64 Large and Small Holdings 



considered backward in an agricultural sense 1 . An experiment made 

 by Sir Francis Baring on his estate in Hampshire shows how little 

 capacity for survival was manifested by the small farm system at this 

 time of flourishing corn-farming 2 . In 1849 he created fifteen small 

 arable holdings on this estate, letting them on terms very favourable 

 to the tenants. But they did not prosper, and by 1879 the fifteen 

 were reduced to eleven. The four farms which had thus fallen in 

 were thrown into other holdings ; and the consequence of this 

 "engrossing" was that the larger farms, by the use of oil-cake and 

 artificial cattle-foods, produced more corn and at the same time more 

 beef and mutton than the remaining small farms. The steam-plough 

 made its appearance. And that these improvements gave the farmers 

 a larger net profit was evident from the fact that they continued to 

 prosper, whereas the small holders had not been able to maintain 

 their position. 



On the other hand it had to be admitted that small holdings had 

 the advantage over large where the question was not one of corn- 

 growing and meat-producing, but of dairying, poultry-farming, fruit 

 and vegetable growing, and the like. It was even claimed that these 

 branches of agriculture were pursued almost exclusively on small 

 holdings, and Tremenhere stated in an official report that the supply 

 of such articles as butter, milk, eggs, etc. would practically cease if 

 the small farms were to disappear 3 . But the production of these 

 commodities played so unimportant a part in agricultural production 

 generally that the farms devoted to them appeared to be a negligible 

 quantity. Corn-growing and stock-feeding occupied the chief place. 

 The development of other branches of production might seem desirable 

 in the interests of the consumer, but they were insignificant from the 

 producer's point of view. Small farming, which undertook these other 

 branches and prospered by their means, seemed to be the exception 

 to the rule, or an isolated deviation from the law that in agriculture 

 production on the large scale alone was economically profitable. The 



1 For Durham see Journal R. A. S., Vol. XVII (1856), p. 98 ; and for Berkshire, Ibid., 

 Vol. xxi, 1860, p. 8. 



2 Th. Stirton, Small Holdings, in Journal R. A. S., 1894, pp. 90-92. 



a Second Report on the Employment of Women and Children, 1868, p. 144 : "There are 

 perhaps a few advantages attending small farms which should not be entirely overlooked. 

 More attention is bestowed on the production of butter, eggs, poultry, honey, and other 

 useful commodities, which a large farmer usually deems beneath his notice, and which if the 

 whole area of the country was thrown into large farms would scarcely be produced at all, or 

 if produced would be solely for the consumption of the occupier and his family." Cp. also 

 on the success of milk-production on allotment-holdings, Trash's article in the County 

 Gentl email's Magazine, Vol. VI (1871), p. 17. 



