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,