Large and Small Holdings. 
9 
-own spare time, and that of their horses, in carting or helping 
their neighbours. There are thousands of small farmers who 
!keep no horse. My own experience is, that the large tenant 
f requently ploughs the land lor his poorer neighbour, charging 
him only a nominal sum for the use of his horses. But of 
course the big farmer cannot attend to other people's wants 
until his own are all supplied ; therefore the small farmer's 
land is often ploughed in wet weather, and his crops sown out 
of season. 
The great demand for small plots of land does not come 
from labourers, or from real farmers, but from all sorts of 
village traders, and, in a few instances, from dwellers in towns, 
who have saved money, and who desire to end their days in the 
country. Lord Wantage states that men in no less than seven- 
teen different classes, stations and callings had applied to hire 
or buy land of the " Small Farm and Labourers' Land Com- 
pany," and the directors were vexed that, with their limited 
funds, they could not satisfy all the applicants. 
One of the causes of the failure of small farmers is said to 
be the exorbitant rents that some of them are called upon to 
pay. In a good many instances, the competition for small 
holdings is so keen, and the acres applicable to such farms are 
so few, that a very dear rent is exacted, chiefly by small owners 
and land speculators. But the expense to the landlord of 
equipping a number of small farms, with the necessary build- 
ings, roads, approaches, fences, &c., is not often fully realized. 
If a fair percentage upon the capital were charged, that would 
probably double the rent of th« naked land, and the annual 
repairs which are necessary upon a small farm are twice, and 
possibly four times as costly as those upon adjacent large 
holdings. There is the further difficulty of securing a suitable 
position for small farms. Upon this point Mr. VV. C. Little 
recently observed : — 
" Now there is one part of that subject on which I think there is a very 
great and general misapprehension, and that is as to the supposed extravagant 
Tents which are charged for small holdings. Few people who have not gone 
into the question realize to what an extent the rent of land is a question of 
position and not of fertility. Naturally a labourer who wants a small hold- 
ing wants it near a road and near a village, and easily cultivated, applicable 
to almost any purpose, and it is worth a rent exceptionally large compared 
with the ordinary agricultural land." 
And Mr. Little then forcibly illustrates this argument : — 
" A remarkable instance of the difference in value which arises from mere 
position of land occurred in my own neighbourhood only the other day. 
Son:ie mortgagees put up some estates for sale. They lay in the next parish 
to tliat in which I live. There was some land near to the town, which sold at 
500?. an acre. It is only a little town. You may call it a village, perhaps, 
