SMALL HOLDINGS. The term "small holding" was first given an arbitrary definition by the British Parliament in the Small Holdings Act of 1892. This empowered county councils to acquire land for the provisions of "small holdings"—i.e., holdings of not more than 5o acres in extent, or exceeding £50 in annual rateable value. (This sum was increased in 1926 to f Ioo.) But "legal definitions and arbitrary size limits have no relation—or at most a very rough relation—to economic facts." All holdings of agri cultural land fall into one of three classes from the economic point of view, viz.— I. Those which are cultivated personally by persons whose living is earned otherwise.
a. Those which are cultivated by the occupier (whether owner or tenant) and his family without help—or with only the occasional help—of hired labour.
3. Those which can only be cultivated with the regular help of hired labour.
The term "small holding" is sometimes applied to the first class—to which however in Great Britain the term "allotment" is more generally applied—but it is to the second class that it is properly confined. In other words a small holding is a "sub sistence" or "family" holding. It is, throughout the Continent, and over the greater part of the rest of the world where settled agriculture exists, the predominant form of land occupancy. There are in most continental countries a number of large farms (although post-war legislation has in some countries markedly reduced them) but small holdings represent the agrarian system of the greater part of Europe, as well as of India, Japan and China. In England under the feudal system, the typical holding was that of the villein, consisting of a number of detached strips in the common-field, but there were from the first in most manors, but more so in some parts of the country than others, a number of separate small holdings in exclusive occupation. As copyhold tenure gradually extended the number of small holdings increased.
England, throughout the prolonged modification and ultimate dis appearance of the feudal system, there was probably, on the whole, a gradual increase in the number of independent small holdings, mostly owned by the occupiers, or, in the case of copyhold hold ings, held in quasi-ownership. The progress of the movement was interrupted from time to time, notably by the Black Death and in the enclosing and land-grabbing period of the 15th and 16th centuries. But it is generally agreed by economic historians that on the whole the distribution of agricultural land in small hold ings, or "family" farms, continued more or less progressively down to the last great enclosure movement, which began in the latter part of the 18th century.
In a modern work on enclosure it is stated that "the movement for the enclosure of arable open and common fields has been a movement for the sweeping away of small holdings and small properties." This might be expressed differently as it is hardly justifiable to suggest that the abolition of small holdings was the chief object of enclosure. But whatever may have been the intention there is no doubt that the result was a drastic reduction in the number of small holdings. Thousands of small holdings consisted of a few acres of land attached to a cottage which gave rights of common. The common provided pasturage for cattle (in limited numbers) and for a horse or donkey, and without this the successful carrying on of the small holding was impos sible. When the common was enclosed an allotment of land pro portionate to his interest was made to the commoner, but this in many cases was little more than a mockery. The piece of land allotted might be far from his cottage, and as the obligation to fence it rested on the allottee it was of little value and an offer from a larger landowner to buy it was usually accepted. Thus the small holding disappeared and the small holder became a labourer.