The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1757028552

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-135495

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XV, 152 Seiten; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VII. Number and size of holdings

Collection:: Economics Books

from occupiers of all agricultural land exceeding one acre in extent, and agricultural land is defined as including land used as ‘““ grazing meadow or pasture land or orchard or any land used wholly or mainly for the purpose of the trade or business of a market gardener or nurseryman.” There is, consequently, & good deal of pasture land in separate and detached fields, or In parks, or attached to residential properties which is separately and quite properly returned, but these parcels of land may or may not be farmed for business. In any case, they are not what is usually understood by the expression agricultural holding.” In the main, however, these separate pieces of land are found in the groups under 20 acres, and, broadly speaking, the holdings above that size are usually farms or small holdings. On the other hand, the land included in the groups below 20 acres is very mixed in character. 2. Changes in the numbers of holdings over 50 years.—In considering the changes in the numbers of holdings in the country it must be premised that the returns made annually to the Ministry cannot be regarded as absolutely complete as regards the quite small pieces of land referred to above. The difficulty of tracing and identifying small areas is obvious, and in practice a number of such holdings are bound to escape the vigilance of the officers responsible for collecting the returns. This has always been reeognised, but it has been considered that the task of obtaining absolutely complete returns would involve an expenditure in labour and money disproportionate to the value of the increased accuracy obtained. The holdings which escape enumeration are almost all of small size, and, so far as the main object of the annual returns is concerned—that is to say, the ascertaining of the acreage of the principal crops and the numbers of live stock—the resulting error of omission is insignificant. It is only in regard to questions affecting the increase or decrease of holdings under five acres, and possibly to some extent of holdings between five and twenty acres, that the lack of completeness in the figures is of material Importance. There are various reasons which account for the change in the numbers of occupied holdings from year to year. On the one hand there is the loss of farms through urban encroachment, and this exercises a particularly serious effect upon small holdings, which tend to cluster on the outskirts of towns. Operating in the same direction is a tendency to amalgamate holdings in some districts. Against these factors, however, there were in the early years of the returns the continued inclusion of outlying and small farms previously overlooked, and the enclosure of land hitherto uncultivated, this reclaimed land frequently being divided into ¥ number of smaller holdings. Throughout the returns, also,

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