2 INTRODUCTORY 



many parts of our rural districts to-day a survival 

 of these ancient holdings. There have also sprung 

 up to a small but appreciable extent holdings of a 

 newer type. 



The actual number of holdings of from 1 to 

 50 acres is given in the return of the Board of 

 Agriculture for 1904 as 343,450 out of a total of 

 511,584. Although the area under cultivation in 

 holdings of this size is only 15 per cent, of the 

 whole, the actual number of such farms represents, 

 therefore, two-thirds of the total number of holdings 

 in England. 



We have, then, what might be called a definite 

 small-holding system established in our own country. 

 To understand how to extend this system, the first 

 necessity is to make a thorough investigation of 

 what already exists. We are led to ask why, in 

 some cases, ancient holdings have managed to 

 persist, whereas in others they have been com- 

 pletely exterminated ; and again, why, while this 

 extermination was going on in certain places, in 

 others new small holdings were arising from natural 

 causes. 



This suggests a state of varying circumstances 

 in different parts of the country. We will not now 

 consider the modifications induced by legislation, 

 but confine ourselves in the first instance to a study 

 of the varying natural conditions. One is at once 

 struck by the fact that it is this very variety which 

 seems to be the keynote of the whole question as 

 regards England, comparing it with other countries. 



