THE PROBLEM . OF THE SMALL HOLDER.* A witinta. in
1790 speaks of "a species of frenzy, terra- mania." The phrase might form the text of these painstaking Ford Lectures, which even readers fresh from Dr. Slater and Dr. Hasbach will find Illuminating. The story of the craving for land has many aspects, but most seem to be exhibited here. Are we not reminded that Cromwell once :contemplated forbidding-City men to acquire farms of a greater value than 240 a year, and that Bolingbroke took his agricultural opera- tions so seriously that he had his house painted with spades, pitchforks, and hayricks? And there is the excellent tale of the parson who, being upbraided by his Archdeacon for grow- ing turnips in the churchyard, undertook that next year the crop should be barley. The author has come upon a valuable field for research work in the Land-tax assessments in the hands of the local authorities, dating back in some counties as far as 1746. They enable us, as he says, to "trace the continuous life of a parish up to this very year of grace. Even the family historian can obtain great assistance from them. We can see how the same family continued either as landowners or as farmers." So far Mr. Johnson has been able to examine the state of things in five hundred out of the fifteen thousand parishes in England. The conclusion at which he has arrived is that the most serious period for the small owner was undoubtedly in the time of final transition from mediaeval to modern agricultural conditions (at the close of the seventeenth and during the first half of the eighteenth century), and that "the changes since the middle of the eighteenth century have not been nearly so radical as they have been generally supposed to be." Many readers will no doubt be surprised, to learn that since 1781 there has been an increase in the number of owners and occupiers of land under six acres in Oxon, Wilts, and Here- ford, while in thirteen Norfolk parishes there has been an increase in the number of owners and occupiers of over as well as under an acre. Mr. Johnson shows very clearly the advantages of tenancy rather than ownership in the case of small holders. It is inexcusable, however, to send out a book • (1) The Disappearance of the Small- Landormsr. By Arthur H. Johnson. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. [5s. net.]—(2) Small Molders What Thee Must Do to Succeed. By B. A. Pratt. London: F. S. King and S011. [U. net.1 —(3) Successful Jam Making and Fruit Bottling. By Lucy H. Yates. London Nehmen. [2s. 6d. net.]—(4) Successful Dairy Work. By A. T. Matthews. Same publishers. [2s. dd. net.1—(5) Small Estate Management. By Albert Cs,
Freeman. Same publishers. De. 6d. net:1 so full of references without an index. Mr. Pratt, whose works on The Organisation of Agriculture and The Transition in Agriculture have been so serviceable, addresses himself not to the past but the future of the small holder. There are thirteen chapters in his book, but they may all be summed up in the words Co-operation, more Co-operation, still more Co-operation. Nowhere can we remember to have seen the imperative necessity for co-operation among small holders put more authoritatively, more instructively, or more persuasively. Mr. Pratt does well to deal in a practical way with the working of credit banks, but the whole of his volume should be read by all who are interested in the establishment of small holdings on sound lines. Successful Jam Making and Fruit Bottling, a. little manual particularly addressed to small holders, may almost be regarded as a chapter—and a very sound one—in the scheme of Mr. Pratt's book. Successful little fruit-preserving businesses have come into existence all over the country during the last few years, and there seems to be no reason why their number should not be increased. They are a means not only of encouraging fruit culture, but of retaining in the country young men and women who seek and deserve better wages than those paid at present on the land and in some farmhouses. Successful Dairy Work and Small Estate Management, in the same series as Successful Jain Making and Fruit Bottling, are sound enough as far as they go.
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