CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 297 



The Small Farms Company have found their tenants 

 prosper, and a vacant holding has applicants instantly 

 after it. 



Sir Massey Lopes has many small holdings on his 

 estate in Devon. There are advantages in grazing 

 rights on Dartmoor. Those who are helped by their 

 families and do not hire labour have done fairly well. 

 He encourages small pasture holdings in the villages for 

 the local provision of milk and butter. The yeoman 

 farmers are generally disappearing, and one great 

 difficulty of the small tenants is the wish of their sons 

 to get off to the towns. 



Wherever there is a possible profit in working small 

 farms, as in many of the grazing counties and in Wales, 

 there has been a tendency to divide large farms, and 

 this economic movement it would seem of benefit to the 

 country to encourage as far as possible. 



What, then, are the essential conditions for success ? 

 First, that the land should be either bought or hired at 

 such a price that leaves some room for profitable work- 

 ing ; second, that the land should be productive and 

 exceptionally easily worked ; third, that there should be 

 a quick and easy access to a good market, and that 

 railway rates should not eat up all possible margin of 

 profit. It is also — at any rate in the present stage of 

 development — desirable to have work available for small 

 farmers on large farms in the neighbourhood, or oppor- 

 tunities for supplementing income by carting, etc. 



The persistence of the feeling of jealous criticism of 

 the small holder cannot but be regretted. That criticism 

 is economically unsound, for where the conditions are 

 suitable, it is better for all concerned that a considerable 

 proportion of farms should be small, more produce is 

 got, and more human well-being accomplished. 



It does not follow because men were tempted to start 

 with insufficient, or with borrowed capital, at a moment 

 when prices and ■'"ilues were steadily moving upward, 

 and thus the bac'. wave has hit them with exceptional 

 severity, where they were heavily mortgaged, that free- 

 hold farming is to be rejected. On the contrary, there 



