SMALL AND LARGE HOLDINGS 128 



The great difficulty is that most of the opponents of 

 small holdings are men definitely interested in large 

 farming, who fear that an increase of small holdings will 

 cause inconvenience to the large farmers (which will 

 be the case sometimes) ; or they have had striking proof 

 of the bad condition and handling of certain small 

 holdings they know intiniately, and they generalize from 

 this experience. In some strange way they pass over 

 the fact that they know of equally bad management of, 

 and of bad results from, large farms. There are 

 numberless farms of 300 and 400 acres managed as 

 badly as can be ; yet one does not hear it generally 

 said that, in consequence, there should be no farms 

 of this size, or that they are uneconomic ! 



Unfortunately most of the members of the County 

 Council Small Holdings Committees belong to the type 

 just described. Further, as a rule they are men without 

 great vision ; they do not realize how unfavourable to 

 smallholders are the present conditions, nor the revolution 

 that the creation of good conditions would bring about. 



We are indeed in an unfortunate position — our urban 

 visionaries are without practical knowledge, and our 

 practical men are possessed of little vision ! 



As a rough basis for comparison reference may again 

 be made to the statement that the average grass produc- 

 tion per acre in the United Kingdom was ^4 sterling 

 before the war. Taking an example of the most intensive 

 cultivation, land under the French method of market 

 gardening produces over £s'^^ worth of vegetables per 

 acre per annum, giving quite a fair margin of profit — 

 ^80 to jC^°o ^ year. Under ordinary English market 

 gardening the turnover would be about /[lOO a year. 

 In the case of cultivation under glass a yield of /iiooo 

 a year gross per acre has been obtained in dillerenl 



