174 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



farmer to make the most, by cultivation, of his small plot 

 of land. He will thus be encouraged to regard his allot- 

 ment with all the pride of a small farmer. He will grow 

 fruit and vegetables which, after supplying his family's 

 need, may leave him a surplus, which he can sell, and 

 then invest the money in the village or other savings bank, 

 or in some other way. It is calculated that in England 

 there are about 350,000 small holdings of five acres in extent. 

 Of holdings below a quarter of an acre, the number is 

 about 250,000. It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 a great number of these holdings of less than a quarter 

 of an acre are held by artisans and labourers other than 

 farm labourers for the town workman likes his plot 

 of ' garden ground ' ; and of the holdings from a quarter 

 of an acre to five acres few are held by agricultural 

 labourers. But even if the whole number of a quarter 

 of a million of allotments and other holdings were held 

 by farm labourers and this, as I have shown, is assuming 

 too much there would, taking the total number of 

 labourers at a million and a half, be only one allotment 

 of a quarter of an acre to six labourers. In the matter 

 of allotments alone, therefore, there is great room for 

 extension, if the desirable and necessary system of giving 

 a plot of ground to every labourer be established. There 

 is some advantage, doubtless, in the large farm system, 

 adopted within moderate limits, and only for the purpose 

 of getting the greatest production by an extended use of 

 machinery and by economical management. It is often 

 urged that the large farmer can produce more per acre 

 than the small farmer. This arises, however, chiefly 

 from the fact that the large farmer is almost invariably 

 a man of capital, whilst the small farmer is not. Given the 

 same proportion of capital, and the same facility to the small 

 tenant as to the large one in the utilisation of machinery, 

 combined with an equal amount of energy and industry, 

 and the chances of greater productiveness per acre will be 

 found in most cases on the side of the small farmer. I 

 shall not enter, in this case, into the great land question, 

 or discuss the merits or demerits of our English system, 

 beyond remarking that some change at least in the mode 

 of transfer must be made, and is, in fact, inevitable at 

 no distant date. A change that would tend, not to cause, 

 on the one hand, the absorption of small holdings and 

 the division of our agricultural land into great farms; 

 or, on the Other hand, to cause its division into a chess- 

 board system of farms, but a change that would graduate 

 the existing system into a better and more perfect mixed 

 system of farms ; and that would bring about at the 

 same time a simple and inexpensive method of transferring 

 land, and give compensation for unexhausted improve- 

 ments would be highly desirable. An intelligent, well- 

 paid peasantry would then have afforded to their class 



