116 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

better organisation than small farms, and may ensure the
control of the land being held by men of wider experience,
superior training and knowledge, and more cultivated intelligence,
 men able to command more ready supplies of
capital for the carrying out of necessary improvements and
the securing of the most effective machinery. Greater power
to survive the strain of prolonged misfortune without suffering
a crippling of resources, and some advantage in conveying
to market and selling products on a larger scale, tell also
in favour of the larger farm. But the small farm has the
advantage of the direct superintendence of the farmer, the
man whose interests are at stake, in detail which on a large
farm must be left to subordinates. What labour is hired
may be stimulated to greater effort. Co-operation may, and
to some extent already does, remove some of the difficulties
of lack of capital, of knowledge, of access to the most suitable
appliances. These are some of the points to consider in
weighing the relative merits of the large farm and the small
one.
The sense of ownership has been cited on innumerable
occasions as a stimulus to effort aimed at improving the
property owned, and it need not be dwelt upon here. The
working owner of a small property may produce a gross
return beyond that secured by tenants of similar property.
It does not follow that net returns will compare favourably
for the peasant proprietor. He labours, frequently, for returns
 which would fail to provide the means of hiring labour
such as his. When comparisons are made between the
productiveness of land cultivated, in small holdings, by
owners and by tenants respectively, the difference between
gross and net returns is worth remembering. In addition,
a man of small resources may do better for himself if he do
not use so much of his resources in the purchase of land as
to leave him inadequate means to cultivate it to the best
advantage.
When a family secures its livelihood by working for hire,
the possession of a small plot of land may serve to render
useful much spare time and to add substantially to the
resources of the family. The measuring of cost of production