ed 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.

Since Mr. Haggard's tour the black clouds which have so lon