Full text: The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

2 
7. Small holdings, fields and parcels of land under 20 acres.— 
This group forms numerically a very substantial portion of the 
returns received by the Ministry, although in point of fact the 
160,000 separate occupations (excluding fruit and vegetable 
farms and poultry farms) only account for 1,340,000 acres, or 
5 per cent. of the total. It is moreover an exceedingly diverse 
group because, as already explained, it includes not only small 
holdings farmed for business, but also accommodation fields and 
summer grazings, land exceeding 1 acre attached to residential 
properties and other miscellaneous land separately returned. 
In order to get some idea of the extent of these holdings, the 
crop reporters were asked to separate as far as possible these 
returns, and although this division can obviously only be of a 
very approximate nature the result is of value as helping to some 
extent to indicate the true nature of these small holdings. From 
this, it appeared that out of 59,000 holdings of 1 to 5 acres, 
excluding fruit, vegetable and poultry farms, some 26,000 were 
classed as miscellaneous and not purely agricultural holdings. 
In the same way out of the 100,000 holdings between 5 and 20 
acres 19,000 were also put into that category. 
These 45,000 miscellaneous holdings are mostly pasture and 
carry less stock than the average holding of the same size, but 
at the same time it is evident that they are used for agricultural 
purposes, although they are not agricultural holdings in the 
proper sense of the word. 
In this connection, it may be mentioned that about 5,000 
holdings scattered about in the larger groups (chiefly 20-50 acres) 
were also classified by the crop reporters as being only partly or 
incidentally used for agriculture. In some cases, these included 
recreation grounds and parks used for grazing, but they were 
neither sufficient in number nor sufficiently definite in type to 
make it possible to separate them from the other holdings of the 
Jame size. 
Accommodation fields and summer grazings are naturally 
found largely in the dairying and grazing districts, though they 
occur pretty regularly throughout the country. Land attached 
to residential properties occurs to an appreciable extent in the 
south and south-east of the country. This is very largely due to 
the residential holdings of Berkshire and Surrey, which have 
22 per cent. of their total number of holdings in this category. 
while Kent, Sussex and the Isle of Wight each have over 10 per 
cent. Over 20 per cent. of the holdings in Hertford and Middlesex 
and over 10 per cent. of those in Buckingham, Gloucester, Warwick 
and Cheshire are in this category. 
The presence of this type of land makes the average figures 
of the distribution of crops and live stock on holdings under 
20 acres less likely to be typical or characteristic of a purely 
agricultural holding. Nevertheless they compare fairly well with 
the larger holdings.
	        
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