Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. The Land Laws of Finland
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sub-division. According to the land law of 1895, however,
it is still illegal to subdivide a farm into smaller areas
than twelve acres; in any case a holding of this size
must be responsible for the whole tax. This prejudice
against very small holdings, however mistaken, is not
confined to Finland. There is no object in trying to
retain any particular class of peasant, either when it is
proposed to subdivide land or when farms are being
amalgamated by large proprietors. It has been
remarked that the facilities for owning small allotments
have been made use of more by inhabitants of towns,
who have bought land, than by agricultural labourers.
It is, of course, an excellent practice that town-folk
should buy land in the country. It has become very
noticeable in the Eastern States of North America,
where thousands of farms have been deserted owing to
the fall in the price of grain and the competition of the
richer farm lands of the West, and large numbers of
these abandoned farms have been acquired by persons
in the neighbouring cities, to whom it is not only a
pleasure and recreation during the summer to farm
their land, but who can also cultivate it with better
result than the poor and uneducated men who formerly
owned it. Any movement in this direction is good.
In 1887, it was resolved to lend money without
interest in order to aid the formation of torps or
small plots of land for labourers in the eastern district
of Kuopio; and in 1892, another fund was opened to
help the subdivision of estates in other parts of the
country, especially the district of Vasa in the barren
interior of Ostrobothnia. It is a characteristic fact,
however, that many of the new proprietors, who had
obtained their holdings in this fashion, hastened to
re-sell them to other people. It is highly important
that the credit system should be enlarged so that
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