UNECONOMIC FARM UNITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 May 1941, Page 6

UNECONOMIC FARM UNITS

BRITAIN'S AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS. An examination of the size-groups of agricultural holdings in England shows a considerable range, writes Mr C. S. Orwin in the “Spectator." Omitting the holdings of less than 50 acres, there are about 140,000 holdings of all sizes, of which nearly 45 per cent range from 50 acres to 100 acres, about 45 per cent from 100 acres to 300 acres, while only some 10 per cent of the farms of England and Wales are more than 300 acres in extent. This in itself is proof of the need for reconstruction. On holdings mainly arable, what scope is there here for the use of the tractor and the implements and machinery that it operates? On holdings mainly grass, what opportunity for the milking machine and the Hosier bail? On arable and grass-holdings alike, is there any, scope for the exercise of management or any chance for the advancement of labour? What is true of the farming units is true of the enclosures of which they are compounded. They are not large enough, many of them, for the effective employment of modern machinery. Clearly a survey is needed —a survey which will lay out the land, district by district, in units fit for the "optimum" use of men, machinery and management in each district, just as it was surveyed and laid out in its present form, parish by parish, a hundred or two hundred years ago. to suit the conditions then obtaining.