Besides the small holders who have outside industries to fall back upon, those who are aided by some exceptionally favourable element in the soil or climate, or proximity to good markets, should do well.  Yet in the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of small holders, we have seen that the Commission of 1894 reported that distress was severe.  This, however, seems to have been largely due to the exaggerated land-hunger in the good times, which induced the tenants to buy lands at too high a price; and under normal conditions, such as they are now returning to, the tenants seem to thrive.  In this district the preference for ownership as opposed to tenancy is, in spite of recent experiences, unqualified, though it is admitted that the best way is to begin by renting and save enough to buy.[704] The soil is peculiarly favourable to the production of celery and early potatoes; and large tracts of land are divided into unfenced strips locally known as ‘selions’ of from a quarter of an acre to 3 acres each, cultivated by men who live in the villages, each having one or more strips, some as much as 20 acres, and it is considered that 10 acres is the smallest area on which a man can support a family without any other industry to help him.

Yet in the fen districts and on the marsh lands between Boston and the east coast of Lincolnshire, where the land is naturally very productive, many people are making livings out of 5 or 6 acres, mainly by celery and early potatoes.[705] Other districts adapted naturally to small holdings are those of Rock and Far Forest, the famous Vale of Evesham, the Sandy and Biggleswade district of Bedfordshire; Upwey, Dorset; Calstock and St. Dominick, Cornwall; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; and Tiptree, Essex.  Apart, however, from by-industries, and exceptional climate, soil, and situation, the small holding for the purpose of raising corn and meat, as distinguished from that which is devoted to dairying, fruit-growing, and market gardening, does not seem to-day to have much chance of success.  If farms were still self-sufficing, and simply provided food and clothing for the farmer, the small producer even of corn and meat might do as well as the larger farmer on a lower scale, but such conditions have gone; all holdings now are chiefly manufactories of food, and the smaller manufactory has little chance in competition with the greater.

The example of foreign countries is usually held up to Englishmen in this connexion, and the argument naturally used is that ’if small holdings answer in France and Belgium, why can they not do so in England?’ On this point the testimony of Sir John Lawes is worth quoting.[706] ‘In most, if not in all continental countries’ he says, ’the success of small holdings depends very materially on whether or not the soil and the climate are suitable for what may be called industrial crops:  such as tobacco, hops, sugar beet, colza, flax, hemp, grapes, and other fruit and vegetables; where these conditions do not exist the condition of the cultivators is such as would not be tolerated in this country.’  That is the reason probably why small holdings, apart from exceptional conditions, do not answer in England; the Englishman of to-day is not anxious to face the hard and grinding conditions under which the continental small holder lives.