Home Colonisation 221 



existence. They possess already the necessary business qualities and technical 

 capacity. 



Intelligent observers have not failed td recognise the nature of this 

 development. Thus e.g. Mr Newsham writes of the small holdings of 

 Hampshire: "In most parts of the county there appears to be ample 

 opportunity for the development of mixed holdings by men who have been 

 brought up on the land and know the practical side of their business. The 

 town-bred man must of necessity have an up-hill struggle, though his business 

 capacity or training might stand him in good stead 1 ." And Mr Pratt 

 expresses the matter still more clearly : " Industries, in fact, such as 

 dairying, horticulture, floriculture, stock-raising, etc., as distinguished from 

 the growing of corn, are occupations requiring technical knowledge, skill, 

 business capacity, and unremitting personal attention on the part of those 

 engaged therein qualities and qualifications not necessarily possessed by 

 even the average farmer of the old school, and still less by the average 

 agricultural labourer of the passing generation, however efficient the latter 

 may have been in the days when the work he had to do made less demands 

 on his intelligence than upon his physical endurance 2 ." 



Under some circumstances, therefore, the non-agricultural type of settler 

 will prove more than equal to the man who has been on the land all his life. 

 He will even be superior to him in certain branches of production, as in fruit 

 and vegetable growing. But the agricultural labourer will be superior to the 

 townsman when corn-growing and stock-farming are in question, because 

 there technical capacity and business qualities have a smaller part to play, 

 and his agricultural experience becomes a matter of great importance. 



In general it may be said that the non-agricultural settlers instinctively 

 direct their attention to those branches in which they can best use their 

 particular qualities. The place and kind of work they choose are regulated 

 accordingly. Unlike the agricultural labourer, who is able to raise himself 

 to an independent position, but then develops a tendency to comfortable 

 methods, they are full of the desire "to get on." They retain a capitalistic 

 character. They find in various branches of modern agriculture quite as 

 good chances of profit-making as they could in trade or industry. This is 

 noticed by almost every writer on the small holdings question. Mr F. Impey, 

 of the Board of Agriculture, who has inspected many small holdings, has 

 astonishing things to report on this part of the subject 3 . A land-agent who 

 had over 1000 small holdings to administer told him that he knew dozens of 

 men owning ;ioo to ^500 who twelve or fifteen years earlier had been 

 earning their 15*. a week. A man who had formerly been a groom and 

 gardener stated that on his holding of 5^ acres he could save ^40 a year, 



1 In the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 1908-9, p. 93. 



* Pratt, op. cit. pp. 303 f. 



* F. Impey, Small Holdings in England, 1909, pp. 19-28. 



