far as area alone is concerned, fall into the small holdings group of 
20 acres and under. 
It will be seen that the farms and holdings of 20 acres and 
over, excluding any fruit, vegetable or poultry holdings of this 
size, cover over 93 per cent. of the total area returned to the 
Ministry. They thus account for the bulk of the agricultural 
area. The small holdings, fields and parcels of land under 
20 acres are very numerous, but owing to their mixed character 
they do not easily lend themselves to classification under any 
particular type. In fact, in this group we have, as already 
explained, not only the small holding proper, that is to say the 
agricultural holding which is carried on for business and is only 
differentiated from other agricultural holdings by its smaller size, 
but also a large number of separate fields, paddocks, &ec., used 
for agricultural purposes but not in any proper sense a ‘‘ holding,” 
and also a number of semi-residential and other properties which 
are cultivated and come within the scope of the returns and 
yet are not altogether comparable with the agricultural holding 
farmed for business. 
Leaving these small holdings out of account, there are 216,700 
holdings exceeding 20 acres in extent and covering a total area 
(excluding rough grazings) of over 24,000,000 acres. Of this 
group, 104,000, or nearly one-half, consist of holdings which are 
mainly pasture land. These cover over 9,000,000 acres out of 
the 24,000,000 acres. They thus have an average area of about 
90 acres each. The importance of this group both in point of 
number and of total area bears witness to the extent to which 
pasture prevails in the farming of the country. 
The converse to this group is found in the holdings which 
are mainly arable, and these number 39,600, or only 18 per cent. 
of the holdings over 20 acres, and account for about 5,500,000 
acres of land, with an average area of about 140 acres each. 
Between these two groups naturally come the mixed farms 
which have less than 70 per cent. of their area either in arable 
or in pasture, that is to say, farms where the area under arable 
and the area under permanent pasture are more nearly equal. 
These number nearly 73,000, or about 34 per cent. of the total, 
and cover an area of 9,500,000 acres or much the same ag the 
mainly pasture farms. They have an average area of 130 seres. 
The difference between some of the farms in this group and 
some of the farms in the other two groups is, of course, slight. 
Some of the “mixed farmg *’ have nearly 70 per cent. arable or 
70 per cent. pasture, and thus nearly fall into one of these groups, 
but on the whole it is thought that the divisions give a broad 
indication of the prevalence of arable farming on the one hand 
and of pasture on the other