176 Large and Small Holdings 



No doubt, however, it is desirable for the small producers that they 

 should be able to reach the central markets, especially in cases where 

 they have no secure and profitable sale in their own neighbourhood. 

 The best way of opening up such markets to them will be considered 

 below. 



The large and medium-sized dairy-farms have another great 

 advantage in the labour-saving machinery of which they can make 

 use. Indeed it might be said that but for this it would be impossible 

 for the larger holders to compete at all with the small in this particular 

 sphere. Even so, no satisfactory machine has yet been invented for 

 the most difficult and most characteristic part of the work, namely 

 milking : and in this particular the superiority of the small holder 

 remains undiminished. But for other purposes there are very useful 

 machines which, on account of their cost, can only be applied on the 

 larger farms. The large farmer, too, is not merely in many cases the 

 only one in a position to pay the price of such machinery ; he also 

 gets it at the lowest price. For example, one of the most important 

 accessories of the modern dairy, the separator, is priced as follows 

 for its various numbers 1 : 



The owner of 30 50 cows will therefore provide himself with a 

 separator dealing with 1 1 times as much milk per hour as that bought 

 by the small holder owing only I 3 cows. But for this machine 

 with a capacity 1 1 times that of the other he will pay only five times 

 the price paid by the small man. The case is similar with the 

 Pasteurising machines 2 , the price of which is such as to be quite 

 prohibitive to the smaller holders. Here the question is as to com- 

 petition between medium and large farmers. With the cooling 

 apparatus 3 , too, the large man is at an advantage as compared with 

 the small. Churning-machines are sufficiently low in price to be at 

 the disposal of the small holder. But here again he has to pay 



1 Cp. Catalogue of Dairy Machinery Appliances, published by the Dairy Supply Co. Ltd., 

 London, 1903, pp. 9-11. 



2 Ibid., p. 75. 3 Ibid., p. 31. 



