1 88 Large and Small Holdings 



March 25th, 1830. Its originator was a landlord named Gurdon. 

 He was, as he himself has explained 1 , favourable to small holders on 

 general humanitarian grounds, and accordingly cut up a farm of 100 

 acres into four small holdings, to be worked by four farmers in 

 association on the four-field system. The existence of this associa- 

 tion is seldom remembered at the present day, and nothing is heard 

 as to its results. Even Mr Rider Haggard was unable to find much 

 to report about it 8 . Another attempt was that of Mr Lawson, also 

 a landlord, who founded a co-operative farm, the Blennerhasset 

 Farm in Baggrow, Essex, on which the labourers had a large share 

 in the profits and where the provision of machines etc. was also on a 

 co-operative basis. But the farm had to be sold in 1871, the tenants 

 being unable to keep their heads above water 3 . The idea of co-opera- 

 tive corn-growing was thus not wanting ; but the results achieved 

 were very small. At the present day no one with any knowledge 

 of English agricultural conditions thinks of starting a co-operative 

 colony of small farmers on economic grounds, in a case where one 

 large farmer with good machinery and relatively few labourers can 

 do the work. In this communistic form (as it may be called) co- 

 operation is very difficult to establish in England, and is particularly 

 inapplicable to corn-growing agriculturists 4 . But although this 

 particular method is not of practical importance, other forms of co- 

 operation might perhaps still be found to protect the small corn- 

 growing farmer from the competition of his larger rival. There still 

 remains the possibility of co-operative purchase, e.g. of threshing- 

 machines, by which the middleman might be ousted, and of other 

 machinery, which might in this way be bought more cheaply; and 

 the same principle might be applied to the purchase of seed etc. 

 All this is undoubtedly possible in theory; but in practice the aspect 

 of affairs is not found to be quite so promising. 



1 ^^ Journal R. A. S., 1863, p. 165. 

 8 Rider Haggard, op. cit. Vol. n, p. 393. 



3 W. Lawson, C. D. Hunter and others, Ten Years of Gentleman Farming, 1875, 

 pp. 20-22, 41, 71. 



4 Mr Graham's description seems excellent: "Visionaries have drawn many fancy 

 pictures of the ideal village community, where every householder will have his plot of earth 

 and the cultivation will be accomplished by co-operation. One would possess a harrow, 

 another a plough, number three a cart, number four and number five each a horse, and so on, 

 and they would manage to get on by a system of borrowing and lending. The dreamers of 

 such fantastic dreams as these know extremely little either of English villagers or English 

 agriculture. It is a regrettable feature of humanity that wherever a few people are gathered 

 together, envy, hatred, backbiting and jealousy exist to an extent unknown in larger 

 communities." P. Anderson Graham, The Rural Exodus, 1892, p. 120. 



