strawberries, to which many acres were devoted. Costermongers would come out from Birmingham and buy the 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 compulsory acquisition; and the maximum holding of an allotment was raised from one acre to five. Both compulsory purchase and compulsory hiring (for not less than 14 nor more than 35 years) were authorized, value and compensation being 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 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, which, when approved, it was to carry out, the commissioners being 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 of 1895 the following table has been compiled, assuming that one hectare＝212 acres:—
| Size of Holding. | Occupied by Owner. | Occupied by Tenant. | Total. | ||
| Whole. | More than half. |
More than half. |
Whole. | ||
114 acres and under 114 acres and under 5 acres 5 acres and under 10 acres 10 acres and under 50 acres 50 or 100 acres Over 100 acres |
No. 109,169 27,395 12,089 16,690 2,021 903 |
No. 8,759 19,544 13,873 18,909 1,497 470 |
No. 34,779 58,829 30,340 33,443 3,315 1,417 |
No. 305,413 70,465 25,006 28,387 4,517 2,395 |
No. 458,120 176,233 81,308 97,429 11,350 5,185 |
| Total. | 168,267 | 63,052 | 162,123 | 436,183 | 829,625 |
It will be 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 of 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 métayage, 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.
| Size of Holdings. | Germany. | Great Britain. | ||
| Number. | Per cent. | Number. | Per cent. | |
| 5 to 50 acres 50 to 500 acres Over 500 acres |
2,014,940 292,982 13,809 |
86·8 12·6 0·6 |
235,481 161,438 5,219 |
58·6 40·1 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 a 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 proprietors, the larger properties moving towards consolidation and those of the peasant proprietors towards subdivision.
Those interested in the formation of small holdings in Great Britain will find much to interest them in the history of Danish legislation. British policy for many generations was to preserve demesne land, and there are many devices for insuring that a spendthrift life-owner shall not be able to scatter the family inheritance; but as long ago as 1769 the Danish legislators set an exactly opposite example. They enacted that peasant land should not be incorporated or worked with estate land; it must always remain in the ownership and occupation of peasants. In this spirit all subsequent legislation was conceived, and the allotment law that came into force in October 1899 bears some resemblance to the English Small Holdings Act of 1892. It provides that labourers able to satisfy certain conditions as to character may obtain from the state a loan equal to nine-tenths of the purchase money of the land they wish to acquire. This land should be from 5 to 7 acres in extent and of medium quality, but the limits are from 234 to 1034 acres in the case of better or poorer land. The total value should not exceed 4000 kr. (£222). The interest payable on the loan received from the state is 3%. The loan itself is repayable after the first five years by annual instalments of 4% until half is paid off; the remainder by instalments of 312%, including interest. Provision is, however, made for cases where the borrower desired to pay off the loan in larger sums. Regulations are laid down regarding the transfer of such properties and also their testamentary disposition. The Treasury was empowered to devote a sum of 2,000,000 kr. (£111,000) to this purpose for five years; after that the land is subject to revision.
| Groups. | Number. | Percentage of Number. |
Acreage. | Percentage of Area. |
Average size in Acres. | |
| Tondeland. | Acres. | |||||
| Under 1 1 — 3 3 – 27 27 – 108 108 – 216 Over 216 |
Under 1·36 1·36 – 4 4 – 36·7 36·7 – 147 147 – 294 Over 294 |
68,380 18,777 93,060 60,872 6,502 2,392 |
27·3 7·5 37·2 24·4 2·6 1·0 |
23,455 58,553 1,408,549 4,459,077 1,272,398 1,674,730 |
·3 ·7 15·8 50·1 14·3 18·8 |
·34 3·12 15·14 73·25 195·69 700·14 |
| Total. | 249,983 | 100·0 | 8,898,762 | 100·0 | 35·59 | |
Even before this law was passed Denmark was a country of small holdings, the peasant farms amounting to 66% of the
