SMALL HOLDINGS 25 



condition ; farms of any quality were bespoken before 

 the impending change of tenancy became public. 

 With this general prosperity of agriculture in the 

 district, a district, too, where small farms have always 

 been common, there had naturally been a considerable 

 demand for small holdings under the Act. In this 

 connection we were struck, as we have also been in 

 other parts of the country, by the loyal way in which 

 the Small Holdings Act had been carried out by 

 County Councils, composed to a large extent of men 

 who disagree with its principles. Our host, for 

 example, disbelieved in small holdings and regarded 

 their artificial creation as an economic blunder on a 

 par with an attempt, say, to resuscitate hand-loom 

 weaving in Lancashire, but as a member of the Small 

 Holdings Committee he had personally seen to the 

 division of a farm taken for the purpose, and schemed 

 out such a cheap rearrangement and addition to the 

 buildings already on the place as would save the 

 tenants a good many shillings per acre of rent. 

 When farms have to be surveyed, plans drawn, and 

 buildings erected by officials, the cost of the holding 

 is very rapidly augmented, and some of the rents 

 which we heard of in various parts of the country, 

 though the necessary rent on the outlay incurred by 

 the County Council, give even an old hand at the game 

 of working a small holding very little chance of paying 

 his way. In some districts also small holders have 

 been set too thickly in one place, so that they must 

 swamp the strictly local demand for vegetables, eggs, 

 and similar produce, out of which the little farmer can 

 generally make a good retail trade. Of course the 

 supporters of the movement look to see each small- 

 holding community become co-operative, pooling the 

 produce of its members, and selling it in bulk ; but 



