CHAPTER XI 



HISTORICAL RETROSPECT AND PRESENT OUTLOOK 



THE development of English agriculture and of the unit of 

 agricultural holding have now been traced in some detail over 

 a period of almost two hundred years and as they stand at the 

 present day. It remains to consider briefly the probable future of 

 the two main types of holding in England. 



The answer to this problem is to be sought in the fundamental 

 laws of the unit of holding, as they have emerged in the course of our 

 historical study. This has shown that the problem of the unit of 

 agricultural holding is one which is not to be solved in the same way 

 at all times and in all places. There is no type of holding which can 

 be said to be the ideal type for all agricultural purposes. Such ideal 

 holdings can only be found for each individual branch of production. 

 Consequently the problem of the unit of holding is dependent on the 

 particular agricultural conditions of a country at any given moment. 

 These conditions change in the course of time, and among the causes 

 which most essentially influence such changes the circumstances of 

 the market play the chief part. They, therefore, in the last resort 

 determine the problem. As the market conditions change the 

 agricultural production changes, and as the production changes the 

 unit of holding changes too. But the market conditions are mainly 

 dependent on the home consumption of agricultural produce. In 

 the history of the century and a half preceding the year 1875 these 

 circumstances of consumption and consequent market conditions 

 were favourable to the production of corn. It was impossible to 

 obtain corn to the extent to which it can be obtained today from 

 the virgin soil of newly-cultivated countries, and therefore, in the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, England found herself obliged to 

 use her own soil for the extension of her supply of grain. According 

 to the law of diminishing returns, this could only be done at a con- 

 tinually increasing cost, while the population was growing. The less 



