Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

200V. I. LENINNr. 9, litra C)* the compilers show the following changesin the number of farms according to groups:Groups of farmsPer cent increase or decrease1885 to 1895 1873 to 1885300 ha and over + 4.2 + 5.0200 to 300 ha 0 + 6.1120 to 200 ” + 5.2 + 5.180 to 120 ” – 1.5 – 2.140 to 80 ” – 2.4 – 5.020 to 40 ” + 1.0 + 3.610 to 20 ” + 2.8 + 6.52.5 to 10 ” – 1.9 + 3.20.3 to 2.5 ” + 2.1 + 17.80 to 0.3 ” + 25.1 + 37.9Thus, the increase takes place in dwarf farms, which areeither farms devoted to the cultivation of special crops orwage workers’ “farms”.This conclusion is worth noting, because apologist professorial“science” is inclined to deduce from the decreasein the average area of all farms that small-scale productionis beating large-scale production in agriculture. Actuallywe see progress in the largest-scale agriculture, stabilityin the sizes of farms in all groups except the very smallest,and the splitting-up of the farms in this last group. Thissplitting-up must be ascribed to the decline and impoverishmentof small-scale farming: another possible explanation,namely, the transition from agriculture in the narrowsense of the word to livestock farming, cannot be appliedto all the smallest farms, for this transition is takingplace in all groups, as we shall see in a moment. For thepurpose of judging the scale on which farming is conductedin a country like Denmark, statistics on livestock farmingare far more important than statistics on farm areas, becausefarming on different scales can be conducted on thesame area of land when livestock and dairy farming aredeveloping at a particularly fast rate.* Danish Statistics, etc., Danish Agriculture, 4th series, No. 9,Letter C.—Ed.