1 68 Large and Small Holdings 



for the market, is concerned, large and medium holdings are superior 

 to the small farm. But this superiority is obviously due to the fact 

 that the technique of potato-growing is altogether different from 

 that which makes the other branches of vegetable-growing a suitable 

 sphere for the small holding and the small agriculturist. 



(c) Stock-farming. 



Stock-farming is a title which includes very various branches of 

 agriculture. Breeding, rearing young cattle, fattening, dairying, sheep- 

 farming, pig-keeping, poultry-keeping and the breeding of pedigree or 

 herd-book stock may all be included under this head, although there 

 are very great differences between them as regarded from the point of 

 view of the holding economically suited to each. 



(i) Cattle-breeding. In the first place the breeding and fattening 

 of cattle and sheep may be considered : and here it is necessary to 

 draw a distinction between farms which are mainly arable, and grow 

 their own feeding-stuffs and straw, and those which are mainly pasture, 

 and buy what other natural or artificial foodstuffs, etc. they may need. 

 As has been seen above, until the abolition of the corn-laws stock- 

 farming was quite subordinate to corn-growing as an object of English 

 agriculture. Corn and the three-field system were characteristic of 

 the average farm. The rotation of crops did not become general until 

 the rise of meat-prices after 1846, when it served both to make corn- 

 growing more profitable, and to enable the farmer to keep a much 

 larger number of cattle. Between 1850 and 1880 corn-growing and 

 stock-farming were combined, in such a way that on arable farms 

 corn-growing did indeed keep the first place, but nevertheless the 

 production of meat was regarded as of nearly equal importance. In 

 more recent times it has come to be the chief object. The corn, 

 where any is grown at all, is often simply grown for the benefit of the 

 cattle, and not as an independent branch of production. On many 

 arable farms of 1 50 300 acres it is only grown to provide winter food 

 and straw, the farmer preferring to produce these for himself. On 

 smaller holdings this is naturally still more markedly the case 1 . But 

 arable land being proportionately more expensive on small holdings 



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

 pp. 31 f. : " Farmers have consumed more of their own produce on the farm, when 

 circumstances have permitted. There is a decided advantage in thus consuming home- 

 grown grain, as the in and out profits to the middleman, where grain is sold and cake is 

 purchased, are saved." 



