Farming Column

Opunake Times, 21 February 1933, Page 1

Farming Column

century still continues. Close acquaintances with a neighbouring small-holder convinced me that the small holding is not economically as efficient as the peasant farm. This typical smallholder secured a comfortable living for himself and his family, but the price paid was work from dawn till dark on almost every day of the year. He seemed little better off than the hired labourers who, though not highly paid, were amazingH industrious. From Iho English point of view their lives seemed somewhat drab and uninteresting. There was little in the way of organised recreations in this remote country district, and with increasing transport facilities there was a strong tendency among the young people to abandon the village social life and flock on Sundays into the nearest town, where the cinema formed one of the chief attractions. I could not help wondering whether the Danish rural community of the future will be prepared to w«rk from dawn till dark to support itself. It seemed at first sight that it could only be a matter of time" before tbe Danish rural workers demanded a working day more nearly approximately to that of the urban artisan, and incidently to, that of the English agricultural labourer. But closer acquaintances with this likeable people convinced me that there is in the ownership of the land a vervain contented pride, a certain something, indefinable and jncalulable i.n material terms, which mast make an enormous difference to their general outlook.