7 JULY 1928, Page 18

BETTER THAN DENMARK.

One has to answer the question, how this community of small-holders compares economically with the two or three farms and farmers they supplanted. The act of transference has been difficult. Farmers hate surrendering good farms, as is natural, and indeed proper. It is perhaps natural, but certainly less proper, that they should have a tendency to " pull " the land, to deprive it of manure and cultivation when the loss of it is in sight. Such farmers argue, not without justification, that they farmed the land better and more economically than their supplanters. But look at the reverse of the medal. One particular farmhouse is to-day inhabited by twenty-one persons instead of four. What was a lawn is a hen-run. Where no stock at all were kept are now seen mulch cows, pigs, horses, and a great many poultry. One single small-holder had fifty head of stock and poultry and duckl. Every inch of the ground is well enough tilled. The rural population is increased, and a new community has arisen which compares in progressive energy with any of the parts of Scandinavia (held up to our admiration ad nauseam) as examples of a progressive peasantry. The best of the holdings are better than the best I saw in Denmark, not perhaps in equipment, but certainly in productive energy.