96 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



often tempted to buy his farm; and, in the 

 present state of insecurity of landed estates, he 

 is usually able to do that without trouble. But 

 it is after buying that his troubles begin. He has 

 exhausted his capital to buy. He has no land- 

 lord now to back him. He has to be mean to 

 his land, and that spells disaster in England, 

 where under Free Trade conditions only the 

 most skilful farming, with the most generous 

 expenditure of capital, can make farming pay. 

 The wise tenant farmer, under a good landlord, 

 never wants to buy his farm. Sometimes, 

 though, he is forced to, because the landlord 

 becomes unable or unwilling to carry on the 

 burden of unprofitable landowning, in face of 

 demagogue attacks. Then, as an independent 

 small-holder, he finds a painful difference, even 

 if he is a skilful farmer." 



So much in the way of evidence and criticism 

 of other people's proposals. To state my own 

 general conclusions on this point of small 

 holdings : — 



1. Except for garden culture, small hold- 

 ings are not economically the best for 

 English farming. Generally speaking, farms 



