420 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



Association in Northamptonshire, where two hundred and 

 twenty-three men rent and occupy a farm of one hundred 

 and eighty-four acres at three hundred pounds a year 

 rent, though the land is rather poor. It is divided into 

 plots from one eighth of an acre to six acres, the occupiers 

 being various wage workers, small tradesmen, mechanics, 

 and comparatively few farm labourers. The farm was 

 visited by Mr. Impey, who states that it was excellently 

 cultivated, and that the wheat averaged forty-eight 

 bushels an acre — nearly twice the average of Great 

 Britain — while one man got fifty-six bushels an acre 

 from two and one-fourth acres. When this farm was let 

 to a farmer, four men on the average were employed on it ; 

 now an amount of work equal to that of forty men 

 is expended on it, and a considerable portion of the 

 work is done during time that would otherwise be 

 wasted. 



The reports issued by the last Royal Commission on 

 Agriculture in 1882 give numerous similar illustrations, 

 showing that in periods of agricultural distress, when 

 large farmers were being ruined, the small farmers who 

 cultivated the land themselves were prosperous. Thus 

 Mr. F. Winn Knight, M.P., of Exmoor, Devonshire, had 

 sixteen tenants paying rents from thirteen pounds up to 

 two hundred pounds a year, all being paid regularly to 

 the last shilling, and every one of these men had been 

 agricultural labourers. More remarkable is the case of 

 Penstrasse Moor in Cornwall, a barren, sandy waste, which 

 neither landlord nor tenant-farmer thought worth cul- 

 tivating. Yet five hundred acres of this waste have been 

 enclosed and reclaimed by miners, mechanics, and other 

 labourers, on the security of leases for three lives at a low 

 rent. This land now carries more stock than any of the 

 surrounding farms, and the total produce is estimated by 

 the assistant commissioner, Mr. Little, at nearly twice the 

 average of the county. 



Pages could be filled with similar cases, but these are 

 sufficient to show the importance of land in improving 

 the condition of the workers. 



