I 2 



Small Holdings in Surrey. 



[APRIL, 



rights, and turn out cows or young stock on the neighbouring 

 commons. They fatten the calves for market, and keep pigs 

 and poultry. At the best, however, many of them make but 

 a poor living. 



Broadly speaking, all the holders are men with knowledge 

 of the soil. They have been gardeners, nurserymen, farm 

 labourers, bailiffs, or have followed the occupation of their 

 fathers as farmers or small holders. The most skilled and 

 intellectual are those who occupy the dairy and market-garden 

 holdings. Many who lack the capital necessary to work a large 

 farm, have enough to enable them to take 30 or 40 acres, but 

 the majority have commenced life as farm labourers or have 

 been connected with the soil in other ways, and by care and 

 thrift have saved money. Some of these men have begun 

 by taking an acre or two of land, which they have worked in 

 their spare time, whilst engaged in other employments. They 

 have gradually added piece by piece to their original holding, 

 whilst giving less time to their other employments, until they 

 find themselves in occupation of 30 or 40 acres, and able to 

 support themselves and their families entirely on the land they 

 have taken. Some instances may be given : — A man living 

 on a holding in the east of Surrey, who was brought up 

 on the soil, but followed the calling of a bricklayer. He 

 hired 5 acres of grass land, keeping a cow and a few young 

 stock. Having his family to assist him, he rented another 

 few acres, until he became the occupier of 50 acres in three 

 detached pieces. It has taken him twenty or thirty years to 

 create this little farm, on one holding of which the landlord 

 has built him a small cottage and farm buildings. At the 

 present time he employs one regular hand at 20s. a week, 

 whilst he works himself as a bricklayer for nine months of the 

 year, at which he earns 355. a week. He deals mostly in stock, 

 and lives on the produce, selling the surplus. 



A second instance is that of a man who started as a farm 

 labourer, and having hired an acre or two of land, kept a few 

 sheep, using his savings to buy sheep (from which he bred). 

 He is now the owner of a breeding flock of 200 ewes, and has 

 given up his employment as a labourer. At the present time 

 he holds 30 or 40 acres of land, with a right to graze on the 

 adjoining common. 



