18 
Large and Small Holdings. 
the rule, and cMldren are continually employed. Small farmers are the first 
in the bam in the winter, and the first in the field in the summer, and the 
last to leave their work." 
In Germany there are numberless small holdings, but those 
of the lowest grade, under 12 J acres, are generally held by 
occupiers who follow some other pursuit. Farms between 2^ 
and 50 acres cover about half the area of Germany. Hungary 
is the country of large farms, half the land being farmed by the 
owners on a grand scale, some estates being over 200,000 acres. 
The management is business-like and complete, but oxen are 
sometimes worked until they are 12 or 14 years old, and sheep 
shorn until 8 or 10 years old. Professor \Vrightson, in report- 
ing upon the agriculture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,* 
mentioned one estate, Tot-Megyer, which contained nearly 
23,000 acres. He said that half of this vast area is arable 
land, and that it grows good crops of wheat, rye, maize, sugar- 
beet, mangolds and forage crops. Upon this, !Major Craigie 
observes in his recent paper read before the Royal Statistical 
Society, 
" That this plan of large landlord farming may well claim a place by the 
side of samples of peasant proprietors' work is apparent, when it appears thafc 
the wheat yield equals 24 bushels to onr acre, while the general average yield 
'jf the country is put by good authorities at half this figure. The yield of 
barley at Tot-Mesryer is something approaching our own at or about 33 bushels 
per acre against an average of 16 to 20. Oats yield 50 bushels against a 
similar small general average. The Uve-stock on such a fann as that embraced 
346 horses, of which 150 were foals, 787 head of cattle, of which 400 were 
kept for the plough, and a flock of over 21,000 sheep." 
In Holland there are more often found our three divisions of 
landlord, tenant, and labourer. Lpon the small holdings the 
number of owners who farm their own land number as 3 to 2 : 
upon estates of over 50 acres there is a more equal division 
between yeomen and tenant farmers. Mr. Jenkins said " that 
numbers of peasant proprietors, whether dairy farmers of North 
or South Holland, or the arable farmers of light land, are 
overwhelmed with mortgages, very many forced sales occurring- 
annually." 
In Belgium the subdivision of property has made great 
progress, there being now nearly double the number of 
j)roprietors than there were 50 years ago. All this increase 
seems to be in estates under 7J acres, and more than three- 
fourths of it is among plots below an acre. Major Craigie, in his 
valuable statistical paper already referred to, says : — 
"The fallacy which used to be often heard, that Belgium with her 
relatively large number of stock feeds more beasts and therefore produces 
» ' Journal,' E. A. S. E., 1S74, voi. x. p. 305 tt teq. 
