2O Large and Small Holdings 



used to plough the same area 1 . 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 use 2 . He could carry out the 

 expensive drainage of wet land, described by Blith in 1641 as the 

 fundamental condition of agricultural progress 3 . It was the large 

 farmer who on the sandy lands of Norfolk first introduced turnip 

 cultivation and the model rotation of crops 4 . 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 folly 6 . 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 Sinclair 6 . 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 thistles 7 ." 

 " Poverty and ignorance are the ordinary inhabitants of small farms," 

 declared Marshall 8 . 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. 



