178 Large and Small Holdings 



in Devonshire about 13 per cow. The large farmer also has the 

 calves : and the remainder of the profit goes to the sub-tenant. 



(3) Pig-keeping. The next two branches of stock-farming to 

 come under consideration are pig-keeping and poultry-keeping. Both 

 are among those branches of agriculture which at the time of the high 

 corn-prices were regarded as "trifles," and which nevertheless are 

 playing a part of increasing importance at the present day. In the 

 case of pig-keeping the small holder has many advantages as com- 

 pared with the large. In the first place, the household waste, with 

 some of the garden produce, is usually sufficient to feed a few pigs, in 

 addition to what they can pick up in the fields or elsewhere. The 

 large farmer, keeping a large number of pigs, finds his household 

 refuse go less far among them : so that as a rule his pigs cost more to 

 keep than the small holder's. As Professor A. W. Shaw puts it, " pig- 

 keeping to the small farmer is the portion of his business which, con- 

 sidering the return, monopolises the least capital 1 ." Another point in 

 favour of the small pig-keeper is, once again, the peculiar intensiveness 

 of the labour of the small agriculturist. As Mr Burn has pointed out 

 in his instructive book, cleanliness in the keeping of the animals is of 

 primary importance if pig-keeping is to be profitable. The reason 

 for the complaints of its unprofitableness so often heard is precisely 

 that this fundamental condition is not fulfilled 2 . The large farmer 

 would need to pay more for this purpose than is worth his while in 

 view of the relatively low price he obtains for the beasts : and indeed 

 under modern conditions he would find it difficult to get labourers to 

 undertake this " dirty work " with the necessary care. The small 

 holder with his personal labour and personal interest has here again 

 a decisive advantage. 



(4) Poultry-keeping. Poultry-keeping like dairy-farming, only in 

 a greater degree, is a branch of agriculture which makes more demands 

 on the farmer's wife than on himself 3 . The first question in regard of 

 it therefore is whether the wife of the occupier is prepared to take 

 part in the work of the farm, not merely with her head, but with her 

 hands. The wife of the large farmer (the "fine lady" of an eighteenth 

 century brochure) will only undertake the care of poultry so far as they 

 are destined for home consumption. She does not keep them for 

 market. But the personal care of the owner (or in this case of his 

 wife) is an indispensable condition of a flourishing poultry-yard. The 



1 Long, op. cit. p. 90. 2 Burn, op. cit. p. 358. 



* Ibid., p. 249. 



