436 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



inveighs against his larger neighbour for holding up 

 the land, the contrast is really between modern 

 intensive tillage and the old unenlightened routine ; 

 amongst the intensive cultivators themselves the man 

 with fifty nearly always beats the man with ten acres 

 i.e. produces more and earns a bigger profit per 

 acre. Even with the minute and skilled operations 

 of fruit growing the large farmer possessed of organizing 

 ability is generally able to get his work done better 

 than the small man will do it for himself. Knowledge 

 and organization tell in farming as in every other 

 business, and the small grower who possesses these 

 qualities is soon utilizing them on a larger scale. 

 We never yet met a small holder who saw any virtue 

 in a small holding as such ; he regarded it only as 

 a stepping-stone to bigger things. Of course small 

 holding communities are going to be taught to 

 co-operate, instructors of various arts are being 

 planted among them with a view of increasing their 

 productive capacity ; but all these aids cost money 

 to the State as a whole if not to the small holdings 

 and the larger occupier who is being asked to give 

 up his land may well object that he at least is paying 

 his way without any such crutches. In many parts 

 of the country we found large farmers with more 

 land than they could profitably utilize, through lack 

 of skill and capital, but in these backward districts 

 the small men were equally wanting in all the arts 

 of husbandry. And when intensive culture of the 

 market garden type is not possible the occupier of 

 from twenty to sixty acres has a very hard fight 

 so hard that his sons are very generally giving it up 

 and emigrating. Small holdings are needed as 

 adjuncts to other employments the smith, the 

 postman, the wheelwright all can make use of a bit 



