Economics of the Size of Farms 159 



A second advantage possessed by the large over the small arable 

 farmer is the cheaper use of labour-saving machinery. The steam- 

 plough is a machine which is quite out of the question on a small 

 holding, since a large area is absolutely necessary if it is to be used 

 profitably. However, this is not a point of much importance, nor has 

 it had much effect in the competition between large and small farms 

 in recent times. The steam-plough has not fulfilled the hopes which 

 were once set upon it 1 . It is now only used in England on holdings 

 having very large cornfields : nothing is heard of that general use of 

 it which was justifiably expected about 1870. 



The steam threshing-machine, on the contrary, has found much 

 more extensive application. Middlemen keep such machines and 

 hire them out to farmers who cannot afford to buy them or whom 

 it would not pay to keep one for themselves. Not only allotment 

 holders and small farmers take advantage of this system, but also 

 the occupiers of middle-sized holdings. Large farmers, on the other 

 hand, almost always have their own. It pays them to buy a threshing- 

 machine because they can almost always use the engine for other 

 purposes. A certain Kentish farmer 1 , for instance, has bought a 

 crushing-mill for the purpose of making the steam-engine belonging to 

 his threshing-machine useful. This steam-driven machine produces all 

 the food-stuffs which he needs for his numerous cattle ; and as he uses 

 his own raw material he is sure of having them of the best quality and 

 unadulterated. Such a machine costs .25. A straw-chopper is often 

 driven by the same engine which is used for the threshing-machine, 

 and sometimes actually at the same time 3 . The small farmer cannot 

 put an engine to use in such ways, because he has not the capital to 

 buy the various machines. Even the occupier of a medium-sized 

 holding cannot afford to do so, as a general rule. And as the corn to 

 be threshed by men of these classes is not sufficient to make it worth 

 while to buy an engine for this alone, they find it much better to hire 

 their threshing-machines as required. But by this method they pay 

 more for threshing than their larger neighbours, who can make full 

 use of a machine and soon pay off its cost. Also it must be re- 

 membered that the transport of the threshing-machine from farm to 



1 See e.g. W. J. Maiden, Recent Changes in Farm Practices, in Journal R. A. S., 1896, 

 p. 39 : "Steam cultivation, which twenty years ago bade fair to become more general, has 

 receded in popularity, and the advantage which was expected to result from it has not been 

 realised." 



* Mr Douglas, of Fish Hall Farm, Tonbridge. 



3 Stephens' Book of the Farm, 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1891, Vol. l, pp. 449, 454. 



