6 INTRODUCTORY 



same type. Moreover, its manufacturing towns 

 and industries are too few to cause any disturbing 

 elements. The same thing applies to Denmark, 

 which is practically an agricultural country, the 

 majority of the population having to depend upon 

 the soil. But in England the different geological 

 formations are so interlaced and overlapping that, 

 as has been shown, what is possible in the way of 

 cultivation in one district may be quite the reverse 

 a few miles away. This difference in cultivation 

 affects to such a degree questions as to the size of 

 the holding, the amount of horse labour required, 

 the economic rent, and the disposal of produce, that 

 it will be seen how the conditions of success must 

 vary with each locality ; hence the importance of 

 allowing for this variation in any scheme for a 

 universal extension of the small-holding system. 



It is very instructive from this point of view to 

 notice the errors into which men fall when their 

 knowledge, however intimate, is confined to one 

 district only. In the recent Report of the Small 

 Holdings Committee appointed by the Board of 

 Agriculture examples of this constantly recur 

 amongst witnesses whose work is confined to 

 special districts, whereas those who have had to 

 do with the administration of lands in widely 

 different areas take broader and less emphatic 

 views on the general possibilities of small holdings. 



One witness, a large land agent, went so far as 

 to say that there was no small-holding system in 

 England at all, but that, unfortunately, solitary 



