Land Problems and National Welfare 



past. To do this need in no way curtail to 

 them the pleasure of their connection with the 

 land, but rather will increase the practical 

 interest of it, and will encourage that affection 

 which is rightly felt by the owner of an 

 ancient estate ; for nothing is more destructive 

 of the sentiment which a man should have for 

 his property than the pressure of hopeless 

 poverty. 



It will be necessary, then, in the first place, 

 for the rising generation of landowners to be 

 learned in the details of estate management, 

 just as the commercial man must know the 

 details of his business. A few landowners send 

 their eldest sons to Cirencester, Wye, or to the 

 agricultural course at Cambridge. This is good, 

 but the instruction does not go far enough. 

 A young Dane, for instance, goes through a much 

 longer course of preparation, often including 

 the practical management of a farm as under 

 bailiff and finally as head bailiff, the whole 

 training frequently extending to seven years. 



In the second place it will be found expedient 

 to reduce the size of many estates: one man can 

 manage more land than another, but a large pro- 

 portion of the land of England is held in estates 

 too large for any one owner to handle efficiently. 

 I call an estate efficiently managed when it is 

 paying the owner a fair interest on the capital 

 it represents, in other words, on its selling value. 



