Large and Small Holdings. 
25 
" They clearly show that as ia large, so in small farming, close attention, 
industry and frugal living have much to do with success. Of course there 
are exceptiuns ; heavy losses will blight the most persevering occasionally." 
The last opinion I will record is that of Mr. John Treadwell, 
whose experience as a practical farmer will carry weight far 
beyond the limits of Buckinghamshire. He says : — 
" I have been looking all round to discover the small farms' advantages 
over large ones, but can see nothing as regards produce to their advantage. 
It is all the other way ; poor and impoverished stock ; poor and impoverished 
crojis ; poor, and in many cases ruined men. I have seen many men that 
have saved a little money in trade, invest it in stocking a small farm, and 
very soon lose it all ; working hard and living hard, and all to no purpose. 
A few labourers have saved a little money, have got a horse and cart and then 
a bit of land, and have done some dealing in coal, hay, &:c., and have got on, 
hut they require to continue their trade or business to keep the farm going. 
Where a man has got a bit of land, and has kept a few cows, it has been a very 
hard fight with him to keep going, the price of butter being so low of late. 
There are lots of small holdings all along the Chiltern Hills, but in most 
instances the land is very badly done, and of course produces very bad crops, 
and scarcely keeps any stock, and that of the worst description. Most ol 
the flint carters have small farms, and then have to work very hard to get a 
living. My opiuion is, that as a rule in this country, the small farms 
employ the least labour, are the worst farmed, and produce much less produce. 
I used to live near a small farmer, well-to-do for his station. He was a bad 
farmer, he did a deal of work himself, yet was always behind with every- 
thing. I said to him, 'How is it that you do so much work yourself, and 
yet are always behind '? ' His answer was, 'You see when a job wants doing, 
we think that we will do it ourselves, and it goes on, until we can find time 
to do it, which time never comes, so it does not get done ; that makes us- 
always behind.' There is one great advantage in small holdin';^s ; they do 
not require so much capital to start with ; and there is another, they enable a 
man in other business, a dealer, a butoher, or such tradesman, to carry on 
their trade more economically, and eventually to get into a larger farm, if 
their business succeeds." 
As my correspondents have given some interesting instances 
of small farmers rising in life, I must be excused if I furnish 
one illustration of my own. When I came to this farm twenty- 
one years ago, my nearest neighbours were three farmers who 
occupied among them about 600 acres. The first I could re-^ 
member as a day labourer upon my father's farm. He led an 
entire cart-horse during the season, and was born " lucky to 
pigs." He afterwards took a little land, and then more, but he 
has always stuck to his entire horses. The second was a 
working brickmaker, who saved money at piece-work, hired a 
small larm and added to it, but killed a pig weekly and retailed 
the pork in the parish until he removed to a larger farm. The 
other had been a farm bailiff, and when he took to farming on 
his own account, being a capital judge of stock, he did a good 
bit of dealing. No doubt these outside callings helped the 
farms, and the farms helped the trades, but if these men had 
