A LABOURER'S HOLDING 



By an Act of Parliament passed in 1899 for five years and 

 renewed in 1904, the Government of Denmark provided money 

 for the purpose of granting loans to agricultural labourers for the 

 purchase of their holdings. When this Bill was passing through 

 Parliament a discussion arose as to whether it should provide 

 sufficient land to enable the labourer to maintain himself and 

 bring up his family, or whether it should provide only allotments 

 with the view of inducing the labourer to remain in the country as 

 a ploughman on the larger farms. The majority decided that 

 sufficient land should be provided to make the labourer in- 

 dependent of outside work. It may be questioned, however, 

 whether the discussion did not end somewhat in a compromise, 

 with the result that less land had been put at the disposal of the 

 labouring class than is absolutely necessary. The Act stipulated 

 that the holdings should extend from 4§ to 6f acres of average 

 land, and not below 2§ of good land or above lOf of poor land. 

 In any case the Renewal Act of 1904 extended the size of the 

 holdings to 1 6 acres, where the land was of poor quality. Even 

 now, it must be kept in view that this class of holding is still in 

 its experimental stage, and that it may be necessary to extend the 

 acreage still further before these holdings become as successful as 

 other holdings in Denmark. 



Let us take a concrete example of this class of holding. The 

 owner of the holding we refer to obtained a Government Prize 

 for his holding and may, therefore, be reckoned one of the best of 

 his class. He was a small holder before the 1899 Act was passed, 

 and his holding, which extends to 8 "7 acres of clay mould, near 

 Vejen in Jutland, is somewhat larger than the Legislature thought 

 necessary for a self-supporting holding. But it will show the 

 position which labourers' holdings occupy in Danish agriculture. 

 This small farmer was trained at a High School and Agricultural 

 School in Denmark. When he bought his farm in 1886 he was a 

 labouring man and unmarried. He paid £332 for the farm and 

 the stock. He had not money to pay the price, and he obtained 

 two loans, amounting together to £304 at 4 per cent, interest. 

 Since then he has paid back £156. His stock now consists of 

 1 horse, 3 cows, 2 young cattle, 5 pigs, and about 30 hens. The 

 rotation on his farm is : Potatoes, turnips and beet ; mixed crop 

 of grain and green peas ; rye; beet and carrots; oats; clover and 

 grass ; clover and grass. One acre is used for stall feeding and 

 garden plants. The garden, which extends to two-thirds of an 

 acre, contains about 100 orchard trees and some fruit bushes, 



