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favourable seasons. Small men, in every industry, are the first to suffer by bad years. Men with larger capital are better able to weather storms; and an industry like agriculture is fully exposed, not only to fluctuations in prices, but to the caprice of rain and frost and want of Unfavourable seasons are not the only difficulty, especially in the early years of occupation. When a small holder is starting, any sudden glut of the market on which he depends is enough to cause his ruin. Weak powers of resistance to unfavourable conditions are one of the disadvantages of small holdings and small capital. Another disadvantage is the temptation to work too hard and too long, and to exact from the family the same excess of effort. In the struggle for independence physical strength is apt to be overtaxed. Experience in rural districts shows that this danger of excessive labour is too real to be wholly disregarded.

Apart from the narrow margin on which the small holder works, and the tendency to impose on himself and his dependants an excessive strain, there are economic disadvantages which ought to be carefully considered, before the State decides to devote large sums of money to an artificial increase in the number of small holders. As a general rule, small holders only succeed where they can raise from the land two crops in the year. The range, therefore, of agricultural produce, in the cultivation of which they are likely to make their holdings pay, is limited; and the limitations at once suggest, as has been already stated, a question of national importance. It is not merely that farming operations become cheaper as their scale extends, or that machinery is most profitably used on large areas. No small holder can individually embark with reasonable prospects of success on any forms of productive industry in which the gross returns per acre are small, or in which manual labour does not form a relatively high proportion of the total costs of production. In other words, bread, meat, and the wholesale supply of milk lie outside his range. It therefore becomes a serious question for the country to consider, whether, and to what extent, it can allow the limited land of these islands to be cultivated for crops which are not necessary for the maintenance of the essential foodsupplies of the nation. Before a large policy of small

holdings is entered upon, this question must be considered in the light of experience and definitely answered.

Apart from the few men who are able to establish a local milk trade, small holders are practically restricted to the production of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. Even in this direction they are seriously handicapped by the smallness of their capital and the perishable nature of their produce. If they cannot get a market for their garden-stuff at the moment when it is ready for sale, it rapidly deteriorates in value. Corn-growers can afford to wait for a favourable turn in prices, because their produce does not spoil by keeping. Not so the small holder; and unfortunately his capital is too often inadequate to stand the loss. In this connexion it may be useful to consider whether the sale for garden produce, when peace is proclaimed, is likely to be as good as it was before the war. The spending power of the country will be, for many years to come, seriously crippled. People will have to abstain from luxuries. If this is true, then it is an additional reason for caution in the extension of small holdings. Even in the narrow range to which the small holder is limited, though minute and personal attention to details count for much, efficient organisation, combined with effective supervision, counts for more. Occupiers of large holdings are also most likely to command, not only more capital, but more scientific knowledge and greater business capacity, than occupiers of small holdings. They are, therefore, less prone to be timidly conservative, unprogressive and wanting in enterprise. To these advantages the large occupier adds that of economy in cost. In market gardening, as well as in ordinary farming, large production is cheaper than small. If two areas, one of 10 acres, another of 60 acres, stand side by side in a market-garden district where intensive cultivation is practised, it will be generally found that the larger area is better cultivated than the small area, produces more per acre, and yields greater net profits. No one is more keenly alive to these facts than the successful small holder himself. His great ambition is to obtain more land and so reap the advantage of a larger occupancy.

Wherever his personal labour can be brought into effective play, the individual small occupier can hold his

own in the range of produce to which his land is adapted. But obviously, in an important sphere of his operations, the smallness of the quantities in which he deals is a serious handicap to the successful prosecution of his business. As a buyer of fertilisers and feeding-stuffs, he is dependent on local dealers and pays retail prices; he cannot profit by the reductions in prices and railway rates which are given on large quantities. As a seller, the handicap is still more serious. His consignments to the railway are too small to command the lowest freights; his limited output prevents him from properly grading his produce or offering it in uniform bulk; and he has to deal with middle-men, who either refuse his surplus of inferior stuff, or pay for it in postage stamps instead of by cheque. If he tries to work up a local connexion with private customers, he may find the ground already occupied, and only succeed in cutting the throat of a neighbour, if not his own as well.

Economically the small holding is not, in individual hands, a wholly satisfactory unit. In all kinds of business the tendency is to amalgamation, a larger turnover, and the reduction of working expenses. It is difficult to think that in this respect the agricultural industry differs materially from other industries. Whether the inherent disadvantages of the small-holding system can be removed by cooperation is one of the most important questions which have to be solved. From this point of view, the Government experiment is valuable, because it embraces the two sides of the industry, and applies the principle to the small holder both as a cultivator of the soil and as a trader. Cooperation has not as yet been readily adopted by agriculturists. writer, in dealing with many applicants for small holdings, has found that one objection is very generally taken to its introduction. The most energetic and capable men are opposed to the principle on the ground that it destroys individual enterprise, and makes the best man keep step with the worst. The most successful marketgardeners are those who possess energy and intelligence enough to find out for themselves the best markets. They want, not unnaturally, to profit individually by their own superior capacity. Rightly or wrongly, they regard cooperation as a device to keep weaklings on their

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feet, and a cooperative society as a lean-to shelter. This is the difficulty-it may be the prejudice-against which cooperation has to contend in this country.

A cooperative colony of fruit-growers or of marketgardeners, or of dairymen, or of small farmers, completely organised as an industrial unit for the cultivation of the soil as well as for trade, may be able to overcome the economic difficulties which hamper isolated small holdings in the hands of individuals. This is the experiment which the Government scheme contemplates. The land would be cultivated and cropped under the technical guidance of the expert director and the supervision of the skilled instructors. From the depôt each individual occupier would purchase tools, manures, seeds, netting, and other necessaries at wholesale prices. Each man would provide the manual labour for his holding. Whatever operations required machinery or horse labour would be undertaken by the Society, and charged to the individual occupier at cost price. All the produce would be collected at the central depôt, graded, packed, and despatched in bulk, at the lowest railway rates, to the most favourable market. To the depôt, on any large colony, would be attached the installations appropriate to the business undertaken. Thus a fruit colony would be equipped with provision for the various processes of pulping, canning, drying, bottling, and jam-making, so that loss from a glut of fresh fruit might be prevented, and inferior produce utilised. A dairy colony would be similarly provided with a cheese-factory or a creamery, and possibly a bacon factory. In these directions the cooperative colony offers prospects of success; and experience has in many details already tested the working value of the principle. Mixed arable and grass farms for the cultivation of staple crops and for the breeding and fattening of stock on the lines of cooperative colonies are more difficult to organise. They have not, so far as we know, yet been tried; experience is therefore wanting. If they can be made to succeed economically, if, that is, they can raise as much bread and meat and as cheaply as large farms under individual management, this will remove the objection that a reduction of our essential food supplies is a consequence of extending the smallholding system.

It must, however, be noticed that under the system of cooperative colonies economic success must be purchased by some sacrifice of the social advantages which are justly claimed for small holdings. The members of the colony are held in leading strings; they are under discipline and obey instructions. They cannot, it is true, become unprogressive and conservative. But they are not trained in those habits of independence, initiative, and self-reliance, which render individual small holders valuable assets to the State; nor do they obtain that freedom from control which is dear to those who desire to call no man master. The cooperative framework will, it is to be hoped, be so constructed as to allow in the future the utmost possible exercise of individualism. In the initial stages of the enterprise, it is all-important that the colony should be started on right lines. Spoonfeeding is necessary. But it may be hoped that eventually the guidance of the expert and the supervision of the instructors may be relaxed, if not dispensed with altogether, when once the members have mastered the principles of their industry, and have learned to work together without the paternal despotism which is inconsistent with true cooperation. If the colony meets the economic difficulty only at the expense of some of the social advantages, it cannot be regarded as anything more than a means to an end, a transitional educational stage in the evolution of the small holder. The virtues of the class are not created in a day; but colonies organised on the proposed lines will be valuable training schools. More than this, if they are more or less completely organised before the settlers are placed upon the land, they will protect inexperienced men from wasting their slender capital on ill-judged outlay, and prevent them from hampering themselves with business connexions from which they will find it difficult to get free. It is often contended that as many isolated small holdings have been formed as are capable of profitable working. Whether this is true or not, it must be admitted that in many instances there would be more prosperity if there were more expert guidance. Cooperative colonies, therefore, seem to offer a useful means of planting a larger population on the land, and of meeting the economic difficulties which, in the