The Farmer 



can either properly capitaHze or manage. This 

 tendency must also be put down to the influence 

 of that period of depression when landowners 

 were forced to lower the amount of capital 

 required per acre ; with improving agricultural 

 conditions landowners will doubtless be able 

 to remedy this. But nothing can be worse for 

 the land, the landlord, or the farmer himself 

 than an under-capitalized farm. 



Before ending this chapter I must deal with 

 the question of land purchase. The tenants on 

 the majority of large properties are undoubtedly 

 content to remain as they are ; but the case is 

 different on many of the small estates of under 

 4,000 acres, which are not paying concerns, and 

 which must in consequence disappear, or at all 

 events must become the property either of men 

 who can make them pay or of men to whom 

 it is immaterial whether they pay or not. 

 In these cases it would certainly be better for 

 the tenants themselves not only to have the 

 opportunity, but to be afforded facilities for 

 purchasing their farms, when the estate comes 

 into the market. 



And even in the case of large rural estates — 

 say those over 10,000 acres — the proprietors who 

 depend entirely on the land for their livelihood 

 are finding more and more that they are far 

 richer in capital than in income — in other words 

 that their capital is not well placed, and that it 



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