CHAPTER IX 

 FARMING BY COLLECTIVE EFFORT 



WITH the extended use of the tractor 

 and the provisions for the employ- 

 ment of labour under cover in winter, 

 the advantage lies all on the side of broad acres. 

 Yet holdings cannot be stereotyped like build- 

 ings, put up for the manufacture of articles. 

 We must be guided by the physical geography 

 which surrounds us. The hill and the plain, 

 the chalk, the heavy clay, the light sandy loam, 

 the precipitous downland, and the flat fenland, 

 must, as Nature demands, have different types 

 of farming applied, according to the quality of 

 the soil and to the contours of the land. In some 

 districts intensive cultivation on small holdings 

 might still, with advantage to the nation, be 

 carried out. But in most districts it would be 

 more economic to combine many holdings of 

 an inconvenient size and to work them under 

 one management, or under a guild of craftsmen. 

 Agriculture is the one industry under capital- 

 istic competition in which we can repeat that 

 boomerang cry, " More production," without 

 fearing that the returning blow will strike some- 



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