Economics of the Size of Farms 1 75 



only have to pay is. ^d. This grading of the tariff results from the 

 simple fact that the railway companies can transport large quantities 

 at a relatively lower cost than small. The result is the same as with 

 the market-gardeners. Part of the milk market is closed to the small 

 holders. The same is true of butter for similar reasons. But, again 

 as in the case of the market-gardens, this fact is often no real injury 

 to the small holder. The small allotment holders, living in the village, 

 often sell their milk to customers who themselves take their jugful 

 home, so that no question of cost of transport arises. Or the producer 

 may send his children out with the milk, and may find plenty of 

 customers, at any rate in the summer, among visitors from the towns, 

 excursionists, etc. These methods of sale do not concern the large 

 farmer at all, as he never sells in such small quantities 1 . The butter 

 of the allotment holder may be disposed of in similar ways. The 

 larger allotment holders and the small holders proper have moreover 

 a real advantage in this sphere, in the way in which they are able 

 to sell to their own special customers in the neighbouring towns or 

 villages. Even Mr Read, who is in general an advocate of large 

 holdings, and fails to estimate the advantages possessed by the small 

 holder at their real value, is obliged to admit that "in its distribution 

 (i.e. the distribution of butter, etc) the wife of the small farmer, if 

 a good market-woman, can generally make a considerable profit 2 ." 

 Naturally the small farmer often fails, through negligence or laziness, 

 to make use of all the advantages which he has at his disposal. But 

 some of them, at any rate, take the pains to carry their own butter 

 into the town, and get from their customers throughout the year ^d., 

 4*/. or 5</. above the market price. They did not, according to their 

 own account 3 , feel the fall of butter-prices in the nineties as the large 

 farmers, dependent on the wholesale prices or indeed on the prices of 

 the world market, did. Thus while the small butter-makers are to a 

 great extent excluded from the wholesale market by the competition 

 of their larger rivals, they have a retail trade of their own, resulting 

 from their peculiar methods of work, which cannot be touched by the 

 large farmers. The qualitative intensity of the labour of the small 

 holder is here shown not in production, but in distribution. The 

 large agriculturist can only sell in gross and make his agreements 

 en bloc. The small man takes the trouble to sell in small quantities 

 to customers with special tastes, and so often gets the highest prices. 



1 Small Holdings Report, 1889, qu. 1370 (Mr Pell). 



3 Read, op. cit. pp. 10 f. 



* Report of 1894, qu. 939 and 940. 



