Large and Small Holdings. 
7 
Several causes may be assigned for this survival of the 
smaller craft when many larger vessels have foundered in the 
stormy sea of agricultural depression. The small farmer's 
special produce has not been long severely depreciated. As 
c ompared with corn, store-cattle and dairy products have kept 
up lairlv well in value until the last two years, and even now 
poultry and eggs are not very much lower than usual.* The old 
saying that " pigs are all gold or copper " has been verified ot 
late, for young pigs ofiF the sow have sold as low as 7s., and as 
high as 155., within a very short period. Even now store-pigs 
are very dear, and pork, when compared with beef and mutton, 
is certainly not cheap. Vegetables and fruit have been fearful 
drugs during the past twelve months, but the small farmer in 
retailing them to his usual customers in the villages and country 
towns has not greatly reduced his prices. With his varied 
produce, he has not felt the pressure of disastrous seasons so 
keenly. If his corn were not of the best quality, he had the 
opportunity of turning it to a fairly profitable account through 
his pigs and poultry. There has been no room for curtailing 
liis extravagances, for the best of all reasons, that he never had 
any ; and he could not very well be more industrious, for he 
has always worked hard from " morn till dewy eve." He has 
had the chance of getting his extra labour more cheaply, but, on 
the other hand, his opportunity of securing a few odd jobs for 
himself and horses, to fill up their spare time, lys been less 
frequent, and he has not been so well paid. If he has any other 
trade or calling, he has made the shop help the farm, and the 
lact that almost all his produce goes straight to the consumer 
without the intervention of the middle-man, has enabled him 
to secure that wide margin of profit, which usually exists between 
wholesale and retail prices, and which is proportionably wider 
when commodities are cheap than when they are dear. 
These general advantages, which have enabled the small 
farmer to hold his own in counties where pasture-land pre- 
dominates, have not been fully realized in those districts which 
are mainly arable. Wherever farmers, and more especially small 
cultivators, have relied upon their cereals for profit, they must 
have been more or less disappointed during the last ten years. 
The waning prosperity of the small farmers in Norfolk was 
demonstrated to the County Chamber of Agriculture last year by 
the following figures. The speaker said : — 
* Since the above was written the wholesale price of eggs has fallen to one 
shilling a score ; Norfolk turkeys have been retailed in London at 8(Z. per lb. ; and 
the farmers of tlie Midlands can now only net 5d. per (gallon for their summer's 
milk.— C. S. E. 
