Now England is the classical country of the large farm as well as of the large estate. Its holdings have always been larger than those of other nations; they were so when half of them were owned by their occupiers, they are so still when they are rented from great landlords. The large farms have grown larger; a holding of 200 acres was counted a very large farm in the time of the Commonwealth; it would be considered a very moderate one in most English counties now. But yet the small farm has not gone the way of the small estate. The effects of consolidation have been balanced to such a degree by a simultaneous extension of the area of cultivation that the number of holdings in England is probably more considerable than it ever was before. If we may trust Gregory King's estimate, there were, 200 years ago, 310,000 occupiers of holdings in England, 160,000 owners, and 150,000 tenants; in 1880 there were, exclusive of allotments, which are now numerous, 295,313 holdings of 50 acres and under, and 414,804 holdings altogether. Moreover, the future of the small farm is much more hopeful than the future of the small estate or the small factory. All admit the small holding to be preferable to the large for dairy farming and market gardening; and dairy farms and market gardens are two classes of holdings that must continue to multiply with the growth of the great towns. But even with respect to corn crops, it is now coming to be well understood that the existing conditions of high farming would be better satisfied by a smaller size of holding than has been in most favour with agricultural reformers hitherto; because then, and then only, can the farmer be expected to bestow upon every rood of his ground that generous expenditure of capital, and that sedulous and minute care which are now necessary to make his business profitable. Without entering on the disputed question of the comparative productiveness of large and small farms, it ought to be remembered, in the first place, that the economic advantage of the large farm--the reason why the large farmer has been able to offer a higher rent than the smaller--is not so much because he produces more, as because he can afford to produce less; and, in the next place, that the small farmer has heretofore wrought, not only with worse appliances than the large--which perhaps he must always do--but also with less knowledge of the theory of his art, and worse conditions of tenure--in both of which respects we may look for improvement in the immediate future. Even as it is, we find small farmers equalling the highest production of the country. In the evidence before the Duke of Richmond's Commission, there is a case of a farmer of three acres producing 45 bushels per acre, or about twice the average of the season in those bad years that impoverished the larger farmers. The same body of evidence seems to prove that the small farmer has more staying power--a better capacity of weathering an agricultural crisis--than the large; for he has much less frequently petitioned for a reduction of rent--an advantage which landlords may be expected not to overlook. He enjoys, too, a monopoly of the superior efficiency of interested labour, and as the personal efficiency of the labourer--his skill, his knowledge, his watchfulness, his care--are becoming not less, but more important with the growth of scientific farming, whether in corn raising or cattle rearing, the small farm system will probably continue to hold, if not to enlarge, its place in modern agriculture; and if it is able to do so, it will constitute one of the best buttresses against the social revolution.