LARGE AND SMALL FARMS. 69 



work will be given him than he ultimately 

 receives. In short, a certain class of small 

 Irish tenants has to serve two masters, and to 

 the members of it the system of spade hus- 

 bandry can never be profitably reduced to 

 practice, as it will confine their labours exclu- 

 sively to their own small holdings, which are 

 insufficient to employ them. 



This part of the subject involves the important 

 question as to the proper size of farms. To 

 both large and small farms there is obviously a 

 limit. Small farms ought never to be less than 

 would afford sufficient employment for the tenant 

 and his successor, returning, on an average, 

 produce to the value of 100/. per annum. The 

 size of large farms will always be limited by 

 the distance from the buildings and the conse- 

 quent expense of carting out manure during 

 seed-time, and home the produce of the fields 

 during harvest. Between those two extremes, 

 no farmer ought to measure his neighbour's foot 

 in his own shoe, a maxim too frequently dis- 

 regarded in discussing this subject. 



The amount of capital required by the farmer 

 to cover the difference in the ordinary expense 

 between digging and ploughing is not all that 

 F 3 



