ISO GENERAL IMPRESSIONS IN 1910 



small holder had been thoroughly tested, and was 

 holding his own even under disadvantageous conditions. 

 Putting aside the inevitable proportion of failures due 

 to deficiencies of character and business capacity, all 

 small holders are likely to suffer again when the next 

 turn of bad times comes round, unless by that time 

 some method of giving them co-operative credit has 

 become firmly established. 



As a feature in the prosperity of the modern farmer 

 we have put his adaptability to his conditions. In 

 the main, the men who could not alter their system 

 to meet the low prices prevailing only a few years 

 ago have been shaken out of the industry, and the 

 most capable have survived to take advantage of the 

 recent rise in prices. But though the best of these 

 men still maintain the supremacy of British farming 

 over that of any other country, nothing is more 

 striking than the contrast between them and some 

 of their neighbours. In every district we visited we 

 found good and bad farmers close together, men who 

 are earning good incomes on one side of the hedge, 

 and on the other men who are always in difficulties, 

 who in many cases are only kept going through the 

 tolerance of their landlords. Sometimes a man always 

 manages to scrape his rent together, but he lives 

 miserably, his farm is an eyesore and a source of 

 weeds and infection to his neighbours. As a rule 

 these backward men are not unacquainted with the art 

 of farming ; they know how it should be done, and 

 can be very critical of other people's management, 

 especially of a college or county council farm near 

 them. What they lack is determination, the ability 

 to organize their labour and to manage their business ; 

 they are not ignorant but slipshod. We suppose it 

 is the same in all businesses, the good and the bad 



