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 



