on the Humberston estate in North Lincolnshire and on his
Buckinghamshire estate, near Aylesbury. At Newport Pagnell
the attempt failed because the demand was artificial, the
ground arable, and the men not capable of dealing with it.
Other examples of the establishment of small holdings can
only receive brief reference. The Norfolk Small Holdings
Association acquired three farms at Whissonsett, Watton and
Swaffham, which are broken up into small lots and let mostly
to the village tradespeople. Sir Pearce Edgecumbe established
small holdings at Rew, some of which have been purchased by the
occupiers, and Mr A. B. Markham created similar ownerships at
Twyford (Leicestershire) . At Cudworth in Surrey a group was
formed, but the owners were actuated more by the desire to lead
a simple life than to prove the remunerative value of small
holdings. Mr W. J. Harris created small holdings in Devon,
each of which is let on a life tenancy. There the rural exodus
has been more than arrested. Mr James Tomkinson established
in Cheshire a number of graduated holdings, so contrived as
to offer the successful holders a chance of stepping upwards.
The earl of Harrowby made an interesting experiment on his
Sandon estate in Staffordshire in the midst of a pretty, broken
and undulating country. The estate consists of about 6000
acres, one-third of which is laid out in small holdings.
These fall naturally into three divisions. First, there are
those which belong to men who have regular employment, and
would therefore find it impossible to cultivate any great
quantity of land. Many of that class are anxious to have
a holding of some sort, as it lends a certain elasticity
to their incomes and provides them with a never-failing
interest. One who may be taken as typical hired six acres
with a good cottage and a large garden, paying a rent of L. 20 a
year. When this holding was created it had already a suitable
cottage, but L. 100 was needed to provide outbuildings, and
Lord Harrowby's custom is to charge 5% on outlay of this
kind. This L. 5, however, is included in the total rent of
L. 20 paid for cottage, land and garden. The man was not only
content, but wished to get some more land. The next class
consists of those who have not enough land to live on but
eke out their livelihood by casual labour. Usually a man
of this sort requires from 35 to 50 acres of land mostly
pasture. He can attend to it and yet give a certain number
of days to estate work. The third class is that of the small
farmer who gains his entire livelihood from the land. The
obstacle to breaking up large farms into small lies of course
in the expense of providing the necessary equipment. It has
been found here that a cottage suitable for a small farmer
costs about L. 400 to build in a substantial manner, and the
outbuildings about L. 200. This makes an addition therefore of
about L. 30 to the rent of the land. The ardour with which these
tenancies were sought when vacant formed the best testimony
to the soundness of the principle applied by Lord Harrowby.
A nest of small holdings was created at Winterslow, near
Salisbury, by Major R. M. Poore. The holders completed the
purchase by 1906, and the work may be pronounced a complete
success. Major Poore originally conceived the idea when land
was cheap in 1892, owing to the depression in agriculture.
He purchased an estate that came into the market at the
time. The price came to an average of L. 10 an acre, and
the men themselves made the average for selling it out again
L. 15 on a principle of instalments. His object was not to
make any profit from the transaction, and he formed what is
termed a Landholders' Court, formed of the men themselves,
every ten choosing one to represent them. This court was
found to act well. It collected the instalments, which are
paid in advance; and of course the members of it, down to
the minutest detail, knew not only the circumstances but the
character of every applicant for land. The result speaks for
itself. The owners are, in the true sense of the word,
peasants. They do not depend on the land for a living, but
work in various callings---many being woodmen---for wages
that average about 15s. a week. The holdings vary in size
from less than an acre to ten acres, and are technically
held on a lease of 1999 years, practically freehold, though
by the adoption of a leasehold form a saving was effected
in the cost of transfer. On the holdings most of the men
have erected houses, using for the purpose chalk dug up
from their gardens, it lying only a few inches below the
surface. It is not rock, but soft chalk, so that they
are practically mud walls; but being as a rule at least 18
inches thick, the houses are very cool in summer and warm in
winter. Major Poore calculated that in seven years these
poor people--there are not thirty of them altogether--managed
to produce for their houses and land a gross sum of not
less than L. 5000. This he attributed to the loyal manner
in which even distant members of the family have helped.
The class of holding which owes its existence to the act of
1802 may be illustrated by the history of the Worcestershire
small holdings. The inception of the scheme was due to the
decline of the nail-making business, which caused a number
of the inhabitants to be without occupation. Two candidates
for election to the county council looking out for a popular
cry found it in the demand for land. They promised to do
their best in this direction, and thanks to the energetic
action of Mr Willis Bund, the chairman, the act was put in
force. Woodrow Farm, adjoining the village of Catshill in
the neighbourhood of Birmingham, was purchased on terms that
enabled the land to be sold to the peasant cultivator at L. 40 an
acre. They were paying this back at the rate of 4% on the
purchase money, a rate that included both interest and sinking
fund, so that at the end of forty years they would own the
small estates free from encumbrance. The huge population of
Birmingham is close to the properties. The men turned their
attention mostly to strawberries, to which many acres were
devoted. Costermongers would come out from Birmingham and buy
fruit on the spot, selling part of it to the villas on the way
back, and part in the Birmingham market. The experience gained
in working the act enabled the committee on small holdings to
make a number of practical suggestions for future legislation.
It remains to note the passing in 1907 of a new English
Small Holdings and Allotments Act, experience of which is
too recent for its provisions to be more than indicated
here. The act transferred to the Board of Agriculture the
duties generally of the Local Government Board, and transferred
to parish councils or parish meetings the powers and duties
of rural district councils; it required county councils to
ascertain the demand for land without previous representation to
them, and gave power for its compulsary acquisition; and the
maximum holding of an allotment was raised from one acre to
five. Both compulsary purchase and compulsary hiring (for not
less than 14 nor more than 35 years) were authorized, value
and compensation begin decided by a single arbitrator. A
coercive authority was applied to the county councils in the
form of commissioners appointed by the Board of Agriculture,
who were to hold inquiries independently and to take action
themselves in the case of a defaulting county council. They
were to ascertain the local demand for small holdings, and to
report to the Board, who might then require a county council
to prepare a scheme, whihc, when approved, it was to carry out,
the commissioners begin empowered to do so in the alternative.
Foreign Countries.--It remains to give a brief outline of what
small holdings are like outside Great Britain. From the results
of the Belgian Agricultural Inquiry in 1895 the following table
has been compiled, assuming that one hectare = 2 1/2 acres:--
Occupied by Owner. Occupied by Tenant. Total.
Size of Holding Whole. More than Half. More than half. Whole.
No. No. No. No. No.
1 1/4 acres and under 109,169 8,759 34,779 305,413 458,120
1 1/4 acres and under
5 acres 27,395 19,544 58,829 70,465 176,233
5 acres and under
10 acres 12,089 13,873 30,340 25,006 81,308
10 acres and under
50 acres 16,690 18,909 33,443 28,387 97,429
50 or 100 acres 2,021 1,497 3,315 4,517 11,350
Over 100 acres 903 470 1,417 2,395 5,185
Total 168,267 63,052 162,123 436,183 829,625
It will bbe seen from this table that Belgium is pre-eminently
a country of small holdings, more than half of the total
number being under 50 acres in extent. Of course it is largely
a country of market gardens; but as the holdings are most
numerous in Brabant, East and West Flanders and Hainault,
the provinces showing the largest number of milch cows, it
would seem that dairying and la petite culture go together
There is a slight tendency for the holdings to decrease in
number. In Germany the number of small holdings is proportionately
much larger than in Great Britain. The returns collected
in 1895 showed that there were 3,235,169, or 58.22% of the
total number of holdings under 5 acres in area; and of these
no fewer than 11% are held by servants as part of their
wages. The table below compiled for the Journal at
the Board of Agriculture enables us to compare the other
holdings with those of Great Britain. Great Britain, it
will be seen, has over 40% of large farms of between 50 and
500 acres as compared with Germany's 12.6, while the latter
has 86.8 of small holdings, compared with England's 58.6.
France also has a far larger proportion of small holdings
than Great Britain; its cultivated area of 85,759,000 acres
being divided into 5,618,000 separate holdings, of which the
size averages a little over 15 acres as against 63 in Great
Britain. Of the whole number, 4,190,795 are farmed by the
owners, 934,338 are in meteyage, and 1,078,184 by tenants.
The leading feature is the peasant proprietary. Half of the
arable, more than half of the pasture, six-sevenths of the
vineyards and two-thirds of the garden lands are farmed by their
owners. Comparison with Great Britain is difficult; but it would
appear that, whereas only 11% of British 520,000 agricultural
holdings are farmed by the owners, the proportion in France is
75%. A further point to be noted is that the average agricultural
tenancy in France is just one-fourth of what it is in Great
Britain, and the average owner-farmed estate only one-sixth.
Germany. Great Britain.
Size of Holdings Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent.
5 to 50 acres 2,014,940 86.8 235,481 58.6
50 to 500 '' 292,982 12.6 161,438 40.1
Over 500 '' 13,809 0.6 5,219 1.3
Total 2,321,731 100 402,138 100
In France the tendency is for the very small holdings to increase
in number owing to subdivision, with the consequent decrease
of the size of the average holding. Between the years 1882
and 1892 there was a decrease of 138,237 in the total number of
