Fortunes for Farmers 



matter requiring time and capital, extend his 

 holding to an economically possible size (when he 

 ceases to be a small holder) or perish. Mostly 

 he perishes, and the poor neighbourhoods can 

 tell tales of abandoned small holdings, of forlorn 

 hopes subsidized perhaps by an enthusiastic 

 landowner, maintained for a time, and then 

 vanishing. 



Bounding the Fens is the Lincoln Heath, an 

 expanse of country with only a few inches of 

 soil above the limestone. Some farmers have 

 land on both soils, and the contrast is astonishing. 

 A small holder of 50 acres on this Heath has 

 applied for an old age pension, proving by a 

 balance sheet that he cannot make ten shillings 

 a week. His rent is below ten shillings per acre, 

 while only a few miles away other small holders 

 are paying six or seven times more, and when one 

 considers the incredible rents of the Channel 

 Islanders, one is inclined to say that high rent 

 means good profit. 



Some people imagine that small holdings can 

 be established at any place ; that it is only necessary 

 to forcibly cut large farms into small ones, and 

 we shall at once have a countryside smiling with 

 independent holders — a sturdy race of yeomen 

 as of old. 



This is not so. Only on the better soil is it 



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