140 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



chase, delivery, and distribution of manures, 

 in the picking and marketing of fruit, to say 

 nothing of the impossibility in these circum- 

 scribed areas of using the plough, the cultivator, 

 or the horse-hoe. 



Profitable as these strips of land are, culti- 

 vated with skill and assiduity, how much 

 more profitable, one cannot help thinking — 

 how much more productive, how much energy 

 would be saved, and anxiety, too, if the whole 

 area were divided into one or two large farms 

 or market gardens, and then cultivated co- 

 operatively. 



To do justice to Small Holdings Committees 

 of County Councils, I must say that since the 

 War they have adopted a policy of acquiring 

 farms instead of fields for approved applicants ; 

 that is to say, they have bought larger estates 

 or portions of estates, so that the small holders 

 can practise co-operation more effectively, and 

 supervision is easier. At the same time, each 

 individual small holder cultivates in his own 

 way, and co-operation, such as it is, is purely 

 voluntary. 



The small holder very often, even in the 

 vale of Evesham, exchanges his servitude to 

 a master for a servitude to the land ; and, 

 perhaps, what is worse, his family become 

 overworked. The discoveries of science, new 

 inventions in labour-saving machinery, often 

 leave the small holder cold, because his acreage 



