Home Colonisation 219 



to produce for the trade, and to provide such articles as suit the wholesale 

 dealers. Regular transmission of goods of a standard quality is, as has been 

 seen above, essential. In the case of eggs, for instance, there are five or six 

 recognised qualities, from the new-laid egg and the fresh egg to the cooking 

 egg of the second or third degree. The goods must further be carefully 

 packed in sawdust in specially prepared boxes. But these important points' 

 of grading and packing have more in common with the work to which a 

 factory hand is accustomed than with that of the farmer or countryman of the 

 old style. And the same is true in the matter of the sale of fruit. 



The business man, again, will find himself more at home in, say, 

 negotiating the sale of the produce of a market-garden than will the old- 

 fashioned agriculturist. The best profit on fruit and vegetables is to be 

 obtained not by selling to the local dealer, but from some wholesale trader in 

 a large town. A business connection with such a man has to be worked up. 

 Mr Pratt says 2 that some vegetable-growers get 7.5-. to 8.r. for their broccoli 

 crates where others, less careful or capable in their choice of dealers, are 

 beaten down as low as is. The first are, as Mr Pratt points out, "better 

 business men." In this connection may be noticed the telephone question, 

 which was discussed by an expert before the Committee of 1906. "A man 

 who is producing goods of a perishable character, which might be perishing at 

 the time he was about to telephone, would have exact information as to 

 prices, and as to how the market stood, so that he could dispose of his 

 produce instantly, whereas without the telephone he might have to wait so 

 long that his goods would have perished altogether 3 ." Here again it is 

 evident that purely business qualities are of the first importance to the small 

 holder under modern conditions. He must know the market, have good 

 connections, and be quick to take advantage of favourable turns of price. 

 Such demands, so far as small holders are concerned, are of quite modern 

 origin. 



Again, not only upon the market-gardener, but also upon the small 

 farmer proper, certain demands are made which involve more than a purely 

 agricultural training. In the case of a dairy-farm, for instance, the English 

 public, or at least its upper classes, demands milk which shall be pure and 

 clean ; and the dealer has to assure himself that the dairy from which he 

 obtains it is in a properly sanitary condition. To glance at some of the 

 technical publications on the subject 4 is to realise that the old-fashioned dairy 

 has to evolve into something much more nearly resembling an industrial 

 workshop. The proper cleansing of the cow-sheds, the sterilisation of pails 

 and cans, the use of cooling-machines and modern methods of filtering, all 

 demand something altogether different from the old-fashioned hand-labour 



1 Cp. Leaflet No. i of the National Poultry Organisation Society, p. i. 



2 Pratt, op. cit. p. 122. 3 Small Holdings Report, 1906, Minutes^ qu. 5620. 

 4 See Market Day Lectures, 1905-6, pp. 33 ff. 



