68 SETTLEMENT ON THE LAND 



small holder supplies them with their materials, and 

 some persons are convinced that small holders cannot 

 succeed at all without the proximity of such trades. 

 As for the size of the colonies, 1,000 acres was decided 

 upon as the minimum for a fruit and market garden 

 colony, and 2,000 acres for a dairy colony or a mixed 

 farm colony. 



IV 



SMALL-HOLDING PRODUCE 



Fruit and market-garden crops are the simplest for 

 those who have everything to learn. There are many 

 holdings of five acres growing those crops on which a 

 good living is already earned. Indeed, if a man farms 

 intensively he cannot manage alone more than three 

 acres. No doubt there is a limit to the profitable 

 production of fruit and vegetables. Some say that 

 certain market-garden crops are already being over- 

 produced. But this is only another way of saying 

 that the methods of distribution are very bad. In 

 years when we hear that the fruit does not pay to 

 pick there are milHons of persons in towns who never 

 have a chance of tasting it. The very word '* glut " 

 is a humiliation and a confession of failure. The limit 

 of profitable production has certainly not been ap- 

 proached yet. 



In many parts of the country small grass holdings 

 are very successful. Milk being rapidly perishable is 

 self-protected from foreign competition. Further, 

 there is notoriously no over-production, but rather a 

 shortage of milk. This type of holding could there- 



