1909.] Co-operation in Tenure of Small Holdings. 363 



on market-garden lines. Biggleswade is the centre of the 

 market-gardening district in Bedfordshire, and every man is 

 brought up to this type of cultivation. The Biggleswade 

 Small Holdings Association was registered in May, 1908, and 

 acquired a farm under the County Council at the following 

 Michaelmas. The farmhouse is let off with some of the land 

 and buildings to one applicant. The rest of the land is 

 marked out in 5-acre holdings, for which the members cast 

 lots. 



In Northamptonshire there has been a development of the 

 movement on wider lines. A central association — the Mid- 

 Northamptonshire — working under the guidance of the Agri- 

 cultural Organisation Society, has formed 27 local societies 

 in the villages within its area. Of these, 10 are either in pos- 

 session of land or negotiations are in an advanced state for 

 supplying them. This method seems to be nearest the ideal 

 to be aimed at of local knowledge combined with central 

 control. 



The above instances will perhaps be sufficient to show the 

 lines on which the A. O. S. is working, but I should like 

 before closing my paper to recall briefly how the policy they 

 advocate will go far towards removing some of the difficulties 

 which even the most hopeful advocates of small holdings must 

 be prepared to encounter. 



The chief fear in the minds of those responsible, both for 

 the rates and for putting the Act in force, is the possibility 

 of the land acquired being given up after a few years and 

 thrown on to the Council's hands; this may either be due to 

 the defaulting of an unsatisfactory tenant or to the tem- 

 porary financial difficulties experienced by a small holder 

 after a run of bad seasons. In either case the work is very 

 greatly lessened should the man be a member of a co-opera- 

 tive society. The society as a whole being responsible for the 

 rent, and also for the standard of cultivation covenanted for 

 in the lease, will in the first instance have subjected their 

 members to a far more vigorous and yet fairer process of 

 selection than is possible for a small-holdings sub-committee 

 without intimate local knowledge. 



It will be more likely, therefore, that unsuitable applicants 

 are weeded out in the first instance. In the second place, 



