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ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS
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ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS . As the meaning of these terms in agricultural See also:tenure varies in different localities, it may be as well to say at once that for the See also:present purpose they are definable as pieces of See also:land detached from cottages, and hired or owned by labouring men to supplement their See also:main income. We do not include any See also:farm, however small, from which the occupier derives his entire support by dairying, See also:market-gardening, or other See also:form of la petite culture. So, also, no See also:account is taken of the tiny See also:garden See also:plot, used for growing vegetables for the table and See also:simple See also:flowers, which is properly an appurtenance of the cottage. Clearing away what is extraneous, the essential point See also:round which much controversy has raged is the labourer's See also:share in the land. The claim advanced depends upon tradition. In See also:agriculture, the See also:oldest of all See also:industries, a See also:cash See also:payment is not even now regarded as discharging the obligations between See also:master and servant. Mr See also: This is not altered by the fact that the conditions approached those of See also:slavery, that the villeins were adscripti glebae, that in some cases their wives and sons were bequeathed by See also:deed to the service of religious houses, and that in many other respects their freedom was limited. Out of this, in the course of centuries, was See also:developed the system prevailing to-See also:day. See also:Lammas lands are indeed a survival from it. There are in the valley of the See also:Lea, and See also:close to See also:London, to take one example, lands allotted annually in little strips till the, crops are carried, when, the day being fixed by a See also:reeve, the land becomes a See also:common pasture till the See also:spring closing takes See also:place once more. Perhaps the feature of this old system that bears most directly on the question of allotments was the treatment of the See also:waste of the See also:manor. The lord, like his tenants, was limited by custom as regards the number of beasts he could graze on it. After the havoc of the See also:Black See also:Death in 1349, many changes were necessitated by the scarcity and dearness of labour. It became less unusual for land to be let and for money payment to be accepted instead of services. There was a great demand for See also:wool, and to conduct See also:sheep-farming on a large See also:scale necessitated a re-arrangement of the manor and the enclosure of many common See also:fields under the See also:statute of Merton and the statute of See also:Westminster the Second. Nevertheless, up to the 18th century, a vast proportion of agricultural land was technically waste, on which rights of common were exercised by yeomen, some of whom had acquired holdings by the See also:ordinary methods of See also:purchase or See also:inheritance, while others had merely squatted and built a See also:house on the waste. It is to this See also:period that belongs a certain injustice to which the peasantry were subject. No reasonable doubt can be entertained of the See also:necessity of enclosure. Husbandry, after See also:long stagnation, was making great advance; and among others, See also:Arthur See also:Young raised his See also:voice against the clumsy inconvenient common fields that were the first to be enclosed. Between 1709 and 1797 no fewer than 3110 acts, affecting, as far as can be calculated, about 3,000,000 acres, were put into operation. They seem mostly to have been directed to the common fields. In the first See also:half of the 19th century the See also:movement went on apace. In a single year, 18os, no fewer than 119 acts were passed; and between 18o1 and 1842 close on 2000 acts were passed—many of them expressly directed to the enclosure of wastes and See also:commons. The same thing continued till 1869. It touched the See also:peasant directly and indirectly. The enclosure of the common fields proved most hurtful to the small See also:farmer; the enclosure of the waste injured the labourer by depriving him, without adequate See also:compensation, of such useful privileges as the right to graze a cow, a See also:pig, geese or other small animals. It also discouraged him by tending to the extinction of small tenancies and freeholds that were no longer workable at a profit when common rights ceased to go with them. The industrious labourer could previously nourish a See also:hope of bettering his See also:condition by obtaining a small holding. Yet though the labourer suffered, impartial study does not show any intentional injustice. He held a very weak position when those interested in a common affixed to the See also: As Mr See also:Cowper (afterwards Lord See also:Mount See also:Temple) said in the House of Commons on the 13th of See also: Up to then the See also:English labouring rustic had been very well off. See also:Food was abundant and cheap, so were clothes and boots; he could graze his cow or pig on the common, and also obtain See also:fuel from it. Now he See also:fell on evil days. Prices See also:rose, See also:wages fell, privileges were lost, and in many cases he had to sell the patch of land whose See also:possession made all the difference between hardship and comfort. All this was seen plainly enough both by statesmen and private philanthropists. One of the first experiments was described by Sir See also: In 1843 an important inquiry into the subject was made by a committee of the House of Commons, which produced a number of valuable suggestions. One consequence was the bill of 1845, brought into parliament by Mr Cowper. It passed the House of Commons; and there Mr See also:Bright made a remark that probably summarized a general
See also:opinion, since it never came to a third See also:reading in the House of Lords. He said that " the voluntary system of arrangement would do all the See also:good that was expected to accrue from the allotment system.”
At this point in the See also:history of the movement it may be as well to pause and ask what was the See also:net result of so much legislation and benevolent See also:action. Messrs Tremenheere and Tufnall, who prefixed an admirable See also:epitome of what had been done to the report of the See also:commission " appointed to inquire into the employment of See also:women, young persons and See also:children in agriculture " (1867), expressed considerable disappointment. Between 1710 and 1867, 7,660,413 statute acres were added to the cultivated See also:area of See also:England and See also:Wales, or about one-third of the area in cultivation at the latter date; and of this total, 484,893 acres were enclosed between 1845 and 1867. Of the latter, only 2119 acres were assigned as public allotments for gardens to the labouring poor. It was found to be the case, as it is now, that land was taken up more readily when offered privately and voluntarily than when it came through See also:official See also:sources. Mean-while competent and thoughtful men saw well that the sullen discontent of the peasantry continued, in Lord See also: A committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1885 to inquire into the See also:housing of the working classes, reported strongly in favour of allotments, and this was followed in 1887 by the Allotments Act—the first measure in which the principle of compulsory acquisition was admitted in regard to other than charity lands. Its See also:administration was first given to the sanitary authority, but passed to the See also:district See also:councils when these bodies were established in 1894. The See also:local See also:body is empowered to hire or purchase suitable land, and if they do not find any in the market they are to petition the See also:county See also:council, which after due inquiry may issue a See also:pro-visional See also:order compelling owners to sell land, and the Local See also:Government Board may introduce a bill into parliament to confirm the order. It was found that the sanitary authority did not carry out the See also:scheme, and in 1890 another act was passed for the purpose of allowing applicants for allotments, when the sanitary authority failed to provide land, to See also:appeal to the county council. Judging from the See also:evidence laid before the commission on agricultural depression (1894), the act of 1887 was not a conspicuous success. Most of the witnesses reported in such terms as these—” the Allotments Act has been quite inoperative in See also:Cornwall " ; " the act has been a dead See also:letter in the district (See also:Wigtownshire) " ; " the Allotments Act has not been in operation in Flintshire " ; " nothing has been done in the district of See also:Pembrokeshire under the act." No evidence whatever was adduced to show that in a single district a different See also:state of things had to be recorded. From a return presented by the Local Government Board to parliament in 1896 we learn that eighty-three rural sanitary authorities had acquired lama for allotment See also:prior to the 28th of See also:December 1894, the date at which these authorities ceased to exist under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894. Land was acquired by compulsory purchase in only one parish; by purchase or agreement in eighteen parishes; by hire by agreement in 132 parishes. The total acreage dealt with was 1836 acres I See also:rood 34 poles, and the total number of tenants 4711. The number of county councils that up to the same date had acquired land was twelve, and they had done so by compulsory purchase in one parish, by purchase or agreement in five parishes, by hire by agreement in twenty-four parishes. The total area dealt with was only 413 acres 1 rood 5 poles, and the total number of tenants 825. The See also:complete totals affected at the date of the return (See also:August 21, 1895) by the acts, therefore, were 2249 acres 2 roods 29 poles, and 5536 tenants. A considerable extension has taken place since.
The Small Holdings Act introduced by Mr See also: From the following table, which includes both the holdings owned and tenanted, it will be seen that between 1895 and 1904 the tendency was for the holdings to decrease in number; while the holdings of from 50 to 300 acres slightly increased, those from 5 to 50 acres were almost stationary, and there was a decrease in those between r and 5 acres. 1895. 1904. Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent. I to 5 acres 117,968 22.68 110,974 21.69 5 to 50 „ 235,481 45.28 232,476 45.44 50 to 300 „ 147,870 28.43 150,050 29.33 Above 300 „ 18,787 3.61 18,084 3.54 Total 520,106 See also:loo. 511,584 100 These figures become doubly instructive when considered in connexion with the decline of the strictly rural See also:population. It will, therefore, be useful to place beside them a See also:summary published in a report on the decline of rural population in Great Britain issued by the Board of Agriculture and See also:Fisheries in 1906. Class. 1881. 1891. 1901 (- Decrease ). 1881—1891. 1891—1901. No. No. No. No. No. Farmers and 279,126 277,943 277,694 -1,183 -249 Graziers Farm Bailiffs 22,895 21,453 27,317 -1,442 +5,864 and Foremen Shepherds 33,125 31,686 35,022 -1,439 +3,336 Agricultural La- 983,919 866,543 689,292 -117,376 — 177,251 bourers . These figures must of course be approximate. The effect of See also:recent development in methods of travelling and the growing custom for townsmen either to live wholly in the See also:country or to take See also:week-end cottages, has made it impossible to draw a strict See also:line of demarcation between rural and See also:urban populations. Still they are near enough for See also:practical purposes, and they amply justify the efforts of those who are trying to stay the rural exodus. While legislation had not, up to 1908, achieved any noteworthy result in the creation of small holdings, and still See also:left doubts as to the practicability of re-creating the English See also:yeoman by act of parliament, many successful efforts have been made by individuals. One of the most interesting is that of the See also:earl of See also:Carrington at See also:Sleaford in See also:Lincolnshire. In this case the most noteworthy feature is that between the landlord and the tenants there is a body called the See also:South Lincolnshire Small Holdings Association, which took 65o acres from Lord Carrington on a twenty years' See also:lease. These acres used to be let to four or five tenants. They were in 1905 divided among one hundred and seventy tenants. The Small Holders'Association guaranteed the rent, which See also:works out at about 33S. per acre, to Lord Carrington. They let the men on yearly tenancy have it at about 405. an acre, the difference being used to meet the expenses of dividing the lands into small holdings, maintaining drains, fences and roads connected with them, and other unavoidable outlays. In this way the landlord is assured of his rent, and the association has lost nothing, as the men were very punctual in their payments. But very great care was bestowed in choosing the men for the holdings. They were in a sense picked men, but men must be picked to See also:work the business satisfactorily. Lincolnshire is pre-eminently a county of small holdings, and the labouring residents in it have been accustomed to the management of them from their See also:infancy onwards. Here as elsewhere the See also:provision of suit-able houses formed a difficulty, some of the tenants having to walk several See also:miles to their holdings. Lord Carrington availed himself as much as possible of the buildings that existed, dividing the old farm houses so as to make them suitable for the small tenants. At Cowbit farm, many of the ordinary labourers' cottages, which were put up at a cost of about £300 a pair, have by the addition of little dairies and other alterations been made suitable for the tenants. From facts collected on the spot we have come to the conclusion that on the small holdings a good tenant makes an See also:average profit of about £4 an acre, but on an allotment cultivated by means of the See also:spade it would probably be at the See also:rate of over £6 an acre. Lord Carrington was also successful in establishing small holdings on the Humberston See also:estate in See also:North Lincolnshire and on his See also:Buckinghamshire estate, near See also:Aylesbury. At See also:Newport Pagnell the attempt failed because the demand was artificial, the ground arable, and the men not capable of dealing with it. Other examples of the See also:establishment of small holdings can only receive brief reference. The See also:Norfolk Small Holdings Association acquired three farms at Whissonsett, Watton and See also:Swaffham, which are broken up into small lots and let mostly to the See also:village tradespeople. Sir See also:Pearce See also:Edgecumbe established small holdings at Rew, some of which have been See also:purchased by the occupiers, and Mr A. B. See also:Markham created similar ownerships at Twyford (See also:Leicestershire). At See also:Cudworth in See also:Surrey a See also:group was formed, but the owners were actuated more by the See also:desire to See also:lead a simple See also:life than to prove the remunerative value of small holdings. Mr W. J. See also:Harris created small holdings in See also:Devon, each of which is let on a life tenancy. There the rural exodus has been more than arrested. Mr See also: This £5, however, is included in the total rent of £20 paid for cottage, land and garden. The man was not only content, but wished to get some more land. The next class consists of those who have not enough land to live on but eke out their livelihood by casual labour. Usually a man of this sort requires from 35 to 50 acres of land mostly pasture. He can attend to it and yet give a certain number of days to estate work. The third class is that of the small farmer who gains his entire livelihood from the land. The obstacle to breaking up large farms into small lies of course in the expense of providing the necessary equipment. It has been found here that a cottage suitable for a small farmer See also:costs about £400 to build in a substantial manner, and the outbuildings about £200. This makes an addition therefore of about £30 to the rent of the land. The ardour with which these tenancies were sought when vacant formed the best testimony to the soundness of the principle applied by Lord Harrowby. A See also:nest of small holdings was created at Winterslow, near See also:Salisbury, by See also:Major R. M. See also:Poore. The holders completed the purchase by 1906, and the work may be pronounced a complete success. Major Poore originally conceived the idea when land was cheap in 1892, owing to the depression in agriculture. He purchased an estate that came into the market at the time. The See also:price came to an average of £10 an acre, and the men themselves made the average for selling it out again £15 on a principle of instalments. His object was not to make any profit from the transaction, and he formed what is termed a Landholders' See also:Court, formed of the men themselves, every ten choosing one to represent them. This court was found to act well. It collected the instalments, which are paid in advance; and of course the members of it, down to the minutest detail, knew not only the circumstances but the See also:character of every applicant for land. The result speaks for itself. The owners are, in the true sense of the word, peasants. They do not depend on the land for a living, but work in various callings—many being woodmen—for wages that average about 15s. a week. The holdings vary in See also:size from less than an acre to ten acres, and are technically. held on a lease of 1999 years, practically See also:freehold, though by the See also:adoption of a leasehold form a saving was effected in the cost of See also:transfer. On the holdings most of the men have erected houses, using for the purpose See also:chalk dug up from their gardens, it lying only a few inches below the See also:surface. It is not See also:rock, but soft chalk, so that they are practically mud walls; but being as a See also:rule at least 18 inches thick, the houses are very cool in summer and warm in See also:winter. Major Poore calculated that in seven years these poor people—there are not See also:thirty of them altogether—managed to produce- for their houses and land a See also:gross sum of not less than £5000. This he attributed to the loyal manner in which even distant members of the family have helped. The class of holding which owes its existence to the act of 1892 may be illustrated by the history of the See also:Worcestershire small holdings. The inception of the scheme was due to the decline, of the See also:nail-making business, which caused a number of the inhabitants to be without occupation. Two candidates for See also:election to the county council looking out for a popular cry found it in the demand for land. They promised to do their best in this direction, and thanks to the energetic action of Mr See also:Willis Bund, the chairman, the act was put in force. Woodrow Farm, adjoining the village of Catshill in the neighbourhood of See also:Birmingham, was purchased on terms that enabled the land to be sold to the peasant See also:cultivator at £4o an acre. They were paying this back at the rate of 4 % on the purchase money, a rate that included both interest and-sinking fund, so that at the end of See also:forty years they would own the small estates See also:free from encumbrance. The huge population of Birmingham is close to the properties. The men turned their See also:attention mostly to strawberries, to which many acres were devoted. Costermongers would come out from Birmingham and buy the See also: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 See also:powers and duties of rural district councils; it required county councils to ascertain the demand for land without previous See also: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 See also: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 em-powered to do so in the alternative. See also: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 = 21 acres:- Occupied by Occupied by Owner. Tenant. Size of Holding. More More Total. Whole. than than Whole. half. half. No. No. No. No. No. 1-, acres and under 109,169 8,759 34,779 305,413 458,120 4 acres and under 27,395 19,544 58,829 70,465 176,233 5 acres . . 5 acres and under 12,089 13,873 30,340 25,006 81,308 to acres . . to acres and under 16,690 18,909 33,443 28,387 97,429 50 acres . . 50 or 100 acres . 2,021 1,497 3,315 4,517 11,350 Over too „ . 903 470 1,417 2,395 5,185 Total . 168,267 63,052 162,123 436,183 829,625 It will be seen from this table that See also: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 See also:Brabant. See also:East and See also:West See also: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 See also: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 See also: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 4o% of large farms of between 5o and 500 acres as compared with Germany's 12.6, while the latter small holdings, compared with England's 58.6. See also:France also has a far larger proportion of small holdings than Great Britain; its cultivated area of 85,759,000 acres being has 86.8 ofdivided into 5,618,000 See also: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 metayage, 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 See also: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-See also:sixth. Size Holdings. Germany. Great Britain. of Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent. 5 to 50 acres . 2,014,940 86.8 I 235,481 58.6 50 to 500 „ 292,982 12.6 161,438 40.1 Over 500 „ 13,809 o•6 5,219 t.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 See also: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 See also: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 See also:medium quality, but the limits are from 24 to 1o4 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 31 %, 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 See also:Treasury was empowered to devote a sum of 2,000,000 kr. Number and Size of Holdings in See also:Denmark in 1901. (£t 1 r,000) to this purpose for five years; after that the land is subject to revision. Even before this law was passed Denmark was a country of small holdings, the peasant farms amounting to 66 % of the See also:Groups. Number. Percentage Acreage. Percentage Average of of size in Tondeland. Acres. Number. Area. Acres. Under 1 . Under 1.36 68,38o 27.3 23,455 '3 '34 t-3 . . 1.36-4 18,777 7'5 58,553 •7 3'12 3 -27 . . 4 -36'7 93,060 37.2 1,408,549 15.8 15' 14 27 -108 . 36.7 -147 60,872 24'4 4,459,077 50.1 73.25 108 -216 . 147 -294 6,502 2.6 1,272,398 14.3 195.69 Over 216. Over 294 2,392 1.0 1,674,730 18.8 700.14 Total. 249,983 100.0 8,896,762 100.0 35' 59 whole, and the number is See also:bound to increase, since the See also:incorporation of farms is illegal, while there is no obstacle to their See also:division. Between 1835 and 1885, the number of small holdings of less than one tondekarthorn increased from 24,800 to 92,856. What gives point to these remarks is, that Denmark seems in the way to See also:arrest its rural exodus, and was one of the first countries to See also:escape from the agricultural depression due to the extraordinary fall in See also:grain prices. The See also:distribution of land in Denmark may be gathered from a glance at the preceding table for the compilation of which we are indebted to Major See also:Craigie. 1867 (See also:historical See also:sketch by Messrs Tremenheere and Tufnall); A Study of Small Holdings, by W. E. See also:Bear; The Law and the Labourer, by C. W. See also:Stubbs; " Agricultural Holdings in England and Abroad," by Major Craigie (Statistical Society's Journal, vol. i.) ; The Return to the Land, by Senator Jules See also:Meline; Land Reform, by the Right Hon. Jesse Collings, M.P.; Report on the Decline in the Agricultural Population of Great Britain, issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries; Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into and report upon the subject of Small Holdings in Great Britain. (P. A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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