Large and Small Holdings. 
23 
•cotton-cake with the grass (which in Devonshire is generally in too suc- 
culent a state to make cattle thrive well upon it) he would not only have 
improved the condition of the pasture to nearly or quite the extent of his 
outlay on cake, but he would have found in the autumn a ready sale for his 
two-year-old Ciittle, if not with the butcher, at least with those who would 
soon have made them fit for the slaughter-house. 
" The farmer could not deny these facts, but he shrugged his shoulders at 
the idea of putting his hand into his pocket to purchase cake. 
"The sheep were all on the moor, as many of the farmers have a run on the 
commons. They comprised about 60 breeding ewes, 50 hoggets, and 40 
■old wethers. I told him that the old sheep ought to be sold, and never 
brought home again to the farm to help starve the others, and that the 
hogL'ets not required for breeding ought not to have been put on the moor, 
ibut fed and got rid of at 12 or 14 months old, and that the present price of 
wool did not justify his keeping old sheep on the old theory that the wool 
paid for their keep. 
" Lastl}', I viewed the dairy, poultry and pigs, which were all fairly and 
judiciously managed, and departed by remarking to the farmer, that when he 
adopted the same principle which he successfully carried out in these three last 
■departments, by turning everything into money in the shortest possible time, 
and getting rid of his cattle at 2 or 2J years old, and his sheep at 12 or 1-i 
months old, he might then be able to compete with the foreigner ; but at 
present, if he had his farm rent free, he would not be able to make a decent 
living." 
Sir Massey Lopes adds : — 
"I believe the great difiference is, that in this country the small farmer is 
more frugal and more industrious, his family doing all the work of the farm. 
Again, it is mixed husbandry ; they do not put all their eggs into one basket. 
Their staple commodity is rearing stock; they seldom feed any. There are 
generally common rights attached to each farm. In letting a moorland 
farm I look more to a working family, rather than to capital. I am quite 
certain, if I had taken the advice of my friemis 30 years ago, and concentrated 
my farms, I should have them all now on mj' hands." 
This is a good example of the old legal adage, " Friendly 
advice costs nothinsr and is worth nothing^." To sug'srest lar^e 
farms in a hilly country with a thin soil and a damp climate is 
about as wise as recommending Norfolk to be cut up into plots 
of " three acres and a cow." 
From Devonshire to Northumberland and Durham is a lonor" 
jump, but INIr. Thomas Bell, the indefatigable Secretary of the 
Newcastle Farmers' Club, favours me with the following 
pertinent remarks : — 
" I really do not see that I can help you in saying; anything in favour of 
small farms as compared with large ones. I observe that a small fanner whu 
keeps clear ot the [lough generally does well ; but whenever arable land is ■ 
touched, his life appears to me to be one of toil and penury. A ntmiber of the 
miners and labourers around here hold plots of grass land of about 2 to 4 
acres, attached to their houses ; these I think have been a great boon to the 
men and perhajis more so to their ftimilies. These people keep a cow or two, 
run a calf, keep poultry and pisis, leaving the man free to follow his wage- 
earning employment ; but then these men are not farmers. The small farmer 
