After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 71 



relative cost. In a word, it was the intensive application of capital 

 which made the large farm the pattern of arable farming. So far as 

 his arguments were directed to prove this, Young was quite correct. 

 But he jumped from the conclusion that the large farm system was 

 best for arable farming to the conclusion that it was absolutely best. 

 He argued quite correctly that the small holding could never hope to 

 compete with the large in the particular points named, depending as 

 they did essentially on the free use of capital. But this did not 

 prove what he adduced it to prove. For the advantages of the large 

 farm system in relation to corn-production were no longer advantages 

 when other branches of production, requiring quite different con- 

 ditions, were in question. However, from 1760 onwards, these other 

 branches were in fact a vanishing quantity in English agriculture: 

 so that it was natural that scientific students of agrarian questions 

 should pay little attention either to them or to the forms of holding 

 suited to them. Young's followers neglect them almost to the same 

 extent as he does himself. Sinclair does indeed point out that the small 

 holding has certain advantages in the production of fruit and vege- 

 tables, and in dairy-farming 1 : and at a later time Low admits that it 

 could survive in the neighbourhood of large towns 2 . But both these 

 writers regard such cases simply as exceptions to the rule. Their 

 argument is constantly directed to show what is absolutely the most 

 profitable unit of agricultural holding, and as they identify agriculture 

 with corn-growing they come to the conclusion that this unit is the 

 large farm 3 . David Low goes so far as to say that the development 

 of large farms is always a sign that agriculture is flourishing, while 

 that of small farms shows the contrary : for as less capital is used on 

 small farms than on large, an increase of the former must mean that 

 less capital is flowing into agricultural channels 4 . 



Thus the increased application of capital to corn-growing on the 

 large farms led students to the conclusion that, in view of the growing 

 importance of bringing corn-production to a high pitch of perfection, 

 the large farm was the sole unit of agricultural holding which was 

 worthy of attention. This view was apparently confirmed as im- 

 provements in the technique of arable farming on the one hand and 



1 Sir John Sinclair, An Account of the Systems of Husbandry etc., Edinburgh, 1812, pp. 9 

 and 16 ff. 



2 David Low, On Landed Property, 1844, P- 35- 



3 See Sinclair on the advantages of large farms and the disadvantages of small in The 

 Statistical Account of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1792, Vol. II, p. 319; v, 472; vm, 613; 

 X, 247, 265; xiv, ai ; xv, 153 ; and in, 567 ; iv, 444; v, 212, 422; vi, 262, 378 ; vn, 143. 

 Also An Account etc., pp. 43 ff. * Low, op. cit. p. 38. 



