I mean by this that there should be as many chances as possible for men and women who have an inclination for country pursuits to take up cultivation of the soil; the freest opportunity for experiment in making a living out of the land; and good chances for those who have started on the land ladder to rise to the top of it. The three things which stand in the way are:-- (i) The cost of building and equipment; (ii) The practice under which the cultivator provides all the movable capital; (iii) The handicap on free use of land imposed upon its owners by the compensation clauses of the Agriculture Act. These obstacles do real harm, in the first place, because a very large proportion of farms in this country are the wrong size: too large for a man to work with his hands, and too much for him to work with his head, as Sir Thomas Middleton has well said. Figures show quite conclusively that whether you take production per acre or production per man, the farm of from 100 to 150 acres is economically the worst-sized unit. Probably more than half of our farms lie between 70 and 100 acres. We should get far more out of the land if all were either below 80--so that a man and his family could manage them--or above 180, so that there would be a chance of applying to production the most scientific methods and up-to-date machinery. But movement, either towards breaking up existing holdings or throwing them together, will be extremely slow. The one process means building new houses and buildings, which is prohibitive in price; and the other, also fresh building and the abandonment of hearths and homes, which is prohibited both by price and by sentiment. Any change in either direction is almost prohibitive to the new poor landowner class, because if one makes any change, except when a tenant dies or moves of his own accord, one forfeits a year's rent.