22 Large and Small Holdings 



"on the prospect of much additional corn to be grown 1 ." But such 

 methods were oppressive. The large /arm ers could bear a rise of 

 a .third in their rents better than the small farmers could bear 

 a sixth. Comber attempts to find a solution of the difficulty by 

 suggesting that, if the small farms were not to be entirely abolished, 

 they must be somewhat enlarged at the expense of the very large 

 holdings : or else their rents must be only in proportion to their 

 profits. More particularly ought this to be so where the small 

 holders had no opportunity of increasing their corn-production 2 . In 

 fact there was no other solution. The landlord, in face of the com- 

 plaints of his smaller tenants, had only the choice between letting his 

 land in large holdings and renouncing the possible increase in his 

 rents 3 . It is not surprising that he generally chose the first alterna- 

 tive. For the higher the price of corn rose, the louder were the 

 murmurs of the small men and the greater the well-being of the 

 large holders 4 . But the method of enlargement was not that sug- 

 gested by Comber. On the contrary, what happened was that the 

 holdings of the little men were thrown into those of their larger 

 rieighbours7~wRo thereupon ^mrrrp^'puT'uhder the plough the land 

 which the small holder had hitherto used as pasture 5 . The imme- 

 diate result invariably was that the landlord could without difficulty 

 raise the rent. This was the meaning of what was known as " the 

 engrossing of farms 6 ." The grand motive and object of the pro- 



1 Comber, op. cit. p. 9. 2 Op. cit. p. 5. 



3 Even Arthur Young says (Annals, Vol. xxm, p. 435) : " The poor farmers of 

 former times were unable to pay the new rents ; the rise was, without doubt, exorbitant to 

 them." 



4 Vancouver (op. cit. p. toi) says of the small holders of Devonshire: "Though 

 sparing and frugal in all their domestic affairs (they) are but seldom... considered to be in 

 any way improving that very small capital with which they began the world." See also 

 G. B. Worgan, A General View of the Agriculture of Cornwall^ 1811, p. 31 : "While 

 the large farmers are getting rich, the little farmer finds it difficult to pay his rent, rates and 

 taxes, and maintain his family." 



5 Peters, The Rational Farmer, pp. 132-3, says of the large farmers who took over the 

 land of the ruined small holders, that they " obtained liberty to break up what had not been 

 touched with the plough in the memory of man." 



6 E.g. the Earl of Selkirk, Observations on the Present State of the Highlands of 

 Scotland, Edinburgh, 2nd ed. 1806, p. 37: "The occupier of a minute portion of land, 

 who, without any other source of profit, can raise little more produce than enough for his 

 own consumption, has no means of paying an adequate rent.... When they are thrown 

 together, the farmer is enabled... from the same land, without any addition to its fertility, 

 to afford a better rent to the landlord. This the Highland proprietors have already begun to 

 experience : and a tendency to the engrossing of farms is very observable in the agricultural 

 districts, as well as in those employed in pasturage." Cp. also the example given by Home, 

 op. cit. p. 267. 



