Land Problems and National Welfare 



to its best use, but actually to treat it as well 

 as did the larger farmer. The failure, or partial 

 failure, of one small holder does incalculable 

 harm to the movement, and far more than 

 effaces the good that loo successful examples 

 should produce on the public mind. 



In most continental countries where small 

 holdings have for years formed a striking feature 

 of the agricultural system, and where the culti- 

 vators have long been accustomed to the idea 

 of intensive farming, a more or less perfect 

 system of disseminating expert knowledge exists 

 — actual schools for small holders are to be 

 found. 



In England, where no tradition in respect of 

 small holdings or intensive cultivation exists, no 

 schools, and no expert knowledge are provided 

 either for the newly-created small holders, or to 

 improve the methods of the thousands of long 

 established small holders. It is to my mind 

 extraordinary that those who have been most 

 active in advocating the development of small 

 holdings have so little insisted upon the neces- 

 sity of starting simultaneously demonstration 

 centres for small cultivators, as well as a system 

 of credit banks. They seem to have thought 

 that access to the land will be all sufficient, 

 failing to recognise that access to capital is of 

 equal importance. 



In the days of private banks the cultivators 

 248 



