208 Large and Small Holdings 



and vegetables, in the number of eggs sold and poultry kept, and so 

 forth, do indeed show that English agriculture has taken some share 

 in supplying the demand. But still a considerable part of the supply 

 is provided by foreigners. This would appear to give force to the 

 second objection mentioned above, namely, that the home production 

 of articles of the kind in question is necessarily limited. It is claimed 

 that the high import-figures for butter, eggs, fruit and the rest show 

 that the conditions of agriculture in England are unfavourable to, 

 and in part prohibitive of, the production of such articles. But the 

 experience of recent years gives no uncertain answer to this 

 suggestion. 



That one important branch of small farming, viz. stock-farming, 

 has shown itself capable of extension has already been proved. 

 When the agricultural crisis was at its worst, and the fall in the price 

 of corn was making itself most severely felt, the absolute ruin of 

 English agriculture was freely predicted. It was said that in Essex, 

 Norfolk, Suffolk and other counties, soil and climate made it simply 

 impossible to transform arable into pasture or in any way to 

 develop stock-farming further than it was already carried. But the 

 Scottish farmers acted while English agriculturists hesitated, and 

 today even in Essex flourishing dairy-farms and market gardens are 

 common. Where pasture has not been laid down, stock-farming is 

 carried on by means of stall-feeding, a method which writers on the 

 subject had long been pressing on English farmers 1 . A system of 

 temporary pasture has also proved very successful where neither 

 stall-feeding nor permanent pasture was suitable. Mr M. J. Sutton 

 showed, as a result of his very thorough study of the question, 

 how capable of extension this system of temporary pasture is*. 

 There are thus no unconquerable difficulties in the way of the 

 expansion of stock-farming and dairying. It is true that English 

 farmers, like the agriculturists of every country, are conservative, 

 and hold to their old traditions. They are often sadly lacking 

 in the marvellous capacity for adaptation to circumstances shown 

 by their Scottish brethren. To this conservatism is attributable 

 among other things their great reluctance to adopt co-operative 

 methods, necessary as these are in the interests of technical and 



1 Lloyd Baker, Dairying in Denmark, Bath, 1896, p. n. See also Mr Graham in the 

 Morning Post, loc. cit. 



2 M. J. Sutton, Permanent and Temporary Pastures, 1888, pp. 4-5 : "I quite admit 

 that there are large tracts of land in this country which are unsuited for the formation of 

 permanent pastures But there is no farm land with which I am acquainted that will not 

 profitably respond to the alternate system." 



