SUCCESSFUL SMALL FARMING 289 



have done fairly well since, not only because they had 

 saved money, but because they have not lost the 

 economical habits of their youth." 



Some striking instances of successful small farming 

 are given in Mr Wilson Fox's Lancashire Report. 



One man farming 63 acres has done well throughout 

 the depression near good markets by high farming, and 

 by judicious application of capital to altered methods. 

 " It is better to have a small farm, and farm it very well, 

 than a big one and farm it indifferently." 



In the districts of special farming, such as the fruit 

 districts of Worcestershire and Cambridgeshire and the 

 cheese-making districts of Leicestershire, small holdings 

 have a natural function which seems to be ordinarily 

 discharged with success, even in bad times. 



In counties like Suffolk, where there is little good 

 pasture land or land suited for market gardening, small 

 farms and freehold farmers are rare. Most of them 

 have suffered severely and been squeezed out from want 

 of capital, while their land and buildings are in bad 

 condition. The necessity for an excessive number of 

 hours at labour from want of capital to hire labour tells 

 heavily on the older men. Men of exceptional energy 

 and capacity, if the soil is good, and the rent low, can 

 make small farms pay, if they work harder than a 

 labourer. The few who do at all well, are combining 

 some other trade with their small farms. 



In the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, the 

 easily worked and fertile soil is more favourable, and 

 the results not unsatisfactory, save where the enormous 

 weight of mortgages or excessive rents have swept away 

 the chances of profit. 



Thus, in the Chatteris neighbourhood of Cambridge- 

 shire, numbers of small holders have been able to pay 

 rents of over £2 an acre, besides heavy drainage and 

 other rates, and have made a good thing out of hold- 

 ings of 4 to 50 acres, growing potatoes and early carrots, 

 besides other produce. The rents have been nearly 

 double those of adjoining large farms, but till the last 

 year or two the rents do not seem to have oppressed 



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