i io Large and Small Holdings 



disappeared from the Isle, and altogether from the small farms and 

 allotments devoted to vegetable-growing 1 . Small farming, therefore, 

 in the Isle of Axholme proved entirely successful so far as it was 

 concerned with live-stock and vegetable-growing, but failed as badly 

 as large farming, or perhaps more so, in regard of corn-production. 



The same was true of other districts. Where small farmers de- 

 pended on their corn-crops they suffered severely from the crisis. 

 Cases of this kind were naturally most common in the eastern 

 counties. Thus the small farmers of Bedfordshire were reported to 

 be doing very badly; and their holdings were chiefly arable 2 . So, 

 too, a gloomy picture was painted of the condition of Norfolk 

 farmers holding from 50 to 100 acres 3 ; and again the class con- 

 cerned seems to have been mainly occupied in corn-growing. For 

 Norfolk was preponderantly an arable county, even the smallest hold- 

 ings, of i to 5 and 5 to 20 acres, being under the plough 4 . The case was 

 the same in Suffolk, where pasture and vegetable-growing were very 

 slow to develop 5 . In fact, wherever distress among the smaller land- 

 holders is reported it turns out that specifically arable districts are 

 concerned : and in such districts the small holders undoubtedly 

 suffered more than the large 6 . 



Where stock-feeding and market-gardening or the like were the 

 chief business, matters were quite otherwise. It is a recognised fact, 

 and appears on the face of the Report of the Commission of 1894, that 

 agricultural distress was much less in the pasture districts than in the 

 arable districts. Now the statistics quoted above show that it was 

 in the pasture districts of the west and north-west that most of the 

 small and medium-sized holdings of the country were situated, while 

 large farms were much less common there than in the eastern counties. 

 Therefore it is clear at once that so far as stock-farming, and especially 

 pasture-farming, is concerned, the depression was much less felt on 

 small farms than on large. This general proposition may be supple- 

 mented by various individual examples. Thus small farmers in 

 Devonshire, who only grew so much corn as would enable them to 

 buy their seed again out of the profits, are reported to have suffered 



1 Rider Haggard, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 196: " In the district (Epworth) there was nothing 

 that approached to distress." 



2 Report of 1894, qu. 35,652. 



3 Report of 1881, qu. 51,874 ff. ; 52,132 ff. ; and 51,935 f. 



4 See the tables in Appendix II below. 



5 Channing, op. cit. pp. 7, 289. 



6 Bear, in Journal R. A. S., 1891, pp. 269 ff. Such districts were North Yorkshire, 

 Durham, Lincolnshire, East Suffolk and Norfolk. 



