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 progress 1 . 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 

 fields 2 . Halkett's steam-plough, for instance, was said to be economic- 

 ally applicable only on areas of 500 to 1000 acres 3 . 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 use 4 . 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 predominated 5 . 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. 



