Types of landownership
-
Landed
gentry (landlords – мелкопоместное
дворянство). They owe much land
and derive income chiefly from agricultural rents.
-
Owner
farmers. They owe their farms and land and live of the salt of
produce (живут на
продаже).
-
Tennant
farmers (арендаторы). They rent
their farms from the gentry and they make up the largest group in
modern Britain.
-
Laborers
(рабочие низкой
квалификации). They owe and
rent no land, but they work for wages for the farmers. The farm
laborers are descendant of the villager displaced from the land by
enclosure (огораживание
общинных земель).
So,
the tenant farmer is the characteristic countryman of modern Britain.
The farm laborer is usually an inhabitant of Eastern and Southern
England. In Wales, in the Highlands, the Pennines region and in
Northern Ireland the typical unit is the family farm in which the
farmer, his wife and his family can work the land without assistance.
Agriculture in Britain is highly mechanized and it is intensive
farming. Britain is able to satisfy more than one half of the
foodstuff. The rest is imported. But the home produce is of a very
high quality.
