The Survival in Farming. 
267 
In the fine grazing and dairying district of Mid Bucks, ac- 
cording to [Nfessrs. Reader & Son, of Aylesbury, the farmers who 
have best held out against the depression are '• those occupying 
the largest farms, with that all-powerful motive-power, a suffi- 
ciencv of capital, enabling them to retain their corn, cattle, 
&c., to await the best markets, and make the best of any 
advantage either in purchasing or selling. \evy few farmers 
have actually failed in the district." 
More than half the total cultivated area of Sussex being in 
permanent pasture, the report of Mr. J. Plumer Chapman, of 
Lewes, on East and Mid Sussex, may be included among the 
replies from pastoral districts, especially as it relates chiefly to 
dairy farms, from which milk is extensively sent to London, 
Brighton, and other towns. Excluding the hill farms, the 
holdings are not large, and Mr. Chapman declares in favour of 
small farmers as those who have best withstood the depression, 
and especially men who have given up wheat-growing to a 
great extent, substituting green crops, and keeping more stock. 
Insufficiency of capital to begin with, or after losses, is given 
as the chief cause of failure. " Those who have done best," 
Mr. Chapman adds, "besides sheep breeders, have- usually 
been of the small trading class, who dispense with the service 
and profit of the middleman, and who have farmed at the 
least possible working expense." 
Still selecting replies from districts mainly pastoral, the 
next to be noticed is one from Mr. William Sturge, of Bristol, 
a past President of the Surveyors' Institution. Writing from 
long experience in Gloucester, Somerset, Wilts, Hereford, 
Monmouth, and South Wales, this gentleman says in relation 
to all sorts of farms : — " I do not think high farmers have done 
better than others. Dairy and grazing farmeps have done 
fairly well with an abatement of rent of 10 to 20 per cent. 
Farms of this class rarely exceed 300 acres. On the whole, 
small working farmers have done best. Arable farmers can 
hardly make both ends meet with reductions of 30, 40. and even 
oO per cent, in rent." Success or failure, Mr. Sturge ajDpears 
to think, has depended mainly upon the proportion of pasture 
to arable land. 
The head agent on one of the most iuiportant estates in the 
country, whose name is not to be published, refers to great dairy, 
grazing, and arable districts in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Wilts, 
and Somerset. In this reply no opinion is expressed as to the 
superiority of high or low farming from an economic point of 
view, the writer appearing to be impressed mainly with the 
idea of industry and skill being the great essentials to success. 
T 2 
