad harvests, drove up corn-prices : and the
small holding was swallowed up by the large farm. Landlords
threw small holdings together to form large ones. Large farmers
took the place of the little farmers and cottiers. The small yeomen
sold their land in order to become large farmers. The commons,
which had been the backbone of the economy of many small holders,
were everywhere divided and turned into a few large farms. This
development continued till about the end of the third quarter of the
nineteenth century. The market conditions and with them the
conditions of production were indeed changed to some extent in 1846.
England then ceased to attempt to provide for her growing population
almost exclusively with home-grown corn. Free Trade opened the
long-closed door to foreign imports. The English people now had
the advantage of obtaining its bread at the price current in the
international market. But this price did not fall to any considerable
extent in the first thirty years of Free Trade, so that the advantage
so far only amounted to the fact that the growing population
continued to be fed at the same and not at a growing price. This
meant a good deal, however, to a country where, in consequence of
its corn-law policy, price had hitherto increased along with popula-
tion. Prices remaining the same, corn-growing was still profitable ;
while as the standard of comfort rose, the consumption of meat
increased and stock-farming came to be of more importance. In the
result, corn-production reached a still higher standard, being combined
with cattle-farming and consequently with an improved rotation of
crops, but remaining the backbone of the system, and therefore still
leading to the extension of the large holding.

At the end of the seventies came the turn of the tide. Improved
means of communication, together with the bringing into cultivation
of virgin soils of unlimited extent and great fertility, led to a fall in
the price of corn in the world-market. The market for agricultural
products accordingly underwent a great change. The English people
was in a position to satisfy its demand for its most important article
of food at a constantly decreasing price by means of foreign imports.
That part of the national labour-power which had hitherto been
devoted to the production of grain now streamed into other employ-
ments, in so far as it could no longer produce corn at a price to
compete with that imported from abroad. This branch of agriculture
was now increasingly unprofitable. But in proportion as the market
for corn deteriorated, that for all other agricultural products improved.
The less the mass of the people were forced to spend on their bread,

Conclusion 203

the more could they afford for meat, butter, cheese, fruit and vege-
tables, especially as money-wages, so far from following the price
of bread, were actually rising. The consequence was an enormous
increase in the consumption of all those articles which had only
under exceptional circumstances been touched by the general popula-
tion during the period of high corn-prices. Accordingly, the direction
of agricultural production was again changed. Intensive stock-
farming, the production of first-class meat, dairy-farming, fruit and
vegetable growing, and the sale of eggs and fowls took the place of
the now unprofitable corn-growing. And the conditions of the
market and of production being thus altered, the question of the unit
of holding was altered for the first time for more than a hundred years.
Large farms diminished in number as corn-growing was driven off all
but the most fertile soils. They held their ground where the branch
of production adopted suited this form of holding, as e.g. in the
breeding of pedigree stock and in sheep-farming. But this was the
exception. As a rule, the new types of farming were such as were
proper to the small holding. They demanded in the first place the
personal labour of the occupier and his family, that is to say, intensive
application of labour rather than of capital. Therefore, as corn-prices
fell, the chances of the small holding improved, and it emerged from
the dark realms of forgotten things to become an object of the greatest
interest and importance. Today in England its praises are celebrated
and the conditions of its success are studied by agricultural authorities
and by political leaders. Landlords, after a century of contrary
practice, endeavour to divide their farms and to reduce them to the
size which was the rule in the England of the past. The State seizes
upon the moment as favourable to its need for the creation of small
holdings as a barrier against the flight from the land, and it has
become possible to carry through legislation aimed at a revival of
such holdings which not so long ago was held to be a Utopian dream,
since it would have been in opposition to the economic tendencies of
the day.

The dependence of the problem of the unit of holding on the
conditions of the market for the various kinds of agricultural pro-
duce is thus clearly evident. Those conditions determine what shall
be produced ; and what branches of agriculture shall hold the first,
second or third place. Therefore they obviously also influence the
unit of holding. For this in its turn is dependent on the varying
profitableness of the various branches of agricultural production.

204 Large and Small Holdings

Here is one great difference between the question of large-scale or
small-scale production in agriculture and in industry. In the latter,
the smaller unit, the handicraft, is driven out by the larger — factory
or machine production — because as a rule the same goods can be
produced better and more cheaply on the large scale. The compe-
tition between the units is simply a competition in cheapness. Every
advance in technique, and every new machine brought into use,
strengthens the larger unit as against the smaller. In agriculture,
on the contrary, the large unit produces differently from the small.
Each unit has some branch of production in which it is superior to
the rest. The varying profitableness of these branches of production
is therefore decisive in the competition between the larger and
smaller units in agriculture. The progress of invention is only really
important in corn-growing, which does depend more or less on
mechanical processes, and therefore admits the use of wage-labour
and machinery. If corn -growing is profitable, the result is that, as
in industry, the larger unit of production flourishes, because there
technical progress can be put to the best advantage. But in every
other branch of agriculture technical progress has a much smaller
part to play. No mechanical processes, but personal, qualitative
labour is the essential condition of success in stock-farming or the
cultivation of fruit and vegetables. Where these branches of pro-
duction are profitable, the smaller unit of production will always
have the advantage. Whether or not they will be profitable is a
matter determined by the condition of the market, or in other words
by the standard of consumption. The course of our study will have
shown that the conditions of consumption and of the market in any
national economy can never be equally favourable to all branches
of agriculture at the same time. Rising corn-prices will favour the
extension of corn-growing, but will at the same time limit the con-
sumption of all other agricultural produce, and consequently entail
the decay or stagnation of stock-farming and market-gardening. On
the other hand, the consumption of all other articles of food will
increase in proportion as corn, the most necessary of them all, falls in
price. Accordingly the interests of large and small farming are not
identical in regard of the conditions of the market. What to the
corn-producing large farmer is an improving market will to the small
farmer be a deteriorating one. The competition between the large
and small unit in agriculture is a competition for the maintenance
and improvement of the market-conditions favourable to each.

Conclusion 205

According as the market turns in favour of this or that product will
the problem of the unit of holding be determined in favour of this
or that size of farm.

The future outlook, so far as it is ever possible to foresee the
future, now becomes fairly clear. Much will depend on whether or
not England holds to her present Free Trade policy. After what
has just been said, it is not necessary to draw out the consequences to
the unit of holding if the market for home-grown corn were to be
artificially improved, as it was from 1815 to 1846. The revival of the
small holding from 1880 onwards is the work of unconditional Free
Trade. To give up Free Trade would be to undermine the founda-
tions of this form of holding, whose development during the period
of falling corn-prices has been greeted with so much satisfaction by
social reformers of all parties. However, England has not so far
adopted the proposals of Mr Chamberlain and his followers : and
what we have to discuss at present is the probable evolution of
the unit of agricultural holding if the present Free Trade system is
maintained.

The possibility of a further development of small holdings and
replacing of large farms by small has been questioned on two grounds.
In the first place it is said to be doubtful whether the consumption of
the agricultural produce proper to the small holding can be so extended
as to lead to any considerable increase in such holdings. It is thought
that production may increase faster than consumption, and so small
holdings become less profitable. In the second place it has been said
that even assuming that demand would continue to expand, production
could not be increased to meet it, since these particular products
cannot be obtained everywhere, nor to an unlimited amount. This
last was the consideration in the mind of the Commissioners of the
nineties when they made their often repeated assertion that small
holdings could only supply a remedy for agricultural distress where
they could enjoy such conditions as were favourable to their particular
products.

In regard of the first objection, that the consumption of the smaller
agricultural products will not rise sufficiently to allow of an increase
of small holdings adequate to compensate for the great decay of the
large farm system, it is of the first importance to remember how
greatly such consumption has increased in recent years. The figures
for the imports of certain classes of such goods show this clearly.
The following table gives the amounts and values of such imports
into the United Kingdom from 1886 onwards ; but of course only

206

Large and Small Holdings

such goods as are also produced at home are here given, as it is only
these which enter into the present question. The figures in each case
are per thousand, the ciphers being omitted1.

Butter

Cheese

Condensed Milk

Year

, * N

, * >

/• * s

cwts.

£

cwts.

£

cwts. £

1886

1543

8141

1734

3871

1887

1513

8010

1836

4514

I

1888

1671

8913

1917

4546

352

734

1889

1927

10,244

1907

4490

339 704

1890

2027

10,598

' 2144

4975

407

847

1891

2135

11,591

2041

4813

444

900

1892

2183

11,965

2232

5416

481 930

1893

2327

12,753

2077

5160

501 1009

1894

2574

I3.456

2266

5474

529

1079

1895

2825

14,245

2133

4675

545

1083

1896

3037

15.344

2244

4900

611

1170

1897

3217

15,916

2603

5885

756

1398

1898

3209

15,961

2339

4970

817

*435

1899

3389

17,213

2384

55<>3

824

H55

1900

3378

17,45°

2705

6837

987

1743

1905

4147

21,586

2442

6339

893

1584

1908

4210

24,080

2306

6684

920

1606

1909

4062

22,424

3390

6829

991

I73i

The imports of other products of petite culture have also risen
enormously of late years, as the table on the next page will show.
Here also the figures are for thousands, the ciphers being omitted2.

The imports of potatoes, onions and cherries also show a consider-
able increase, as do those of vegetables ; but unfortunately the statistics
for these last do not distinguish between the different kinds of
vegetables, so that they are not available for our purposes. However,
it is clear that the consumption of all these articles of food is enor-
mously increasing year by year. The statistics also show that the value
of the imports of butter, cheese, condensed milk, apples and eggs
alone is about equal to the total value of wheat imported. In 1909
the value of those five articles of import was .£41,200,000, while

1 Cp. Agricultural Statistics for 1903, pp. 142 f., and ibid, for 1909, Part in,
pp. 290-1.

* Agricultural Statistics for 1903, pp. 152, 144, and ibid, for 1909, pp. 300, 292, 318.

Conclusion

207

the average value of the wheat imported in 1908 and 1909 was
£4 1, 700,000 \

Poultry

Apples

Pears

Plums

and Game

^Eggs

Year

, *• \

t A X

f •*• \

Bshls.

£

Bshls.

£

Bshls.

£

£

Thsnds. £

1892

45 H

1353

637

296

412

199

583

1336 3794

1893

3459

843

915

347

777

331

578

1325 3875

1894

4968

1389

1310

411

777

302

480

1425 3786

1895

3292

960

407

1 66

401

1 66

605

1526

4003

1896

6176

1582

483

206

560

241

705

1589

4184

1897

4199

1187

1051

377

1043

497

730

1683

4356

i

1898

3458

1108

491

221

922

434

637

1730

4457

1899

3861

1186

57i

266

558

294

785

1940

5044

cwts.

cwts.

cwts.

1900

2128

1224

476

366

423

392

1010

2025

54o6

1905

3494

2065

417

407

480

524

999

2259 6812

1908

3376

2079

523

515

402

427

1052

2185 7183

1909

3129

2007

569

504

485

473

1028

2125 7233

The prophets of the nineties who held that the consumption of
such produce would soon cease to expand were therefore obviously
mistaken. The import figures prove that, on the contrary, the con-
sumption of precisely those articles which are produced by small
holders has vastly increased. There has also been an increase in the
consumption of products which are not imported, as fresh milk, which
has already been mentioned. Here again no figures are available,
but every authority on English agriculture admits the growth of the
consumption of milk as an undisputed fact. So Mr Anderson Graham
wrote in April I9O32: — " Mr Hunter Pringle was of opinion when he
wrote" (i.e. in his Report to the Commission of 1894) "that too many
people were going into this (the dairy) branch of farming, and that it
would be ruined by over-competition. Experience has not justified his
forecast. The consumption of milk appears to grow, not only with the
population, but per head." But the figures quoted above show that
this undoubted increase in the consumption of articles proper to the
small holder has by no means all inured to the benefit of the English
agriculturist. The increase in the stock kept, in the area under fruit

1 Agricultural Statistics for 1909, p. 293.

2 In the Morning Post of April n, 1903, p. i.

208 Large and Small Holdings

and vegetables, in the number of eggs sold and poultry kept, and so
forth, do indeed show that English agriculture has taken some share
in supplying the demand. But still a considerable part of the supply
is provided by foreigners. This would appear to give force to the
second objection mentioned above, namely, that the home production
of articles of the kind in question is necessarily limited. It is claimed
that the high import-figures for butter, eggs, fruit and the rest show
that the conditions of agriculture in England are unfavourable to,
and in part prohibitive of, the production of such articles. But the
experience of recent years gives no uncertain answer to this
suggestion.

That one important branch of small farming, viz. stock-farming,
has shown itself capable of extension has already been proved.
When the agricultural crisis was at its worst, and the fall in the price
of corn was making itself most severely felt, the absolute ruin of
English agriculture was freely predicted. It was said that in Essex,
Norfolk, Suffolk and other counties, soil and climate made it simply
impossible to transform arable into pasture or in any way to
develop stock-farming further than it was already carried. But the
Scottish farmers acted while English agriculturists hesitated, and
today even in Essex flourishing dairy-farms and market gardens are
common. Where pasture has not been laid down, stock-farming is
carried on by means of stall-feeding, a method which writers on the
subject had long been pressing on English farmers1. A system of
temporary pasture has also proved very successful where neither
stall-feeding nor permanent pasture was suitable. Mr M. J. Sutton
showed, as a result of his very thorough study of the question,
how capable of extension this system of temporary pasture is*.
There are thus no unconquerable difficulties in the way of the
expansion of stock-farming and dairying. It is true that English
farmers, like the agriculturists of every country, are conservative,
and hold to their old traditions. They are often sadly lacking
in the marvellous capacity for adaptation to circumstances shown
by their Scottish brethren. To this conservatism is attributable
among other things their great reluctance to adopt co-operative
methods, necessary as these are in the interests of technical and

1 Lloyd Baker, Dairying in Denmark, Bath, 1896, p. n. See also Mr Graham in the
Morning Post, loc. cit.

2 M. J. Sutton, Permanent and Temporary Pastures, 1888, pp. 4-5 : — "I quite admit
that there are large tracts of land in this country which are unsuited for the formation of
permanent pastures — But there is no farm land with which I am acquainted that will not
profitably respond to the alternate system."

Conclusion 209

economic progress. Persons acquainted with Danish methods of
dairying declared in the nineties that England was twenty-five years
behind Denmark in her butter-making1. It was not more favourable
conditions of production, but co-operative organisation, and technical
perfection in production and distribution, which gave Denmark and
other countries their standing in the English markets. The question
is whether England will adopt the methods of production and
distribution demanded by modern conditions of international com-
petition.

The outlook in regard of other branches of production is much
the same. The extension of fruit and vegetable-growing is also
hindered by difficulties of a technical description. Thus, for example,
Mr Morgan, the Secretary of the Fruit Growers League, told the
Committee of 1889 that England had the same opportunities of
successful apple and pear-growing as America ; perhaps better.
English growers could in particular produce fruit of the best quality,
for which high prices were obtainable. Thousands of tons of fruit
which were yearly imported could be grown quite as well in England
as abroad ; the English soil and climate were excellently suited for the
purpose2. One authority wrote briefly3 : — " There are few farms that
do not comprise one or more fields admirably adapted for the growth
of such crops as table peas, French beans, celery, early cabbages,
turnips, small fruit, herbs, etc. ; and still fewer farms that do not
include an orchard capable of improvement or extension." An expert
reported on the fruit-culture of Gloucestershire* that certain parts of
the country " might easily have been converted into a veritable gold
mine." " If such grand apples," he wrote, " can be grown on the
brashy Cotswold soil by good cultivation, it shows what ought to be
possible in the more favoured districts. Soils and positions are
important factors in success, but the need for education is even more
pronounced."

Poultry-farming is another branch of agriculture equally capable
of expansion. The enormous demand for fowls is by no means yet
met by the supply6, so that such an expansion is very desirable.

1 Report of 1894,911. 4758.

2 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 5806, 5809-13.

* A. R. Cragg, Specialities in Farming, in the Journal of the Bath etc. Society, 1903,
pp. 41 f.

4 Annual Report of the Technical Instruction Committee of the Gloucestershire County
Council, July, 1902, p. 34.

s Cp. Graham, The Revival etc., p. 126.

L. I4

2io Large and Small Holdings

But, as Mr Revv's report showed1, chicken-farming "depends not on
local advantages, but on organisation and skill," and could therefore
be developed in any district.

The English agriculturist need thus be under no apprehension
that the consumption of fruit, vegetables, dairy-produce, etc. will
increase less rapidly than the production ; he need fear no over-
production in this sphere. At present consumption is expanding
much more rapidly than is the home production. But the reason
is not that England lies under some technical difficulty or dis-
ability in the supply of such produce. On the contrary, it is just as
possible to increase the production of these articles in England as
it is in the competing countries of Denmark, France, Belgium, etc.
That these and other countries have at present to some extent driven
the English agriculturist out of his home market is simply due to the
better organisation which the foreigner brings to the production and
distribution of his goods. England needs to adopt these co-operative
methods of organisation with all possible speed. It is to be hoped
that the efforts of the Agricultural Organisation Society in this
direction may meet with the success they deserve.

Nevertheless, in spite of all that English agriculturists have left
undone in their work of turning the new market conditions to their
own advantage, English agriculture has admittedly experienced a
great revival of late years. The growing demand of the mass of the
population for meat, fruit, vegetables, butter, cheese, milk, eggs, etc.
secures its future in so far as it succeeds in adopting the best methods
available, and in giving up unprofitable branches in favour of those now
profitable. A condition of success equal in importance to that of the
introduction of co-operation is, however, the maintenance of Free Trade.
It is Free Trade which, by cheapening bread and meat, has raised the
purchasing power of wages, and so increased the consuming power
of the mass of the population, to the benefit of the agriculturist. But
assuming that the economic development of England continues on
the lines of the last quarter of a century, while agriculturists seize the
advantages which they have by their own fault hitherto failed to
seize, what will be in the future the problem of the unit of holding ?

The future will be similar to the past. Small holdings will
once again play the chief part. Where corn-growing, pedigree stock-

1 As summarised by Mr Charming, op. cit. p. 37. Cp. also the Estate Book, 1909,
p. 154, under Chicken Rearing in Sussex: — "Why is this industry practically confined to
this district ? There is not the least reason why it should be, as equally favourable conditions
could no doubt be found elsewhere."

Conclusion 2 1 1

breeding, or sheep-farming remain profitable, the large farm will
survive, owing to the intensive application of capital which in these
branches of agriculture gives it an absolute advantage over the small
holding. But it will continue to make way for small holdings
where the other branches of production are most profitable, and above
all where the small holders succeed in organising themselves co-opera-
tively. It will give way to the small holding, that is to say, where
intensity of labour is of greater importance than intensive application
of capital, as is the case in most forms of stock-farming and in fruit
and vegetable culture.

In the last resort it must always be the condition of the market
which will determine the solution of the problem of the unit of holding.
Non-economic tendencies may of course influence and limit the
natural economic development : and here lies a great danger to the
national economy1. For every hindrance to a necessary economic
development is an injury to the mass of the people of the nation
concerned. But for that very reason whatever social or political
hindrances exist to the natural evolution of the unit of agricultural
holding in England will not be permitted to continue. The people
have the power, through their Parliamentary government, to get rid
of conditions which are seen to be hurtful to their interests.

The continued development of the small holdings system appears
to be in every way advantageous to the national economy. It com-
pensates for the decay of the large farm system in proportion as the
extension of stock-farming and petite culture compensates for the
unprofitableness of corn-crops. No doubt these branches of production
make greater demands on the capacity of the individual agriculturist
than corn-growing did. Small farming puts a greater strain on human
faculties, and demands a greater output of personal energy, than was
necessary in the days when the profits on corn were steady and the
large farm system ruled. But just because its survival and development

1 A gloomy picture was painted of certain tendencies of this description by Mr W. Sea wen
Blunt in the Nineteenth Century for 1906 (Vol. LIX), p. 964. He says: — "One thing
however stands absolutely in the way, and must be changed before chicken fanning can
become at all a general industry. I say it with regret, but without hesitation, chicken farming
and fox-hunting cannot exist together ; and if we want to maintain the one we must not
maintain the other. Chicken and egg farms fail principally in Sussex because to escape the
depredations of foxes, the chickens cannot be let run freely in the fields and hedgerows,
where to a large extent they should pick up their living. Shut up in wire enclosures the
cost of feeding is too great. The fox is a wide night-roamer, and cannot be dealt with
locally, as is the case with other vermin, by help of trap or gun or poison. Until therefore
he ceases to be preserved by landowners it is useless to talk of our competing in Sussex witb
the chicken industries of France, where the fox finds no quarter."

14—2

212 Large and Small Holdings

make these demands it would seem to be in the highest degree
favourable to the progress of English agriculture. From the point of
view of social policy, on the other hand, a system of agriculture
depending mainly on small holdings is undoubtedly the most satis-
factory. Such a system prevents the rise of that opposition of class
interests which is so marked a feature of the large farm system
with its wage-labourers. The development of small holdings and
allotment holdings lessens the great danger of capitalist agriculture,
which is that the landless labourers drift to the towns, there to seek
compensation for what they have lost upon the land. Nothing but
small holdings can keep the people on the land so long as the
industrial labour-market is open to them. Nevertheless, social
reformers desirous of seeing the small holding system maintained and
developed must admit, in view of the facts of English agricultural
history, that it is the general economic conditions which at any given
time and place determine the problem of the unit of holding. The
small cultivator can only thrive when the articles which he can
produce better and more cheaply than the large farmer can also be
sold to better advantage than the characteristic produce of the large
farm. The surest means of securing the existence of the small
agriculturist is to raise the consuming-power of the mass of the
population, by keeping their food, and more especially their bread and
meat, free from taxation, and by reforming the conditions of town
life in every possible way. For the better the condition of the labouring
classes, the greater will be their demand for those articles in which
the small holder finds his proper domain. Mr R. A. Yerburgh, M.P.,
who has already been mentioned as one of the great champions of
agricultural co-operation, recently expressed in well-chosen words the
tendency of the present conditions of agricultural life towards the
maintenance of peace, both in social and in political matters. The
reader who has followed the historical description given above will
appreciate the truth of Mr Yerburgh's words, which are quoted
here by his express permission, though they have not previously
been printed. He says: — "The position of the farmer is now
"entirely different to what it was when he depended upon the pro-
" duction of the necessaries of life, corn and meat. Then, it is said, the
" common toast at the farmers' ordinaries was ' To the next bloody
" war ' ; the reason being that a war meant high prices for the farmer.
" Now the situation is completely different The farmer with us is
" chiefly interested in producing what we may call luxuries, such as
" milk, cheese, eggs, poultry, fruit. The sale of these depends upon

Conclusion 2 1 3

" the prosperity of the country. If war breaks out, our commerce and
" industries suffer, and the wage-earners find their means of subsistence
" threatened. The result is an immediate lessening of the demand for
" luxuries, and a consequent diminution of prices for the farmer. Thus
" the farmer now, in place of being interested in war, has a supreme
"interest in peace; and as the small holders will be almost entirely
"occupied with producing luxuries their interests will lie in the same
"direction, and so they will be a powerful factor along with the
" farmers in the preservation of peace."

There is then harmony between the modern developments of
English agriculture and agricultural holdings and the interests of the
great mass of the population. Ricardo's dictum, that the interests
of agriculture were irreconcilably opposed to those of the rest of the
community, is no longer true. Since 1 846 England has refused to
sacrifice the good of the whole to the interest of any class ; it has
ceased to protect its corn-producers from foreign competition. To
this policy it owes the rapid development of the small holding system,
and the technical improvements in agricultural methods of the last
five and twenty years. To this policy it is due that the inevitable
crisis of 1880 onwards did not spell ruin, but led to the gradual re-
organisation of the agriculture of the country. To this policy above
all is due the harmony of interest between that re-organised agricul-
ture and the needs of the great majority of the English people.

APPENDIX I

THE MODERN SMALL FARMER AND THE QUESTION OF HOME
COLONISATION: A PROBLEM OF SOCIOLOGY

PERHAPS German experience under the German settlement laws best
shows what class of settlers is most suited to take up small holdings. They
are men who were themselves in their earlier life little independent cultivators,
or industrial workers living on the land, who have held a bit of land as
a by-employment; or else peasants' sons, such as come from the west into
Posen and West Prussia in order to be able to obtain land of their own.
That is to say they are in any case men of peasant stock. "We see,"
writes Herr Belgard, "how e.g. the Westphalians and Hanoverians take the
fine old peasant holdings of their homes for their model, and turn all their
efforts to the creation of an equally stable property and equally excellent
live-stock upon it1." It is the same class who when they emigrate become
hard-working cultivators in foreign lands. Everywhere they carry with them
a tradition and an ideal, in the memory of the conditions under which they
grew up.

How different are the conditions in England ! There is no peasantry to
draw upon, unless in a few isolated districts such as the Isle of Axholme or
a few places in Cumberland where yeomen of the old type are still to be
found. The sons of small or medium farmers are early employed on their
father's farm or on that of some neighbour; but when they grow up they
begin to move away. They see nothing specially honourable in the fact that
their father holds a farm, which, under the capitalist tenant-farmer system,
may be here to-day and there to-morrow ; they do not see in it any hereditary
obligation, or even anything which they desire to imitate. On the contrary,
they are without traditions, and are only desirous of making their way
into spheres which seem to them more satisfactory. Town life and
industrial employment attract them. The father may have worked his way
up from the position of a mere wage-earner to that of an independent farmer,
and so after a long struggle have attained the goal of his highest hopes. But
to the son that position seems a matter of course, and the desire for a higher
social and economic standing awakes in him very early.

1 M. Belgard, Parzellierung und Innert ^Colonisation, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 340 f.

Home Colonisation 215

It is therefore clear that the home colonisation of England cannot be
brought about on the same basis as if the colonists could be drawn from
an existing peasantry. If in Germany the settler has the sense that he is
carrying on a tradition, and maintaining the social standard of his fore-
fathers, in England quite other motives lead a man to take up a small
holding.

(1) England has an agricultural proletariat, a class of landless agri-
cultural labourers, who may be brought out of their dependent position
and established as small cultivators. This class has for over a century been
produced as a necessary part of the large farm system ; while for some thirty
years past the revival of small holdings has made it possible for its members
to rise to an independent position. In their case there is therefore no
question of the maintenance of a hereditary tradition ; on the contrary, when
an agricultural labourer takes a small holding he climbs into a social position
which is as a. matter of history altogether new to his class. Moreover, not
only the social position, but also the whole economic position, is new to him.
He will have worked all his life as a wage-earner on large or medium-sized
farms, probably devoted to arable in the first place, worked in conjunction
with stock-feeding based on large pastures and hay-fields : whereas on his small
holding he will have to adopt branches of production which demand quite
a different kind of labour, where machinery is at a discount, and the work
must be done by hand in great detail and up to a very high standard of
quality. Economic difficulties such as these can only be overcome by that
peculiar zest for work produced by the hope of making so great a rise in the
social scale. That this desire for independence does exist is proved by the
fact that in the year 1909, for example, 25 per cent, of the applications for
small holdings came from agricultural labourers.

(2) The second category of possible colonists — and it is a very miscel-
laneous one — consists of applicants who have not hitherto been in any way
occupied in agriculture. They would, so far as their previous economic
activity is concerned, be classed as town-dwellers, or at any rate as industrial
workers ; but from their very various callings they desire to pass to the land.
In this class, though not the most important part of it, are the village artisans
and their congeners — butchers, bakers, grocers or small shopkeepers. To
many of these, the Small Holdings Act is a means of obtaining land as a
by-employment1. Their shop will remain the backbone of their economy.
But others give up their industrial employment and devote themselves
entirely to farming. Two examples of what men of this class have achieved
are here appended, taken from the evidence given before the Committee
of

1 Cp. Report of a Conference as to the Administration of the Small Holdings Acts,
1908, p. 35.

8 See Small Holdings Report, 1906. Minutes, qu. 2217.

216 Appendix I

(a) George Batchelor. This man had been a village shoemaker with a
rather small income. By energy and industry he saved enough to take a
little holding, which he cultivated with great satisfaction and apparently
with pecuniary success. He had in 1905 a banking account, and was adding
to his land year by year. New buildings were erected on his farm at a cost of
£180, so that the holding was brought into very good condition.

(b) George Williams. This man had a newly-formed holding, the house
and buildings having cost about ^340. He had been employed on the
railway, but gave up his situation. He had planted his land with fruit trees ;
and as he had a family growing up, his labour cost him very little.

Another case, which was described to the Committee by the person in
question himself1, was that of a quondam cobbler, who got tired of his work,
and took an acre of orchard land. He ended by holding 30 acres, not as
tenant, but as owner. A Wiltshire co-operative association, the Mere and
District Small Holding Society, lets holdings of from one to 30 acres, chiefly
for pasture-farms or market-gardens. Among its tenants are men who were
formerly respectively a baker, an innkeeper, a decorator, a coach-maker, a
road- mender, a groom, etc., and several hawkers2. In another county, Den-
bighshire, a farm of 79 acres was cut up by the County Council. The largest
holding, which covered 44 acres, was taken jointly by two brothers, who had
formerly been miners in the neighbourhood. Their stock consisted of 14 cows,
19 pigs, two cart-horses and two ponies3. But one of the most remarkable
examples of change from industrial employment to the independent position
of small land-holders is offered by the history of Catshill in Worcestershire.
A large number of the inhabitants of this village were nail-makers, and nail-
making was apparently a "dying trade." Some of the ratepayers therefore
applied to the County Council for land. The Council bought an estate of
147 acres, and formed holdings of 3^ to eleven or twelve acres. The nail-
makers were thereupon transformed into market-gardeners. The fact that
they were near the great market of Birmingham was of great service to them.
They produced not only fruit and vegetables, but pigs and poultry, and
needed no other employment. According to a report laid before the
Committee of 1906 their position was most satisfactory4.

All the settlers in the cases given above, although they did not come
from agricultural occupations, had either lived on the land (as villagers, on
the railway, in country house employment, etc.), or at any rate had not lost
all connection with it. From these must be distinguished the type of settler
who is a genuine town-dweller. A writer on the subject divides these into
two groups5, namely, first, town workers who have country wives, or who

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 9012-9071.

2 Report of a Conference etc., p. 104. * Ibid., p. 89.
4 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 3901 ff., 3909, 4003 ff.
6 H. E. Moore, Our Heritage in the Land, 1906, p. 112.

Home Colonisation 217

have had some experience of agricultural work, and who for the sake of
the health of themselves or their family want to get into the country, even if
they can only make a smaller income there. Secondly, town workers who see
that in consequence of increasing age, or of the depression of their trade, they
are likely to lose their employment in a few years, and drop to the position
of casual labourers.

There is no doubt that there is a considerable number of men of this
latter type desirous of getting onto the land. The action of some of the
labouring people of Leicester, most of them employed in the boot trade, is
characteristic. A number of the factory workers put themselves in possession
of allotments, having organised co-operatively for the purpose1 : and one of
their objects, as reported by Mr E. A. Pratt2, was to use these allotments as
a stage towards and an education for the taking of a small holding. And in
fact the attempt to obtain allotments was soon followed by the formation in
the same district of a co-operative association for the creation of small
holdings3. Of town-dwellers of quite another type Mr Pratt writes4: —
"Apart from the factory workers who have gained experience on allotments...
there are men who, though intelligent, capable, and willing, are physically
unfit for the stress and strain of life in great cities, especially when close
confinement in an office or counting-house may be included therein. Others
there are who, though considered 'too old' for the employment on which
they have hitherto been engaged, still possess an amount of energy and vigour,
the devotion of which to a healthy rural pursuit would... provide them with
a fresh and more or less profitable employment.... Others, again, the sons of
manufacturers, business men, or professional men, might well start in the
country in some occupation which either appealed to their tastes more, or
would suit the condition of their health better, than following in the footsteps
of their fathers."

Evidently the material available for home colonisation purposes from
industrial employments or of the town type is of very various kinds ; it is
in this respect very different from the material provided by the class first
considered, which consisted mainly of agricultural labourers, and to some
extent of farmers' or bailiffs' sons. It is certainly at first surprising to find
that agricultural life does attract non-agricultural sections of the population ;
the continued and well-grounded complaints of a rural exodus naturally seem
to point in the other direction. Objections to any such movement were made
before the Committee of 1906. Men well acquainted with the conditions
declared that there was no sense in planting inexperienced townsmen on the

1 According to the Annual Report of the Agricultural Organisation Society for 1908, one
of these co-operative societies, the Winchester and District Allotment Holders Association,
rented 86 acres and had 660 members.

8 E. A. Pratt, The Transition in Agriculture, 1906, p. 268.

3 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, qu. 5059.

4 Pratt, op. cit. p. 306.

218 Appendix I

land1. Mrs Wilkins (Miss L. Jebb) put the case more wisely when she
said2: — "I do not much believe in bringing town people out of the towns
to the country, but that is a very different thing from bringing back a man
to his native district, where he has been in the farming or market-gardening
line in his youth, and returns to it."

But even this limited prejudice against townspeople hardly seems well
founded so long as many examples can be found of successful small holders
who have come from the towns and were of the towns. Mr Pratt, whose
book has already been cited, and who is a well-known writer on
agricultural subjects (he has explored the whole of rural England), takes
a broader view of the matter. "The ordinary 'unemployed' of our large
towns, and the ne'er-do-wells of urban life in general, are not the type of men
who could be settled on the land straight off as small holders, whatever else
might be done with them." But he enumerates a variety of "desirable town
types," and adds: — "Starting with the assumption that the townsmen in
question were alike intelligent, energetic, and determined to succeed, there
ought to be no insuperable difficulty in the way of their acquiring, within
a reasonable time, a sufficiency of knowledge... to be able to make, at least,
a living" out of agriculture. "As a matter of fact, some of the greatest
successes achieved in several of these minor industries of late years have been
won by enterprising men from the towns3."

The questions necessarily arise in this connection : What is the relation
of these two most important classes of settlers, the agricultural labourers and
the industrial workers, one to another? and, What is the comparative import-
ance of the two groups ?

The attraction of the land for non-agricultural sections of the population
at the present day is by no means exclusively to be traced to a love for
" mother earth," or a longing to go " back to the land " for its own sake.
If this were the determining motive, its results must have made themselves
evident long ago, whereas this return to the country is a phenomenon of quite
recent date. The movement is certainly not less due to the fact that the
re-organisation of English agriculture has created conditions which seem to be
particularly well suited to men who have been brought up to trade or
industry. The smaller branches of agricultural production, which have now
become the very basis of English agriculture, make quite different demands
on the farmer than would be made by a small holding devoted to corn
supplemented by stock-feeding. The small farms of the eighteenth century
also sold fruit, vegetables, eggs, poultry and so forth. But they sold them
for the most part to customers in their own village or in the nearest market.
The markets of to-day are as a rule far from the small holder himself, and
the old personal relation of farmer and customer is gone. The farmer has

1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes, p. 474. 2 Ibid., qu. 7914.

8 Pratt, op. cit. pp. 306 ff.

Home Colonisation 219

to produce for the trade, and to provide such articles as suit the wholesale
dealers. Regular transmission of goods of a standard quality is, as has been
seen above, essential. In the case of eggs, for instance, there are five or six
recognised qualities, from the new-laid egg and the fresh egg to the cooking
egg of the second or third degree. The goods must further be carefully
packed in sawdust in specially prepared boxes. But these important points '
of grading and packing have more in common with the work to which a
factory hand is accustomed than with that of the farmer or countryman of the
old style. And the same is true in the matter of the sale of fruit.

The business man, again, will find himself more at home in, say,
negotiating the sale of the produce of a market-garden than will the old-
fashioned agriculturist. The best profit on fruit and vegetables is to be
obtained not by selling to the local dealer, but from some wholesale trader in
a large town. A business connection with such a man has to be worked up.
Mr Pratt says2 that some vegetable-growers get "js. to Ss. for their broccoli
crates where others, less careful or capable in their choice of dealers, are
beaten down as low as is. The first are, as Mr Pratt points out, "better
business men." In this connection may be noticed the telephone question,
which was discussed by an expert before the Committee of 1906. "A man
who is producing goods of a perishable character, which might be perishing at
the time he was about to telephone, would have exact information as to
prices, and as to how the market stood, so that he could dispose of his
produce instantly, whereas without the telephone he might have to wait so
long that his goods would have perished altogether3." Here again it is
evident that purely business qualities are of the first importance to the small
holder under modern conditions. He must know the market, have good
connections, and be quick to take advantage of favourable turns of price.
Such demands, so far as small holders are concerned, are of quite modern
origin.

Again, not only upon the market- gardener, but also upon the small
farmer proper, certain demands are made which involve more than a purely
agricultural training. In the case of a dairy-farm, for instance, the English
public, or at least its upper classes, demands milk which shall be pure and
clean ; and the dealer has to assure himself that the dairy from which he
obtains it is in a properly sanitary condition. To glance at some of the
technical publications on the subject4 is to realise that the old-fashioned dairy
has to evolve into something much more nearly resembling an industrial
workshop. The proper cleansing of the cow-sheds, the sterilisation of pails
and cans, the use of cooling-machines and modern methods of filtering, all
demand something altogether different from the old-fashioned hand-labour

1 Cp. Leaflet No. i of the National Poultry Organisation Society, p. i.

2 Pratt, op. cit. p. 122. 3 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes^ qu. 5620.
4 See Market Day Lectures, fpoj-6, pp. 33 ff.

220 Appendix I

with bucket and dung-fork. Poultry-breeders using incubators, or growers
of fruit and flowers under glass, are equally far removed from the old
conditions. Worthing alone has 1220 forcing-houses, whose pipes laid end
to end would cover more than 136 miles ; some of the growers there have
artesian wells of their own ; some have small windmills or steam-machinery
for pumping purposes1. Here again it is evident that we have a branch of
modern agriculture demanding much technical knowledge and skill, and quali-
ties not traditionally supposed to be found in the ordinary countryman.

It may perhaps be suggested that where technical knowledge and a
cultivated intelligence are essential there the large farmer has his proper
sphere, whether or not the branch of production pursued be one otherwise
belonging to the small holder. But the various demands made upon the
cultivator in any case cannot be considered apart from one another. All
authorities on English agriculture are agreed that for certain branches of
production, as dairying, market-gardening and so forth, the fundamental
condition is and remains the intensive personal labour of the occupier and
his family; a kind of labour which can never be obtained from a hired
labourer. For this reason the small holder has always an advantage in these
branches of production over the large farmer. This advantage cannot be
seriously endangered by the growing need for business qualities and technical
skill. But these demands will have their effect on the total result which the
small holder is in a position to obtain from his holding.

The need for such qualities may be very much lessened if the small
holders are co-operatively organised. Co-operation, in fact, may almost
amount to a complete disburdening of the small holder in this particular.
A cooling-station or steam-dairy takes over the mechanical part of the work
of a modern dairy, and co-operative collecting depots relieve the farmer of the
need for a business head. But co-operation is relatively speaking little
developed in England, even though it is increasing; it is not everywhere
applicable (e.g. where success depends on individual methods, or where the
type of holding is very various, etc.); and it cannot take over all the functions
which have been noticed as necessary on a modern small holding.

Where therefore the large cultivator, in spite of his superior business
capacity and technical knowledge, has not the advantage over the small
holder, and where co-operative methods cannot relieve the small holder of
the necessity of exercising such qualities, it is evident that the small holder
who can bring these powers to his work will be the person best fitted to
conduct a variety of branches of production, and will in fact have an
extraordinary advantage in them. It becomes easy to understand why
non-agricultural sections of the population are to-day being attracted into
agriculture, and why they show such capacity for survival in the struggle for

1 Pratt, op. cit. pp. 90 f.

Home Colonisation 221

existence. They possess already the necessary business qualities and technical
capacity.

Intelligent observers have not failed td recognise the nature of this
development. Thus e.g. Mr Newsham writes of the small holdings of
Hampshire: — "In most parts of the county there appears to be ample
opportunity for the development of mixed holdings by men who have been
brought up on the land and know the practical side of their business. The
town-bred man must of necessity have an up-hill struggle, though his business
capacity or training might stand him in good stead1." And Mr Pratt
expresses the matter still more clearly : — " Industries, in fact, such as
dairying, horticulture, floriculture, stock-raising, etc., as distinguished from
the growing of corn, are occupations requiring technical knowledge, skill,
business capacity, and unremitting personal attention on the part of those
engaged therein — qualities and qualifications not necessarily possessed by
even the average farmer of the old school, and still less by the average
agricultural labourer of the passing generation, however efficient the latter
may have been in the days when the work he had to do made less demands
on his intelligence than upon his physical endurance2."

Under some circumstances, therefore, the non-agricultural type of settler
will prove more than equal to the man who has been on the land all his life.
He will even be superior to him in certain branches of production, as in fruit
and vegetable growing. But the agricultural labourer will be superior to the
townsman when corn-growing and stock-farming are in question, because
there technical capacity and business qualities have a smaller part to play,
and his agricultural experience becomes a matter of great importance.

In general it may be said that the non-agricultural settlers instinctively
direct their attention to those branches in which they can best use their
particular qualities. The place and kind of work they choose are regulated
accordingly. Unlike the agricultural labourer, who is able to raise himself
to an independent position, but then develops a tendency to comfortable
methods, they are full of the desire "to get on." They retain a capitalistic
character. They find in various branches of modern agriculture quite as
good chances of profit-making as they could in trade or industry. This is
noticed by almost every writer on the small holdings question. Mr F. Impey,
of the Board of Agriculture, who has inspected many small holdings, has
astonishing things to report on this part of the subject3. A land-agent who
had over 1000 small holdings to administer told him that he knew dozens of
men owning ;£ioo to ^500 who twelve or fifteen years earlier had been
earning their 15*. a week. A man who had formerly been a groom and
gardener stated that on his holding of 5^ acres he could save ^40 a year,

1 In the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 1908-9, p. 93.

* Pratt, op. cit. pp. 303 f.

* F. Impey, Small Holdings in England, 1909, pp. 19-28.

222 Appendix I

and in one year saved as much as £go. He had planted no less than 1400
fruit trees, and in one year sold 1000 head of poultry. In another case
Mr Impey was astonished to find a man paying ^£5 rent for \ of an acre.
But the occupier told him that the value of the strawberries sold off that bit
of ground in the last year had been about ^58. It is no wonder that
townsmen, hearing such stories, begin to think that there is " something to be
made out of" even the land, if a man only goes about it in the right way.

The material for home colonisation in England, then, is roughly of two
classes. Men who have grown up under the influences of the town, men of
commercial or industrial tendencies, stand side by side with men who have
lived all their lives upon the land. There is room for both. Both, under the
given conditions of production and distribution, that is to say in certain branches
of production and under certain market conditions, may be fit instruments for
the re-organisation of the unit of agricultural holding in England. There-
fore what at first sight seems an extraneous element in modern agricultural
society, viz. the quondam townsman or the man of city instincts, is not in fact
to be regarded as an artificial product of reforming zeal. His appearance is
a necessary result of the economic transition through which English agricul-
ture has been passing in consequence of the ruin of what was once its special
branch of production. And for this reason the lack of a peasant population
will prove no fatal hindrance to the home colonisation of England. In many
districts it is not peasantry of the old style who are appearing or who can
appear. Agriculturists of quite other qualifications and outlook are in course
of development ; agriculturists for whom a quite different social and
economic organisation is growing up from that which the little farmers or
yeomanry of the past could ever have possessed.

APPENDIX II

TABLE I

Area of agricultural land under the various types of
holding throughout the English counties.

( Arranged in four geographical districts from the merely alphabetical arrange-
ment of the Return as to the Number and Size of Agricultural Holdings
in 1895.)

224

Appendix. II

i — 5 acre

s

3

— 20 acre

:s

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

I.

Bedford

•S'jgC

1 2 CO

2126

11,847

402O

6918

Cambridge

5833

1078

•iSc;

23,706

6840

i6.oc6

Essex

CC4C

7:62

J"33

108-1

20 216

1 1 2QI

802 C

Hertford

2QC8

2401

CC7

80/10

67QO

21 sO

Huntingdon

1808

1181

627

7847

4163

3284

Lincoln

I7.OOI

Q3Q8

8C03

82.!; 37

47.OQI

30,446

London

606

406

I IO

IQ2C

1623

3O2

Middlesex

2173

1662

ci I

8020

6060

IQCI

Norfolk

078O

4178

56ll

37,02 1

1 6.2 1 0

2I,7O2

Suffolk

C76l

2?8t;

2776

I7.4o8

7234

IO 174

YorkE

5471

3235

2236

19,241

IO,8o6

8535

Total for District

60,830

3'»93S

28,895

240,607

120,355

120,252

II.

Berks

2898

2381

CI7

II. I 17

883;

2322

Bucks

34QC

2582

QI3

12,763

061 ^

3148

Hants

7080

C2C.3

2727

27,577

IO.O32

8q4q

Kent

6643

4l6Q

2474

31 8?2

2O.Q 1 2

10,060

Leicester

4CQ3

42?6

3C7

26.7O2

24.i;26

2266

Northampton ...
Notts

3974

C343

2704
4128

1270
I2IIJ

17,614
26.840

12,722
20. 14"?

4892

660 1;

Oxford

3O2Q

1811

1218

I I.74O

7Qc6

3784

Rutland

C72

476

06

32">O

2730

481

Surrey

3QIO

3141

778

i6,;78

I2,068

3610

Sussex

5811

4QIQ

802

2C.34C

21,018

4327

Warwick

5439

4434

IOO5

23,3°I

20,235

3066

Total for District

III.

Cornwall

53,696
10,337

40,234
742 C

13,462
2QI2

i 234,799
47,723

180,703
28,602

54,006
10,121

Devon

8348

6385

1067.

42,6lJ.

32,O74

IO,^4O

Dorset

7J4O

24QO

o^o

14,84.0

11,188

3661

Gloucester
Hereford

8628

\\f\7

5825
3985

2803

477

27,235
10,440

20,610
16,360

6625
3089

Monmouth
Salop

3021
Q83I

2673
8805

348
IO26

17,013
38,873

15,564
33,740

1449

CI24

Somerset

IO,67I

8626

2O4C,

43,488

77%084

5 504

Wilts

4O8?

3186

1801

IO.C7O

I4iIO^

5377

Worcester

8175

4366

3809

25,155

18,953

6202

Total for District

IV.
Chester

71,000

lO.OSl

53,766

OO2O

18,174

IQC2

295,969

4^,O2^

229,277
33.028

66,692
OO07

Cumberland
Derby

3446
8320

2981
7814

465

SI ;

17,087
47, 54O

13,776
44,380

33"
3160

Durham

3QI4

3452

462

23.o8o

2 1 ,07 5

2OI4

Lancaster

I(XOs7

8085

1072

78,880

66, ?ci

I2,i;20

N orthumberland
Stafford

3128

0702

2663
8743

465
IO4Q

15,726
46,660

13,644
4I,OS3

2082
47l6

Westmorland ...
York N

1431

Ql ^

1351
7983

80

1 172

8532

70.477

7066
33,881

566
5556

York W

18,609

15,937

2672

H9,356

104,276

15,080

Total for District

78,842

68,038

10,804

439,341

381,230

58,111

Table 1

225

I.

Bedford

20 — 50 acres

50 — 100 acres

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

14,433
37,499
41,816

13,619
11,991
118,352

1995
12,837
70,756
41,364
30,834

6363

H,369
16,092
8418
6128
47,974
1537

9175
24,505
11,240
13,675

8070
26,130
25,724
5201
5863
70,378
458
3662
46,251
30,124
17,159

21,414
45,486
91,328
26,978

15,397
162,024
2232
17,279
109,919
97,063
56,631

9012
12,448
28,113
12,726
6651
54,172
1406
12,292
31,559
21,554
18,673

12,402
33,038
63,215
14,252

8746
107,852
826
4987
78,360
75,509
37,958

Cambridge ......

Hertford

Huntingdon

London

Middlesex

Norfolk

Suffolk

York E

Total for District

395,496

156,476

239,020

645,751

208,606

437,H5

II.

Berks

1 7. i ; ;

II.O73

6082

26,0 ;o

14.7 ;4

1 1, 206

21,661

14,767

6804

43,256

2;,;6o

17,687

Hants

4 1 , 1 64

24,; 76

i6,;88

60,617

20.4O3

31,214

Kent

36,3;i

2S,2OO

98,703

52,884

Leicester

4.6. 1 38

4O.O34

6104

73*441

17,706

Northampton ...
Notts

31,567

2I,6l9
24,066

9948

I ;.664

51,266

;q,O72

32,790

20,031

18,476

30.04 1

Oxford

18.371

IO,74;

7626

34,864

17,47;

17.380

Rutland

6898

;oio

Q7Q

98;;

741 ;

244O

Surrey

2;.i83

16,786

8307

40, 3Q4

22,OQ4

18.300

Sussex

46,742

32,241

14, SOI

92,798

52,836

30,462

Warwick

37,056

30,132

6924

60,831

40,872

19,959

Total for District

III.
Cornwall

393,2i6
88,513

268,309
40.282

124,907
48,231

651,147
i •515,682

380,768

51,83;

270,379

83,847

Devon

CO 478

;; 302

3;. 1 76

214,000

TOO ;2o

IO4 480

Dorset

23,;86

17.278

6308

30,237

28,110

1 1. 127

Gloucester
Hereford

43,540
28,869

33,605
20,261

9935
8608

71,052

;o,i67

49,821

3I.;47

21,231
18,620

Monmouth
Salop

30,913
46 ;oo

26,976

3;.O43

3937

55,883

45,120

47.042

10,763

26,038

Somerset

7Q 772

66 905

12,867

128,038

io;.o;o

23 888

Wilts

•JQ. 177

21.601

8486

40,432

36. 3O7

1 3. 1 2 ;

Worcester

36,781

26,481

10,300

58,832

37,324

21,508

Total for District

IV.
Chester

499,228
7O 347

343,824
40.28;

155,404
21,062

877,212

I2;,O72

542,576

7;. 446

334,636

40 626

Cumberland
Derby

45,922
78,63;

31,648
67.00;

14,274
IO.73O

123,618

109,210

63,867

87.74;

59,751

21.46;

33,86Q

27,646

6223

67.030

42,;6o

2;.37Q

1 80 803

14;. 262

44.631

237.487

70.726

Northumberland
Stafford

25,850

71 4O2

22,036
;8 043

3814
I2.4;Q

41,939
IO3.83O

30,755

78.374

2;.4s6

Westmorland ...
York N

28,509

66*7OQ

25,202
46 4;2

3307

20,2 ;7

61,034

I4.I, O3O

50,875

84,60;

10,159

156.42;

York W

178,877

142,651

36,226

218,492

153,708

64,784

Total for District

790,013

617,030

172,983

1,189,651

785,696

403,955

226

Appendix II

I.

Bedford

100 — 300 acres

300 — 500 acres

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

99,411

160,222
363,616
129,047
84,744
510,080

5175
49,122

322,057
326,429

278,879

37,4"
36,997
105,050
42,864
31,373
158,495
33"
35,429
80,881

74,456
86,977

62,000
123,225
258,566
86,383
53,371
351,585
1864

13,693
241,176

251,973
191,902

70,189
106,675
176,886
100,767
53,510
304,742
1516
14,645
223,067
146,030
156,868

25,298
25,632
53,26l
28,853
20,389
92,870
922

io,355
59,140

34,899
42,012

44,891
81,043
123,625
7l,9H
33,i2i
211,872

594
4,290
163,927
111,131
114,856

Cambridge

Essex

Hertford

Huntingdon

London

Middlesex

Norfolk

Suffolk

York E

Total for District

2,328,782

693,244

1,635,538

1,354,895

393>63i

961,264

II.
Berks

125.782

54,325

71.457

81,124

20.732

5I.3Q2

Bucks

20"*, 76?

III I 3O

QI 63?

87,660

53,8lO

33.85Q

Hants

2O7 78d.

78.OO4

I2Q 78o

I 35.774

4I.O5 5

Q4.7IQ

Kent

315,811

U8,6q8

l67,II3

I3c.c6c

64.55Q

7I,OO6

Leicester

233,455

163,880

60, {66

60,813

43,106

1 7.6 1 7

Northampton . . .
Notts

238,393
2O3, i;84.

145,160
87,206

93,233

1 16,^78

138,779
67,748

82,886
25,O47

55,893
42.7OI

Oxford

168,784

78,804

80,800

1 14,043

46,747

67,2Q6

Rutland

•32.7Q7

10,766

I4.O3I

2O.2Q3

Q266

I I.O27

Surrey

1 2O Q85

$ 7.64O

6 3, 3 36

4. "J.OOi;

22,OO6

23. 5OQ

Sussex

246.600

I27,8o6

118,704

104,025

53,6oQ

5I.3l6

Warwick

244 410

T C2 42?

QI.O85

Q4 174

CO I l8

35 O56

Total for District

III.
Cornwall

2,342,150

268,674

1,225,042
07.702

1,117,108
170,882

1,086,512
46, 3O2

53i,i2i

17.541

555,391
28,771

Devon

602.462

•74-1 02Q

34Q. 133

I 36 5 3Q

6Q.633

66 906

Dorset

i 50.536

IO3.I 11

47.423

Q7,l68

54,555

42.6 1 3

Gloucester
Hereford

261,325

22Q. I4Q

167,504

I42.O43

93,82I
87,106

I2Q,828
Q2.3OQ

65,996

6O,OOS

63,832

32, 3O4

Monmouth
Salop

in3594
367,186

86,155

223.442

25,439
143.744

18,170
I 55.3O3

13,339
8q,8Q7

4831

6c 406

Somerset

418,523

312.412

1 06, II I

137,358

02,4.6?

44,803

Wilts

204.716

I 37,571

67,14?

1 2Q.4OO

6^.474

65.026

Worcester

201,683

H7,834

83,849

58,791

35,175

23,616

Total for District

IV.
Chester

2,905,848

254.Q47

1,731,195
l62,l88

1,174,653
Q2,75Q

1,001,258
26,Q2Q

562,080
10,044

439,178
788?

Cumberland
Derby

293,308
215.528

154,518
164,862

138,790
50,666

63,373
33,840.

38,219

2 5,640

25,154
8200

Durham

2^8 OOQ

I 37.48 5

IOO 524

51.623

31.356

20,267

26? 560

1 76.O7 5

8o,4O4

28,627

21,563

7064

Northumberland
Stafford

257,630

26 $ 8s i

1 76,640
175.422

80,990
OO,42O

193,523
82,Q4O

130,344
40, 3O 5

63,179

33 635

Westmorland ...
York N

106,477

464 8 5 3

84,238

2 ;2.; ;o

22,239
2I2.3O3

24,574
IO6,078

19,220
6l,88o

5354
45.080

YorkW

495,186

300,351

194,835

133,570

8l,o88

52,482

Total for District

2,857,358

1,784,329

1,073,029

745,986

477,677

268,309

Table I

227

500

— 1000 ac

:res

ove

r 1000 ac

res

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

Total
area

Pasture-
land

Arable
land

I.

Bedford

2Q.O2 5

12,090

16,935

5293

3411

1882

Cambridge ...

8;,4O7

17,094

68,313

23,606

4600

IQ,OO6

Essex

112,067

38,574

73,493

15,737

4788

10,949

Hertford

AQ.COO

14, 1562

•54,04.7

A72O

1512

2808

Huntingdon

30,448

I3.2QI

17,1^7

4QO?

2467

2438

.Lincoln

260,87;

7">,82i

i8t;,o<;4

61,178

1 8.02 1

4.2,257

London

052

952

72,707

IQ,6l7

C7.OQO

3307

2249

1058

29,893

IO.7O5

19,188

Norfolk

231, 3Q7

60,860

170,537

16,184

4380

1 1,804

Suffolk

io;.i;8o

2 ;. 347

80,24.2

YorkE

105,885

26,584

79.301

—

—

Total for District

1,014,461

287,424

727,037

233,823

70,401

163,422

II.

Berks

72,689

25,904

46,785

31,128

l6,5l6

14,612

Bucks

27,233

16,799

10,434

23QO

IC78

812

Hants

I 1:0,706

47,882

111,014

6;,277

2O.OIQ

44,3;8

Kent

81,088

47,106

34,882

1 6. 1 24

10,006

5128

Leicester

10,386

I4,I5Q

5227

760;

C.774

1021

Northampton ...
Notts

63,337
36, ;6i

36,366
12,882

26,971

2 3,67Q

13,664

Q7CQ

}//<f
9540
6026

4124
7333

Oxford

58,118

22,133

35,985

6667

I OO7

476O

Rutland

8508

4762

3836

4.OOI

i ;o7

2C84

Surrey

26,O48

I2.I4Q

I 7,8OO

6883

C7o6

1487

Sussex

I2I.CQ8

68,889

^2,700

3,4*740

10,738

I ;,OO2

Warwick

25,275

13,988

11,287

4194

3499

695

Total for District

III.
Cornwall

700,627

C4Q7

323,019

7.160

377,608
2328

202,212
I22O

103,396

412

98,816
788

27.QQ3

16,182

1 1,811

I47O

630

840

Dorset

122,221

6^.744

;8 477

76 "J CO

TO 122

17 1 17

Gloucester
Hereford

101,444

IQ.1SQ

38,588

I 2. -172

62,856
6027

13,436
I C/12

5H3
IO32

8293
CIQ

Monmouth

6348

24.QI7

4588

i ;.;22

1760
010;

1184

1 121

63

Somerset

37,l8l

2C. 62O

i i.c6i

47 1 8

4777

14?

Wilts

100,048

01,168

108,780

121,242

C.6.77Q

64,463

Worcester

13,635

7753

5882

1051

362

689

Total for District

IV.
Chester

558,543
C24?

279,666

7QOI

278,877

I tAA

182,122

7CXTO

88,994

OQOQ

93,128
80

Cumberland
Derby

22,8o6

8668

15,426
6726

7380
TO/1 2

9844
1426

*f*9

9670

174
26

Durham

i8.(t3i

I 1, 860

6671

2I7O

IQ2 I

2AO

Lancaster

i I.QI ;

6672

•22/17

1248

21

N orthumberland
Stafford

i3i,495
16,87;

75,156

TO 214

56,339
6621

38,Il6
6708

24,944

A 1C C

13,172
57C7

Westmorland ...
York N

14,848
3;,oc.Q

H,583
2O 60;

3265
I A 76/1

5567
IO76

4o!>i
5507
1016

•^jaj

60

60

York W

7 1.6 1 I

22 6;i

8o;8

6196

22Q2

jy-'4

Total for District

297,053

187,927

109,127

75,360

56,879

l8,48l

228

Appendix II

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I

APPENDIX III

LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED

IN the following list the place of publication is named where it is other
than London : and in the case of London publications after 1850 the
•publisher's name is quoted where the British Museum Catalogue shows it.
Parliamentary papers are distinguished by the printing of the letters P.P.
before their title.

The authorities quoted in Part I of the book (The Development of the
Large Farm System and the Decay of the Small Holding) are divided
according to the chapters, dealing as these do with (I) the Agricultural
Revolution of the Eighteenth Century, (II) the Corn-Law Period, and (III)
the First Thirty Years of Free Trade, respectively. The arrangement is as
far as possible in order of publication, except that under heads II and III
the few books to be cited both there and under the preceding head or heads
are given in alphabetical order at the beginning of the section.

The authorities quoted in Part II (The Economics of Large and Small
Holdings at the Present Day) are given according to the year of publication
•'rnply.

A. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LARGE FARM SYSTEM.

I. T/ie Agricultural Revolution of the Eighteenth Century.

ALLEN, WILLIAM. The Landlord's Companion. 1742.

ELLIS, WILLIAM. The Modern Husbandman. 1750.

HILL, THOS. A Treatise of Husbandry. 1760.

CONSIDERATIONS on the Present High Price of Provisions. By a West-Country

Maltster. 1764.

AN IMPARTIAL VIEW of English Agriculture. 1766.
ESSAY ON THE NATURE and Methods of ascertaining the specific Shares of

Proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common Fields. 1766.
THE CAUSES OF THE DEARNESS OF PROVISIONS ASSIGNED. Gloucester. 1766.
Two LFTTERS on the Flour Trade and Dearness of Corn. 1766.
[FORSTER, NATHANIEL.] An Enquiry into the causes of the present high price of

provisions etc. 1767.
UNITING AND MONOPOLIZING FARMS. 1767.

Bibliography 231

YOUNG, ARTHUR. The Farmer's Letters to the People of England. 1767.

A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales.

1768.

PENNINGTON, W. Reflections on the Various Advantages resulting from the

draining, inclosing and allotting of large commons and common fields. 1769.
WIMPEY, JOSEPH. Thoughts upon several Interesting Subjects. 1770.
PETERS, MATTHEW. The Rational Farmer. 2nd ed. 1771.
YOUNG, ARTHUR. The Farmer's Tour through the East of England. 1771.
COMBER, T. Real Improvements in Agriculture. 1772.
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AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION SOCIETY. First (Second etc.) Report of. 1901 etc.

CENTRAL CHAMBER OF AGRICULTURE. Proceedings of the. 1901.

CHARLETON, W. L., and others. Small Holdings and Co-operation. Newark. 1901.

CO-OPERATIVE ALLIANCE. Report of Proceedings at the Fifth Congress of the.
1902.

EYRE, G. F., AND KYLE, J. L. Small Farming. Oxford, Horace Hart. 1902.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL. Annual Report of its Technical In-
struction Committee for 1901-2. 1902.

HAGGARD, HENRY RIDER. Rural England. Longmans. 1902.

LEVY, HERMANN. Die Not der englischen Landwirte zur Zeit der hohen Getreide-
zolle. Stuttgart. 1902.

SAMUEL, HERBERT. Liberalism. Grant Richards. 1902.

WALKER, — . Small Farming. In Journal of the Bath and West and Southern
Counties Society. 1902.

P.P. AGRICULTURAL RETURNS for 1903. S.P. 1904, Vol. cv (Cd. 2131).

THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S ESTATE BOOK for 1903, etc.

CRAGG, A. R. Specialities in Farming. In Journal of the Bath and West and
Southern Counties Society. 1903.

DAVID, EDUARD. Sozialismus und Landwirtschaft. Berlin. 1903.

DRUCE, S. B. L. On Small Holdings. In Journal of the Farmers* Club.
November, 1903.

Bibliography 24 1

Fox, ARTHUR WILSON. Agricultural Wages during the last Fifty Years. In

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Vol. LXVi. 1903.
GRAHAM, P. ANDERSON. The Revival of Agriculture. In the Morning Post.

April ii, 1903.
LEVY, HERMANN. Die Lage der englischen Landwirtschaft in der Gegenwart.

In Conrad's Jahrbiichern for 1903.

Landarbeiterfrage und Landflucht in England. In Brauns Archiv for 1903.

Landwirtschaftlicher Export in England. In Conrad 's Jahrbiichern for 1903.

Review of Dr. David's Sozialismus und Landivirtscha/t. In Deutschland.

Nov. 1903.

MATTHEWS, A. T. Tenant Farmers as Breeders of Pedigree Stock. In Journal

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P.P. MEMORANDA, Statistical Tables and Charts prepared in the Board of

Trade. S.P. 1903, Vol. LXVII (Cd. 1761).
REW, R. HENRY. Recent Changes in the number of Cattle and Sheep in Great

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P.P. SMALL HOLDINGS. Return showing the number of instances in which,

between June 24th, 1897, and March 3ist, 1902, Local Authorities acquired

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THONGER, C. G. FREER. Some Essentials of Successful Dairying. In Journal

of the Bath and West and Southern Counties Society. 1903.
P.P. REPORT ON WHOLESALE AND RETAIL PRICES IN 1902. S.P. 1903,

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LEVY, HERMANN. Die Lage der englischen Landwirtschaft in der Gegenwart.

In Conrad's Jahrbiichern for 1904.
MATTHEWS, A. T. The Position and Prospects of Stock-Farming. In Journal

of the Bath and West and Southern Counties Society. 1905.
P. P. FOOD. Report of the Royal Commission on the Supply of Food and Raw

Material in Time of War. S. P. 1905, Vols. xxxix, XL (Cd. 2547, 2552, 2596).
BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN. Possibilities of Peasant Ownership in Sussex. In

the Nineteenth Century. Vol. LIX. 1906.
COLLINGS, JESSE. Land Reform. Longmans. 1906.
MARKET-DAY LECTURES, 1905-6. Chelmsford. 1906.

MOORE, HAROLD E. Our Heritage in the Land. P. S. King and Son. 1906.
PRATT, EDWIN A. The Transition in Agriculture. John Murray. 1906.
P.P. SMALL HOLDINGS. Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by

the Board of Agriculture to enquire into the subject of Small Holdings in

Great Britain. S. P. 1906, Vol. LV (Cd. 3277, 3278).
BELGARD, M. Parzellierung und Innere Kolonisation. Leipzig. 1907.
JEBB, L. The Small Holdings of England. John Murray. 1907.
THE LAND POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. In the Quarterly Review. Vol. ccvn.

1907.
BEAR, W. E. Prospects for Small Holdings. In Journal of the Bath and West

and Southern Counties Society. 1908.
UDALE, JAMES. Market Gardening in the Vale of Evesham. In Journal of the

Royal Agricultural Society. Vol. LXIX. 1908.
SHELDON, PROF. JOHN PRINCE. The Farm and the Dairy. 4th ed. Geo. Bell

and Sons. 1908.

L. 16

242 Appendix III

SMALL HOLDINGS ACTS, Report of a Conference as to the Administration of the.

1908.
P.P. TRADE AND NAVIGATION. Monthly Accounts relating to, for 1908. S. P.

1908, No. 25. Vols. cv, cvi.

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, Journal of the, for 1908-9.

IMPEY, FREDERICK. Small Holdings in England. P. S. King and Son. 1909.
NEWSHAM, J. C. Strawberry Growing in Hampshire. In Journal of the Board

of Agriculture. June, 1909.

PARKER, SIR GILBERT. The Land for the People. 1909.
PRATT, EDWIN A. Small Holders : What they must do to succeed. P. S. King

and Son. 1909.

RADFORD, G. Agricultural Co-operation. P. S. King and Son. n. d.
P.P. AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS for 1909. Pt. i. S. P. 1910. (Cd. 5064.)
P.P. STATISTICAL ABSTRACT for the United Kingdom, for 1909. S.P. 1910.

(Cd. 5296.)
WILKINS, L. (Miss L. Jebb). The Small Holdings Controversy. P. S. King and

Son. 1910.

LAND CLUB MOVEMENT, THE. Land Club League. 2nd ed. 1910.
OUR LAND AND LAND CLUB NEWS. Land Club League. Feb. 1910.
P.P. SMALL HOLDINGS, Annual Report on. S. P. 1910. (Cd. 5180.)

INDEX

Acts of Parliament: see Allotment Acts, Legis-
lative Action, Small Holdings Acts.
Agricultural Depression : 9, 46-49; 56, 76 f.,

82 f., 87 f., ioif., 108-13.
Agricultural Holdings Act: 138 f.
Agricultural Organisation Society, the: 152 n.,

190 f., 195, 197, 210.

Agricultural Science: 15, 20, 41, 44, 48,
56 f., 59 f., 62-5, 68, 71 f., 79-81,

83 f., 86, 96, 155, 160, 176 f., 182,
204, 208 f., 219-21.

Agricultural revival: 87, 210.

Alconbury : 24 a. 4.

Alister, R. ; cited: 55.

Allotment Acts : 51, 125, 126, 130, 141, 143.

Allotments: 36 f., 42-44, 51-4, 64 n. 3, 66 f.,

88 f., 90, 92, 94, 96-8, 104-8, 1 10,

in, 116, 122 f., 125, 130, 149, 157,

158, i59» I<55» 167, 175, 215, 217.
See also under Labourers' Holdings,

Landlord^.

Allowance System, the: 12.
Anderson, James; cited: 20, 27.
Anti-Corn Law League, the : 54 n. 3.
Arable districts : 65, 67-9, 103-5, IIO> 183 n.,

189.
Arable land :

percentage of agricultural land; 103-5.
percentage on various units; 105.
Set also Corn-growing.
Arbuthnot, J. ; cited: 13, 19, 29, 39 n. 5.
Areas of various types of holding : 17, 88-90,

92 f., 99.

Artisans as small holders: 215-22.
Asquith, H. H. ; cited: 146.
Assmgton: 187 f.
Axholme, Isle of: 85, 90, 106, 107, 109 f.,

165, 189, 214.
Aylestone: 151

Baggrow: 188.

Bailiffs: 102, 161, 217.

Baines, M. T.: 149.

Bargaining ; large holder's advantage in :

164 f.

Baring, Sir Francis : 64.
Baskets, issued by G.E.R. : 196.
Batchelor, George: 216.
Beans: 13, 18, 209.

Bear, W. E.; cited: 84, 85 n., 90 n., 107,
109 n., no, 140 n., 151, 164, 165 n.,
183 n.

Bedfordshire : 1 10.

Belgard, M.; cited: 214.

Birmingham: 116, 216.

Blennerhasset : 188.

Blyth, Sir James: 151.

Board of Agriculture, the: 15, 29, 43, 51.
Reports published by: 29, 32.

Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the :
97 n., 125, 127 £, 131, 147-9, '5* n-»

190, 221.

Borrowing, by yeomen: 26.

See also Mortgages.
Bounty on Corn : 10.
Brandsby: 193.
Bread: 9, 12, 13, 58, 201, 202 f., 210,

212.

Brodrick, G. C.; cited: 54, 123, 144.
Bromley: 179.
Brown, E. ; cited: 86.
Buildings, cost of: 23, 53, 65, 96, 120, 142,

151, 156, 184-5, l8(>-
Bulls, prices obtained: 81.
Burn, R. S.; cited: 93 n., 163, 173, 178.
Business qualities: 218 ff.
Butter: see Dairying.
Buxton, C. R.; cited: 128.
Buying: 161, 188, 192.
By-employments: 66, 88 f., 90, 92, 156 f.,

215-

Caird, Sir James; cited: 50, 55, 56, 58, 61,

68, 72, 103, 104.

Cambridgeshire: 8, 23 n. 5, 85, 107, 149.
Capital: 20, 21, 26, 44, 62, 71, 72, 74, 103,

120, 132 f., 159, 166-8, 179 f., 185,

201.
intensive application of; 63, 181, 203,

211.

security of tenants' capital; 138 f., 141.
Capitalist agriculture: 66, 123 f., 184, 198,

212, 114, 221.

Carrington, Lord: 94, 121, 115, 151.
Catshill: 2 1 6.

Cattle-breeding, economics of: 168-72.
See also Cows, Pedigree Stock, Stock-
farming.

244

Index

Cattle-foods, artificial: 62, 64, 168-70.

Celery: 106, 109.

Chamber of Agriculture, the Central ; cited :

138-

Chamberlain, Joseph: 94, 131, 146, 265.
Channing, Sir F.; cited: 81, 96, 107, 109,

no, U2, 123, 125, 131, 164 n. 4.
Chaplin, Henry: 95.
Charleton, W. L.: 194.
Chatteris: 107.
Cheney, E. J.: 149.
Cheshire: 8, 90, in, 112, 174, 192.
Child-Labour: 34, 172.
Civil Service, the: 150.
Classification of holdings: 3 f., 70, 88-93.
Climate, effects of: 65, 67-9, 103, 205,

208-10.

Cobden, Richard: 47ns. i & 5, 54 n. 3, 146.
Ceilings, Jesse: 94, 95, 125, 132, 135, 136,

139, 146, 183.

Comber, T. ; cited: 7 n. i, 21, 72.
Commission of 1880-2: 101 f., 108-13, 185

n. i.
Commission of 1894-7: 101 f., 107, 108-13,

»57» !75> 179. *85 n. «, 195 n., 205.
Commissioners (Small Holdings): 127 f.,

148, 149, 152.

Common-field System: 18 f., 27, 2811.
Commons: 4, 18, 25, 26, 27, 28 n., 50, 202.
Compensation : see Capital, security of

tenants'.
Competition :

between the various units of holding ;

203-5, 1IQ f-
for allotments; in.
for farms ; 60 f., 102 f., 141.
See also Foreign Competition.
Compulsory hiring: 136-48, 150.
Compulsory purchase: 129-31, 136 f., 140,

142, H3» i44-5°-
Conservatism: 52, 82, 208 f.
Conservative Party, the: 95, 121, 130, 131,

140, 142, 146, 150.
Consolidation of Farms: 3, 16 f., 22 f., 26,

39 f., 102.

See also Extension of Large Farm System.
Consumers, profit by fall of prices: 58, 78 f.,

2O2 f. , 2IO, 212, 213.

Consumption :

alleged inelasticity; 205-8.

production for home; 4 f., 107 f.

See also utider Markets, Standard of

Comfort.

Continental System, the: n, 44, 45 f., 60.
Convertible husbandry: 83, 208.
Co-operation : 62, 142 f., 150-2, 187-99,

208 f., 211, 216, 217, 220.
Co-operative spirit, the: 198.
Corn- Bounty: 10.
Corn growing: 6, 10, 17, 21, «8 n., 60,

75-9, 124, 156-61, 168, 189 f.
Advantages of large scale production in ;
3, 19 f., 27 f., 41, 61 f., 65, 70 f.,
'55-61, 181, 201, 204.
Decline of; 75-9.

Corn -growing, could.

Extension of; 13-19, 48 f., 56, 19 f.,

68, 200-202.
on Small Holdings; 4-6, 17, 19, 53,64,

69 n., 107-10, in, ri2.
Corn- Law Policy: see Protection.
Com Laws, Abolition of: see Free Trade.
Corn-prices: 8-21, 30 f., 39, 44, 46-8, 51,

55 f-» 75-8, 200-202.
Cornwall: 22 n. 4, 112 n. 9.
Cotswolds: 209.
Cottages: 23, 26 n. 6, 36.
Cottiers : see Labourers, Labourers'

Holdings.

County Councils: 126-53, 2'6-
Cows: 14 n. 3, 24 f., 42 f., 48, 173.

See also Dairying, ' Three Acres and a

Cow.'

Craigie, Major: 125.
Cream: 79, 82.
Crops, choice of: 107, 182.

See also Rotation of Crops.
Cumberland: 8, 50, 66, 69, 82, 214.

Dairying: 5-7, 13, 17 f., 40, 62, 64, 60,

73, 79, 82-4, 89 f., 106, 108, not.,

155, 172-8, 181, 183 n., 193-6, 203,

208 f., 219^

Dairymaids: 89, 172, 174, 177.
David, Dr.; cited: 155, 177.
Day-labour: see Labourers.
Definition of small farmer: 4, 89.
Definitions of holdings: 89-93, 99.
Demand for Small Holdings: 67, 89, i26f.,

141, 148 f., 152, 214-22.
Denbighshire: 216.
Denmark: 195, 198, 209, 210.
Depopulation : see Emigration, Rural

Exodus.
Depression: see Agricultural Depression,

Industrial Depression.
Derbyshire: 8, 31, 90.
Devon : 7 n. 3, »2 n. 4, 82, 98, 107 n. i, 1 10,

166, 172, 178, 182, 192.
"Dirty" work: 172 f., 178.
Distress, Agricultural : see Agricultural

Depression.
Distribution of Holdings : see Geographical

Distribution.

District Councils: 127, 128.
Division of farms: 102, 113, 118, 119!"..

184 f., 203.

Division of labour: 161, 177.
Donaldson, James; cited: 5, 8, 18, 19 n.,

20, 39.

Dorset: 8, 82.

Drainage: 20, 56, 59, 60 n. i.
Durham: 8, no n. 6.

Eastern counties, the: 67, 68, 77, 83 f.,
103-5, no, 189, 191, 192.

Economic forces: 20 f., 26, 28, 34, 51 f.,
94, 95 f., 101-13, 126 f., 134, 143,
H5. '50. '5*. i53-i86, 203, 211-
I*.

Index

245

Economic Policy: i, 40 f., 46, 48, 77 f., 105,

in, 113.

Economic theories: i, 2, 69-74, 153, 182 f.
Eden, Sir F. M.: 12.
Education: 20, 44, 155.
Eggs: 5, 6n. i, 8, 13, 64, 79, 86, 179,

183 n., 197, 203, 119.
Emigration: 38, 39.

Enclosures: i8f., 24-7, 38 f., 44, 50, 54.
"Engrossing": 16, 11, 16, 39 f.

See also Consolidation of Farms.
Entails: 118, 123.
Epworth: i57n., isSn., i64n.
Essex: 8, 25 n. i, 48, 68, 77, 83 f., 85, 98,

188, 208.
Estate Management: 23, 53, 65, 185.

See also Land-agents.
Eversley, Lord; cited: 32, 65 n. 5, 96 n.,

116 n. 2, 129, 130, 152.
Evesham, Vale of: 85, 107, 163, 166.
Evestan: 50 n. 4.
Exeter: 7 n. 3, 194.
Exmoor: 50.
Exportation :
of com ; 28 n.
of pedigree stock ; 80 f.
Extension of Large Farm System: 1,3, i6f.,

21-44, 45, 50 f., 65 f., 68, 70 f., 102,

114 f., 2OI f.

Extension of Small Holdings : 3, 55 f.,
93-100, 101-13, 142 f., 203, 205-11,

315-
See also Demand for Small Holdings.

Factory-workers as Small Holders: 216,

217, 2i9f.
Fair Rent: i4of.
Fallow: i8f., 83.
Feeding-crops: 15, 82, 106, 107 f., 109 n. i,

168-71, 208.

See also Green crops, Root crops.
Fitzhardinge, Lord : 193.
Fixity of Tenure: i4of.
Flintshire: in.
Fodder: see Feeding-crops.
Forcing: 84, 85, 104, 166, 220.
Fordham, E. O.: 149.
Foreign competition : 58, 77 f., 82, 124,

194 f., 208-10, 213.
Foreign Trade: see Markets.
Fox, A. Wilson ; cited : 47 n. 4, 52 n. 5,

87, "5-

Foxes: 21 in. See also Sport.
Free Sale : 1 40 f.
Free Trade: 55-61, 75 f., 78, 168, 202, 205,

210, 213.

Freehold Land Societies: 54 n. 3.
Freeholders; see Yeomanry.
Freeholders' Votes: 54 n. 3.
Fruit - growing : see Market - Gardening,

Orchards.

Fruit-Growers League, the: 209.
Fyffe, C. A.; cited: 102, 185.

"Gentleman Farmers": 31, 91 f.

Geographical distribution of farms: 67-9,

103 f., 189, 191 f.
George, Henry: 145
Germany: 198, 214, 215.
Giffen, Sir R. ; cited: 61.
Gloucestershire: 8, 171, 192, 209.
Goldsmith, Oliver; cited: 32 n. i, 38.
Grading of goods: 194-7, 219.
Graham, P. A. ; cited : 79, 83 n. 5, 84,

85 n. 4, 86, 87, 91, 188, 194 n.,

196, 207, 209.
Grass-land: see Pasture.
Gray, H. L.: 33.

Green crops: 58, 77, 160, 161, 169.
Gurdon, John: 65 n. 2, 188.

Haggard, H. Rider; cited: 86, no, 116,

157 n., 188.
Hampden, Lord: 195.
Hampshire: 64, 85, 98, 221.
Harris, J. N.: 190, 195.
Harrowby, Lord: 120.
Harvest labour: 36, 89, 92, 122, 170.
Harvests: iof., 15, 17, 28 n., 44, 49, 201.
Hasbach, Dr. ; cited : 4, 8, 24, 25, 28 n.,

32 f., 36 n. 7, 96 n. 2.
Hay: 6n. 2, 89, 1701.
Herd-book stock: see Pedigree Stock.
Herefordshire: 90, 98, 112.
Hertfordshire : 83, 167.
Hesse: 198.

Highlanders, emigration of: 39.
Home Colonisation: 126, 150, 214-22.
See also Demand for Small Holdings,

Rural Exodus.

Home market : see under Markets.
Horses: 19 f., 80, 81, 156-8, 161, 162,

167.

Housing: 23, 26 n. 6, 36, 185 n.
Hunting: see Sport.
Huntingdonshire: 28, in.

Impey, F.; cited: 118, 221 f.
Importation :

of corn; n, 49, 57f., 75f., 202.
of dairy produce, etc. ; 205-8.
See also Foreign Competition.
Industrial Depression : 45 f. , 52 f.
Industrial Expansion: 33, 37, 45, 46, 57 f.,

213.

Intensivity of Capital: see under Capital.
Intensivity of Labour:

as price of independence; 35, 166.
characteristic of Small Holders ; 6, 35, 63,

73, 74, 201 f., 203, 211.
in distribution ; see Marketing,
labour of management included; 220.
social aspect; 211 f., 218, 220-2.
required in dairying; 73, 155, 172-6,

i77f., 181.
„ market-gardening; 6, 73,

162 f., 166, 181, 201.
,, stock-farming; 6 f., 73,

171 ff., 180 f., 201.
,, on small holdings; 117, 215.

16 — t

Index

Jebb, L. ; cited: 150, 218.
Johnson, A. H. : 32 f.

Kautzsky, Karl; cited: 72.

Kebbel, T. E. ; cited: nr, 153.

Kent: 8, 33, 83, 84, 85, 90 n. 2, 98, 122,

159, 164, 179.
Kent, N.; cited: 6, 7 n. 3, 12, 18, 19, 23,

36, 73. 183.
King, Gregory: 15.

Labour, intensive: see under Intensivity.

Labour of Superintendence : see Manage-
ment.

Labour of Women: see Women's Work.

Labour-market, the: 35-9, 52 f., 78, usf.,
172 f., 111.

Labourers: 3-5, 6, n, 35-8, 54, 73, 74, 89,
115-8, 125, r6r, 172 f., 178, 181,

2OI, 215, 2l8, 221, 222.

Work of arable farms suited to ; 6, 74,

161, 201.

See also Demand for Land, Pauperisa-
tion, Proletarianisation, Standard of
Comfort.

Labourers' Friend Society: 52, 94, 117.
Labourers' Holdings: 3-5, 14, 17, 18, 24 f.,

36 f., 50, 116-8.
See also Allotments.
"Labouring Poor": n.
Lancashire: 8, 33, 98.
Land:

demand for; 31 f.

exhaustion of; 19 n. 5, 20 n. 6, 57.

non-economic value of; 118-22, 123 f.,

128 f., 132, 136, 143-6, 211.
small parcels unobtainable; i28f., 151.
sources of demand for ; see under

Demand for Small Holdings.
Land-agents: 121 f., 123, 129, 149, 185.

See also Estates, cost of administration.
Land Club League, the: 148.
Land Laws: 36, 41, 118, 123.
Land Monopoly: 26, 29, 95, 123, 124.
Land-ownership, Problem of: 31 f., 66 f.,

118-24, 136.
See also Land, non-economic value of,

and Proprietorship.
Land Nationalisation Society: 146 n.
Land Reform movement : 94, 121, 130, 145.
Land Restoration League: 146 n.
Land Tax Assessments : 32 f.
Landlords: 14, 25, 26, 27, 29, 36, 41, 51 f.,
65, 83, 95, iorf., 119-21, 136-40,
141 f., 183 f., 203.

dislike of allotments; 36, 43 f., 53, 149.
provide allotments ; 36, 43 f., 54, 94.
See also Enclosures, Estates, Land-
monopoly, Rents.
Lander, W. H.; cited: 157.
Large Farm System, extension of: see Ex-
tension.

Law of Diminishing Returns: 200, 201.
Law of Increasing Returns : 72, 96, 204.
Lawes, J. B.: 57.

Lawry, J. W.; cited: 101, 179, 183.
Lawson, W.: 188.

Lefevre, Geo. Shaw: see Eversley, Lord.
Legislative Action: 36, 41, 94 f.« 125-53,

203.

Leicester: 217.

Leicestershire: 28, 112, 151 n. 2.
Liberal Party, the: 94, 114, 118, 126, 131,

136, 146, 150.
Lincolnshire: 6, 8, 17, 27, 31, 68, 77, 85,

non. 6, 127, 129, 142, 150 f., i57n.,

164.

Lloyd-Baker, G. E.; cited: 87, 171, 208.
London: 7, 8, 37 f., 85, 116, 191,

195 n.

Loram, E. T. : 172, 194.
Low, David; cited: 71.
Lynn: 27 n.

Machinery: 20, 57, 62, 64, 65 n. i, 74,

96, 155. iSSHSi. I(53» ^7, 170 f-»

176 f., 182, 189, 193 f., 201, 204,

215, 219 f.
Malthus, T. R. : 42.
Management, work of: 6, 89 f., 92, 161,

163, 171, 218-21.
Manchester: 116.

Manufactures: see Industrial Expansion.
Manures: 19, 56 f., 59 f., 62, 160 f., 166,

167.
Market Conditions: 13, 17, 48 f., 74 f.,

200-205.
determine agricultural production; 47,

72, 86, 200-205, 211-13.
Market-Gardeners' Compensation Act : 139^
Market- Gardening: 5, 6, 8, 13, 30, 55, 66,

79, 84 f., 90, 106-12, 162-8, 183 n.,

196 f., 207 f., 209", 219, 220, 221 f.
advantage of small-scale production in;

6, 4°. 55. 64, 73, 106-9, 181, 220.
Marketing: 7, 157, 162, 165 n., 167, 174 f.,

182, 194-7, 218 f.
Markets: 7 f., 45 f., 74-9, 162, 164 f.,

174 f., 177, 194, 216, 218.
Home market, the; 17 f., 46 f., 50, 57 t.,

82, 200-204, 210, 212 f.
Labour-market, the; see under Labour.
Marshall, W. ; cited: 13, 20, -29, 30, 70,

72 f.

Marx, Karl; cited: 70, 72.
Matthews, A. T.; cited: 80, 81, 82.
Means of Communication : 7 f., 37 f., 55,

57, 75 f., 119, 162, 164, i?4f., 195-7.

202 f., 219.
Meat: 5, 6 n. i, 8, 13, 47, 48 f., 57, 58, 63,

76, 79 f., 82, 168, 201, 202, 203,

210, 212.
Mechi, J. J. : 57.
Middlemen: 159 f., 164 f., 168 n., 189, 192,

194.

Middlesex: 98.
Milk: 5, 6, 58, 640. 3, 79, 82, 207.

See also Dairying.
Milking: 89, 172 f., 177.
Mill, J. S.; cited: 73 f., 94.

Index

247

Mixed husbandry: 15, 57-63, 86, 168,

181, 101.

Monmouthshire : 112.
Mortgages: 33, 51, 109.
Mountain land: 69, 169.

Nail-makers: 216.

Natural economy: see under Consumption.
Netherby: 50.
Nettles, used for food: 47.
Newark: 157 n., 194.
Newdigate: 151.

Norfolk : 8, 10, 27, 30, 65 n. 3, 68, 77, 83,
no, no, 127, 142, 151, 189, 208.
Northamptonshire: 28, 98.
Northumberland: 91 f.
Nottinghamshire: 27, 98, 151 n., 157 n.

Onslow, Lord: 125.

Orchards: 14, 50 n. 4, 84, 85, 112, 162,

163, 165, 166, 209.

Organisation, work of: see Management.
Ownership: see Proprietorship.
Oxen: 19.
Oxfordshire : 14 n. 5, 33.

Packing: 196, 219.

Parish Councils: 127, 128.

Park Street: 167.

Parker, Sir G. : 150 n. i.

Parliament: 41, 146, 211.

Pamdon: 25 n.

Pasture: 27 f., 82 f., 120, 152.

conversion to arable; 14 f., 22, 27, 48 f.,

50, 68.
Pasture-districts: 63, 68 f., 103-5, 110-12,

191.
Pasture-farming, scientific methods applied:

48 f., 79-84, 86, 168-71, 176 f., 193 f.,

208 f., 219 f.

See also Stock-farming.
Pauperisation: 12, 340. 4, 36, 43, 52.
Peace conditions : 45 f., 48, 212 f.
Peas, labourers eat raw: 13.
Peasantry: 3, 4, 16 f., 20, 24-44, 74, 132,

222.

See also Proprietorship.
Pedigree stock: 80 f., i?9f.
Pensaxt: 157 n.
Pigs: 5» 6, 7. 8» i3» 80 f., 106, 108, 178,

183 n.
Ploughing, expensive on small holdings: 19,

53, 62, 156-8, 169.
Plough-land: see Arable land.
Poor Law: see Pauperisation.
Population :

effect of increase in i8th century; 8, u,

28 n., 200 f.
effect of increase in i9th century ; 55,

202.

percentage occupied in agriculture; 37.

Potatoes: 85, 89, 106, 107, 109, 166-8, 181.

Poultry-keeping: 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 18, 19, 79,

86, 108, 157, 178 f., 183 n., 203,

209 f., 211 n., 220.

Poultry-keeping, contd.

advantage of small-scale production in ;

64, 106 f., 112, 181.

Poultry Organisation Society, the: 86, 197.
Pratt, E. A.; cited: 142, 143, 194 n., 198 n.,

217, 218, 219, 220, 221.
Price, Dr; cited: 4711.3, 29, 38 n. 4, 41,

94-

Prices: see Market Conditions, Statistics,

Tables.

Primogeniture: 109, 118, 123.
Pringle, Andrew ; cited : 29.
Pringle, R. H.; cited: 83, 92, 109.
Production :

combination of various branches; 182.
determines unit of holding ; 88, 155, 183,

200, 203.
Proletarianisation : 24, 34-7, 41 f., 44,

116.
Proprietorship, controversy regarding: 74,

118, 131-7, 140, 15°. 15'-
Protection, policy of : 46 f. , 48, 50, 54, 56,

75f.» ?8, 201 f.

Prothero, R. E.; cited: 4, 19, 34, 62.
Purchasing-power of Wages: 9, u, 35 f.,

58, 78 f., 201.
Pusey, P.: 57.

Quarterly Review, the; cited: 145.
Queniborough : 25 n. 5.

Radical Party, the: 94, 95, 132, 146.

Rae, Dr; cited: 3, 4, 33.

Railway construction : 52 n. 6.

Railway tariffs: 174 f., 195-7-

Read, C. S.; cited: 102, in, 156, 166, 175,

179, 182, 189.

Reformers : see Social Policy.
Rent: 9, ion., 21-22, 23, 25, 31, 49, 53,

60 f., 65, 77, 85, 101 f., 119, 137 ff.,

177 f., 185.

Repairs, cost of: see Buildings, cost of.
Reports : see Commissions, Small Holdings

Committees.
Retail prices, obtained by small holders:

165.
Rew, R. H.; cited: 80, 82, 86, 97 n.,

107 n., 210.
Riots: 39.
Robertson, T. ; cited : 19 n. 7, 67, 68, 103,

104.

Rogers, J. D.; cited: 33 n. 4.
Root-crops, 5, 15, 19, 20, 48, 77, 83, 107,

160, 169.
Rotation of crops: 15, 19, 20, 48, 61, 77,

160, 168, 202.

Royal Agricultural Society : 56 f.
Rural exodus :

of 1 8th century: 37-9-

of igth century: 52 f., 78, 95, 114-18,

172 f., 187, 203, 212, 217.

Salisbury, Lord; cited: 95, 130.
Samuel, H.; cited: 106, 114, 117, 130.
Schleswig-Holstein : 198.

248

Index

Scottish farmers : 48 n. 4, 83 f., 92, 208.

Seasons: see Harvests.

Selkirk, Earl of; cited: it, 39.

Shaw, Professor ; cited : 1 78.

Sheep-farming: 3, 6, 58, 63, 69, 80, 106, 169.

Sheldon, Professor ; cited : 1 74.

Shooting: see Sport.

Shropshire: 8, 98, 157, 171.

Sinclair, Sir John ; cited : 20, 30, 32, 34,

42 f., 70, 71, 72, 94.

Small Holders, types of: see under Demand.
Small Holdings, revival of : see Extension of

Small Holdings.
Small Holdings Act, 1907 : 95, 124, 125,

126, 127 f., 136-53, 215 f.

Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1892 :
05, 125, 126-33, 143.

Small Holdings Associations : see Co-opera-
tion.

Small Holdings Committee, 1889 : 94, 95,
96, 106, 183 n., 185 n., 209.

Small Holdings Committee, 1905-6: 91 n.,
96 n. 2, 98, 99, in, 121 n., 125 f.,

127, 128, 130, 131, 133, i34f., 136,
140, 142, 183 n., 185 n., 215 f., 217,
219.

Smith, H. H. ; cited: 133.

Social Policy: i, 2, 4, 34-6, 41 f., 51 f.,

72-4, 94 f., 153, 212 f., 214-22.
Societies: 54 n. 3, 56 f., 86, 146 n., 190 f.,

195, 197, 210. See also Co-operation.
Soil, special qualities of: 65, 67-9, 83, 90,

103, 205, 208-10.
Somerset: 192.

Somerville, Professor; cited: 57.
South-eastern district : 83.
Southampton, district surrounding: 107.
Spade-cultivation: 53, 162 f., 166, 167.
Spalding: 150.
Sport: 31, n8f., 120, 122, 129, 136, 145,

211 n.

Staffordshire: 98.
Standard of comfort: 5, 9, 11-13, 3r» 35»

46-8, 58, 78 f., 86, 201-3.
Starvation : 25, 47 f.
State, the : see Legislative Action.
"Statesman": 31, 69 n.
Statistics, criticised : 99.
Statistics :

Acreage allotted to labourers on enclosure ;

M-
Agricultural labourers, decrease in number

of, 1851-1901; 115.
Cattle, increase in number kept, 1876-

1909; 80.
Changes in unit of holding, 1885-1895;

„ 97-

Co-operative associations; 190 n., 191.
Farmers' relatives assisting in work ;

117.
Holdings, geographical distribution of;

68 n. 5.

Holdings of the various classes ; 98 f.
Horses required per unit of holding ; 157,

158 n.

Statistics, contd.

Imported produce of petite culture, value

of ; 206 f.

Market-gardens, etc., 1878-1909; 84 f.
Pedigree stock, value of; 81.
Permanent pasture, 1876-1909; 79 f.
Poultry-keeping, 1885-1902; 86.
Small Holdings and Allotments Acts,
land acquired under;
1887-1902 : 130.
1892-1902: 126.
1907-1910: 147 f.
See also Tables.
Steam-dairies: 172, 193 f.
Steam-ploughing: 62, 64, 159.
Sterilisation of milk : 194.
Stock-farming: 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, i?f., 27,
30 f., 48 f., 55-9, 6 1 f., 64, 68 f.,
76 f., 79-84, 108-13, 168-80, 183 n.,
186, J9of., 197, 201, 203, 208, 2iof.
Advantages of large-scale production in ;

169 f., i76f., i79f., 181.
Advantages of small-scale production in ;

55. 73» I0<5» J7i f-» i8of., 1830.
On arable holdings; 105 f., 109 f., 160,

168 f., 181, 208 f.
See also under Pasture.
Straw: 107.

Strawberry-growing: 79, 107, 164, 222.
Sub-letting: 177.
Suffolk: 8, 14 n. 3, 27, 48, 68, 77, no,

208.

Superintendence : see Management.
Surrey: 98, 151, 152.
Sussex: 86, 98, 112, 211 n.
Sutton, M. J. ; cited: 208.
Swaffham : 27 n.
Switzerland: 198.

Tables:

Animals kept on the various units; 106.
Area under corn and green crops, 1881-

1909; 77.

Export of pedigree stock, 1876-1900; 81.
Geographical distribution of Holdings ;

103, 104, 105.
Holdings of the various classes, 1870-

1885; 66.
Holdings of the various classes, 1880-95;

Holdings of the various classes in 1895 ;

Holdings of the various classes, 1895-

1909; 97.

Horses kept per unit of holding; 158.
Imports of Butter, Cheese and Condensed

Milk, 1886-1909; 206.
Imports of Fruit, Poultry and Eggs,

1892-1909; 207.
Prices of machines of varying capacity ;

170.
Prices of separators of various capacities ;

176.

Wages and Prices, 1883-1902; 78.
Wheat and meat prices, 1877-1902; 76.

Index

249

Tariffs, foreign : 46, 75, 79 f.

Taylor, James : 54 n. 3.

Technique: see Agricultural Science.

Telephones : 119.

Tenancy: see Proprietorship.

Tenants, security of Capital: i^Sf., 141.

Thaer, Albrecht; cited: i.sn. 7, 30, 70.

Thonger, Professor; cited: 173.

Thornton, W. T. ; cited: 53, 55.

"Three Acres and a Cow": 43, 90, 118.

"Three F's," the: 140 f., 150.

Three-field System, the: 15, 18, 168.

Threshing-machines: son. 2, 62, 159 f., 189.

Tollemache, Lord: 94.

Tonbridge: 90 n. 2, 159 n.

Tooke, T. ; cited: 8 n. 12, 9 ns., 10 f.,

46 n. 5.

Town-life, attraction of: 37, 38, 116, 214.
Towns: 67, 97 f., 119.

As a market; 53, 84, 85, 216.
Townsmen as Small Holders: 215-22.
Toynbee, Arnold: 34 n. 2.
Transport, cost of : 57, 164, 174 f.,

195-7-

See also Means of Communication.
Tremenhere, — ; citetl : 64, 65, 69.
"Trifles": 73.
Turnips: 5, 15, 19, 20, 77, 83, 107, 160,

169.

Vegetables: 5, 6, 17, 20, 79, 203, 209.

See also Market-Gardening.
Village communities: 188 n. 4, 198.
Voelcker, A. : 57.

Wages: 5, 9, ri f., 35 f., 41, 46, 57 f.,

6?» 78, 172 f., 201, 203.
See also Standard of Comfort.
Wages-Scales: 12.

Wales: 98, 191.

Wantage, Lord: 94, 151.

War conditions: 10, u, 15, 17, 18, 44, 46 f.,

2OI f., 21) f.

Warwickshire: «8, 191, 192.

Water-supply: 120.

Wealth, national: 8, 55, 66, 82.

Wenlock, Lord: in.

Wensleydale: i94n.

Western counties, the : 68 f., 103-5, IIO» '9'»

192.
Westmorland: 8, 29, 62, 66, 69, 169, 174,

192.

Wheat: see Bread, Corn.
Wheatley, — : 38.
Whitley,'j. H.: 151.
Wilkins, Mrs; cited: 150, 218.
Williams, George: 216.
Wiltshire: 2in. i, 99, 216.
Winchilsea, Earl of: 25 n. i, 370.1, 43.
Winfrey, R. ; cited: 117, 142, 150 f.
Women's Work : 7 n. 3, 18, 34, 89 f., 165 n.,

i?«. '73. '74. '75. »?8f., '82, 197.
Wool-prices: 63.
Worcestershire: 62, 85, 98. 127, 191, 192,

216.

Worthing: 220.
Wrightson, J.; cited: 82.

Yeomanry: 4, 26 f., 28-35, 5f«<>9» '°9» '34.

314.
Yerburgh, R. A.; cited: 87, 125, 190,

212 f.
Yorkshire: 7, 14 n. 4, 86 n. 3, 98, 102,

"•• 173. 193-

Young, Arthur; cited: 5, 6, 8 n. 10, 10, 12,
14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, it n. a, 75 n.,
27, 28 n., 32, 35, 37 f., 41, 47, 68,
69-71, 88, 94, 135, 156.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

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