1 8 Large and Small Holdings 



purchasing-power of the working-classes decreased. So that even 

 where any small farmer had grain to sell he would find that the loss 

 on his staple produce more than balanced the larger profit he made 

 on his little quantity of corn. 



In consequence, many even of the smallest holders attempted to 

 extend their corn-production at the expense of their other, now less 

 profitable, business. But such attempts could not save the small 

 farm system. All they could do was to prove how little fitted the 

 small holder was to compete with the large farmer in this sphere. 



On the other hand many small holders were not in a position 

 even to attempt to give up pasture-farming in favour of arable. 

 More especially was it impossible for the cottier class, to whom 

 their own holding was only a by-occupation, who returned from their 

 day-labour late in the evening, and who therefore were quite unable 

 to give the work required by plough-land. All they could do, and all 

 they ever had done, on their little holdings, was to keep a cow or two, 

 and some pigs and poultry, and for these their wives were mostly 

 responsible 1 . Nor was the transition to arable much easier for those 

 little farmers who still held their land on the old common-field system. 

 This, however, still ruled on a great part of the area under cultivation. 

 Where the holdings had not been consolidated, on the so-called open 

 fields, the traditional intermixture of strips, customary regulation 

 of tillage and common rights of pasture were still in use. Naturally 

 they hindered any improvement in the methods of agriculture, so that 

 the unenclosed fields represented the worst of bad husbandry 2 . Nor 

 were they of any particular importance to the small holders, who 

 were much more interested in the common pastures, where they drove 

 their cattle, sheep and pigs. It was no one's business to improve the 

 common fields, and the methods of cultivation remained the same 

 year in and year out 3 . Of these the old three-field system was most 

 usual, viz. a course of winter-corn, summer-corn, and fallow, with 

 sometimes the substitution of a crop of beans in place of the fallow. 

 Where this substitution was not made, the traditional common rights 

 of pasture made the unenclosed fields useless to their owner every 



1 John Billingsley, A General View of the Agriculture of Somersetshire, Bath, 1798, 

 p. 34: "The wife undertakes the whole management of the cows, and the husband goes 

 to daily labour." 



2 Cp. Kent, op. cit. p. 102 ; A. Young, A General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk, 

 1804, p. 9 ; W. Pearce, A General View of the Agriculture of Berkshire, 1794, p. 59 ; and 

 Stone, Suggestions, pp. 11-21. 



8 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 329. 



