8 The Place of the Small Holder in English Agriculture. 
the English averages, all which are taken, not on total, but on 
cultivated land. 
It is true that even in England herself the existence of 
farmed but not technically cultivated soil in some English 
counties obtains to a degree that hinders a strictly comparative 
statement, though this arises mainly in the group of counties 
constituting the northern and north-western division, where 
the conditions approximate to those of Wales or Scotland 
in this respect. Over three at least of the four agricultural 
divisions of England we are free from any material difficulty. 
For so much of the surface of England, the facts are simple. 
The area brought into account for the purpose of the yearly 
returns of the size of holdings, it must always be remembered, 
is only the land returned by its occupiers as cultivated, that is, 
carrying crops or permanent grasses. The difference between 
this measurement and the land farmed consists of land occupied 
for agricultural purposes, and used for grazing, but not regarded 
by the occupier as rising to the category of “ permanent grass.” 
This surface is not of course to be disregarded in its bearing 
on the size of the “ units of farming ” to which it is attached ; 
but unfortunately it has no history, having been only recorded, 
and that approximately, since 1892, and the figures necessarily 
lack precision in certain districts where the areas are uncertain 
or overlap ; whereas the cultivated area has been known for 
forty years, and can be used for comparisons of the growth or 
diminution of holdings between one date and another. 
In the eastern, midland, and western counties of England, 
these rough grazings appear to form a relatively insignificant 
fraction of the total area, 649,000 acres, as against 17,700,000 
acres cultivated ; whereas in the northern division there are 
1.717.000 acres of grazings attached to the cultivated area of 
6.460.000 acres. In Wales there are 1,288,000 acres of grazings 
to 2,794,000 acres cultivated, and in Scotland, 9,104,000 acres, 
or nearly twice the surface used for regular crops and per- 
manent grass, which appears as 4,863,000 acres only. 
It is obvious, therefore, that the present position of the 
small holdings relatively to all holdings is fairly gathered 
by an analysis of size, made on a basis which exhaustively 
accounts for 96 per cent, of the farmed surface, as in the three 
divisions of England just above indicated. And though that 
basis may not be materially wrong, even when the 24,600,000 
acres of cultivated land in England as a whole is referred to 
— forming, as it does, 91 per cent, of the surface farmed — yet 
it is very defective for our purpose when dealing with Wales, 
where the area shown as divided into holdings is only two- 
thirds of the farmed surface, or with Scotland, where the area 
so distributed is barely over one-third of that actually farmed. 
