54 THE RURAL PROBLEM 



Our produce is under £4 per acre of all cultivated 

 land, grass, and arable.* Part of the 12,000,000 acres of 

 pasture is not being turned to proper account. The sheep 

 farming average is high enough, but this is not true of other 

 stock. The head of stock has not increased of late years in 

 proportion to the amount of land laid down to grass, which 

 means that land is going out of cultivation. A far higher 

 head could be carried.)" We want the big produce per acre 

 — £20, it is said,J in Belgium — which small holdings and 

 intensive culture alone can produce. The interest of the 

 country and of the landowner arc not necessarily identical in 

 this matter. The landowner prefers the largest net return, 

 and the farmer also seeks the same thing. A big grazing 

 farm, employing next to no labour and very little capital or 

 supervision, may give only £3 an acre in produce and yet 

 yield more profit to the farmer and rent to the owner than 

 arable producing crops worth £12, whose cost of production 

 in labour and capital is £10. But from a national standpoint, 

 production of £12 an acre is obviously preferable to £3. And 

 the small holder who is to make a living of 25s. or 30s. a week 

 off twenty acres must cultivate intensively and produce per 

 acre far more than the average farmer does to-day. 



This is the justification of the policy of the Small Holdings 

 and Allotments Act, 1908. But the main argument for small 

 holdings is not, after all, an economic one. There are other 

 and valid reasons why the State should deliberately set itself 

 to increase the number of small holders. 



In the first place, we want to put a stop to rural depopula- 

 tion. It may not be true, though it is often asserted, that 

 the family of a labourer in a big town dies out after three 



* The yield per acre in Germany is £5 5s. ; in France, £5 9s. ; in 

 Denmark, just under £6, and in Belgium, £20. See Land Problems. 

 By Christopher Turnor. 



f The live stock per square mile in the various centres of Europe 

 is as follows : Belgium, 180 ; Denmark, 160 ; Great Britain, 133 ; 

 England and Wales, 160 ; Scotland, 76 ; Germany, 117 ; France, 95. 

 The milk cows per square mile are : Belgium, 76 ; Denmark, 71 ; 

 Germany, 50 ; France, 36 ; Great Britain, 30. (See Mr. Rowntree's 

 Land and Labour ; Lessons from Belgium. Macmillan, 1911.) 



% On the authority of M. Vuyst, Inspector- General of Agriculture in 

 Belgium. 



