1908.] Small Holdings in Herefordshire. 329 



profits to provide, and the dweller in town is often willing to 

 pay a little more for supplies direct from the country if he can 

 depend upon their quality and absolute freshness. 



Small Grass Holdings. — The most numerously represented 

 class of small holding is that consisting entirely, or almost 

 entirely, of grass land. These grass holdings are generally from 

 5 to 15 acres. They are occupied, as a rule, by a superior and 

 thrifty class of farm labourers, either farmers' sons who lack 

 the necessary capital to enter upon a larger farm or the better 

 and more skilful labourers, who have saved sufficient to stock 

 a holding of this kind. The men are engaged on the neighbour- 

 ing farms, usually as regular labourers, and it is generally 

 acknowledged that they make the best and most trustworthy 

 hands. Their holdings are stocked with a cow or two, a few 

 head of young stock, sheep and poultry. The work, apart 

 from what the husband can accomplish in his spare time, is 

 done by the wife ; it consists chiefly in the management of the 

 little dairy and the poultry stock, and the marketing of the 

 produce. A large number of poultry is usually kept, and eggs 

 have been remarkably cheap in the past, 20 for is. being 

 quite a common price during the plentiful season of the year. 

 During the last two years, however, better prices have been 

 realised, owing to more buyers collecting them to send away 

 and to the great extension of the practice of preserving eggs 

 when they are fairly cheap, for use in the winter. 



Small Mixed Holdings. — Small mixed holdings with a fair 

 proportion of both arable and grass land, are found in many 

 districts, managed, as regards cropping and stock, in much 

 the same way as the larger farms. The occupiers, however, 

 even of those consisting of only a few acres, are precluded from 

 taking regular employment elsewhere by the amount of work 

 required on their own arable land, and the occasions when 

 extra labour is most in demand on the neighbouring farms are 

 just those when their own crops require attention most urgently. 

 Only a very small amount of arable land can be managed 

 satisfactorily by a man following other employment. Some 

 of these small occupiers undertake special work, such as 

 hedging, butchering, &c, in the winter, or sheep-shearing in 

 the spring, and apparently do well. On holdings of 40 acres 

 or more, the tenant is often seriously handicapped in regard to 



