CHAPTER VII 



Small Holdings 



A German agriculturist of note a few years ago related 

 in succession both in the Times and in the Mornhig Post 

 the impressions which he had gathered on a journey of 

 inquiry undertaken through our country to ascertain the 

 condition of our Agriculture. His verdict bore a humorous 

 resemblance to that famous chapter in the book about 

 Ireland, headed " Snakes in Ireland," for it practically said, 

 ' ' There is no ' Agriculture ' — no cultivation of the ager, 

 what Suetonious calls agrorum cultivaUo — in England." 

 All that he had seen was prata — pasture. 



That picture was of course overdrawn. But there was 

 not a little truth in it. 



A far more striking difference between our Agriculture, 

 and our rural life generally, and those of the Continent — 

 by no means Germany alone — is this, that on our fruitful 

 plains human population practically there is none, whereas 

 on the Continent — be it in smiling France, or in busy 

 Germany, or in sunlit Italy, in bustling Belgium, or in 

 mountainous Switzerland — corresponding plains everjrwhere 

 teem with humankind. Village there stands by village, 

 cottage by cottage, and multitudes of peasantry greet you 

 with laughing eyes and cheerful countenances, the tokens 

 of contentment and well-to-do-ness. 



The contrast is certainly impressive. There are patches 

 of sparseness abroad, of course, just as there are oases of 

 denser population among ourselves — strips by the sunny 

 sea-coast, districts of fruit growing, girdles of market gardens 

 encircling favoured places, little bits of stirring peasant 



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