172 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



easy to frame a water-tight definition of the term. Strictly 

 speaking, a farmer is a person who pays rent as an occupier 

 of agricultural land a definition which would include the 

 small holder and exclude the yeoman. Parenthetically, it 

 may be observed that the term " yeoman-farmer," which 

 has come into common use in recent years, is either tauto- 

 logical or contradictory. A yeoman is a man occupying 

 a farm which is his own property, who is neither an owner 

 nor an occupier of other farms. But even the renting and 

 occupation of agricultural land does not necessarily make a 

 member of the farming class, for in this country thousands 

 of farms are occupied by persons as subsidiary to their 

 primary occupation. This indeed introduces an element of 

 complication into British Agriculture, the significance of 

 which is not fully recognised. The desire by successful 

 commercial men to become landed proprietors and the 

 replacement of the old families by these immigrants con- 

 stitute a movement which has gone on continuously since 

 the sixteenth century. Apart from sentiment and a natural 

 sympathy with those who have been compelled by hard 

 fortune to leave their ancestral homes, the movement has 

 been beneficial to the progress of Agriculture. It has 

 brought an enormous amount of outside capital into the 

 development and equipment of the land, and it has been 

 in the long run advantageous to the occupiers of land on the 

 estates which have thus changed hands. The demand for 

 farms by those who wish to occupy them for pleasure or 

 recreation or as a subsidiary source of income affects very 

 seriously the position of tenant-farmers dependent solely 

 on the occupation of land for their livelihood. Competition 

 of this nature for farms will increase, and it forms an 

 important factor not only in fixing rents and terms of 

 tenancy, but also in determining the average standard of 

 profit on a given area of land. 



For practical purposes a strict definition of farmers is not 

 necessary. As the schoolboy said of the elephant, he could 

 not describe it but he knew one when he saw it. The typical 

 farmer usually comes of farming stock, and derives not only 

 his income but all his interests in life from the land. As a 



