20 



property in Germany and its distribution ? Do the small 

 farmers increase or decrease in number, and does the land, 

 owned or farmed by them, grow or contract? The latest 

 available data refer to the year 1907, and they compare 

 with those of the previous census as follows : 



Fer cent, of total 

 cultivated 

 Size of Farms No. of Farms. area farmed, 



(in hectares). 1895. 1907. 1895. 1907. 



Below 2 ... 

 From 2 to 5 

 From 5 to 20 

 From 20 to 100 

 Above 100 



3,236,367 3, 37 8 .5 9 ••• 5-6 5-4 



1,016,318 1,006,277 ... 10. 1 10.4 



998,804 1,065,539 ... 29.9 32.7 



281,767 262,191 ... 30.3 29.3 



25,061 23,566 ... 24.1 22.2 



This table seems to contradict all the inferences to 

 which we have been led by the foregoing discussion, and 

 to support the views of those who maintain that Protection 

 has been of great advantage to the small farmer. The 

 larger farms, from 20 hectares onwards, have decreased 

 both in number and in area; the middle-sized farms have 

 increased in both; and while the farms of between two 

 and five hectares have decreased in number and increased 

 in area, those below two hectares have increased in number 

 though decreased in area. On the whole, the table shows 

 a slight transference of the centre of gravity of German 

 agriculture from the larger to the smaller farms. 



Yet we must not be too hasty in accepting this 

 apparently obvious conclusion. The "farms" below two 

 hectares do not count at all.* More than one-third of 

 them are below a quarter of an hectare, and they over- 

 whelmingly represent either kitchen gardens or potato 

 patches, placed at the disposal of factory workers by 

 industrial magnates, or of agricultural labourers by the 

 local landlord at a nominal rent, with a view to keeping 

 the men on the spot as "adscripti glebae," or in exchange 

 for services to be rendered at certain seasons. Their im- 

 portance, if any, consists in the fact that their increase 



* Wurrn, I.e., pp. 151, 152. 



