FARMING, PAST AND FUTURE 79 



unlimited supplies of stolen food upon the agricultural 

 industry, or rather upon the farmers the captains 

 of industry of agriculture. 



Those who suffered may, as far as I am able to 

 judge, be divided roughly into three classes. 



The first class, by the accident of holding excep- 

 tionally good land, by the accident of farming in a 

 particularly favoured situation, or by that competence 

 which enabled the superman to combine the know- 

 ledge of the scientist with all the characteristics of a 

 first-class captain of industry, carried on in spite of 

 the flooding of the markets, on which they had to sell 

 their goods, with produce the result of theft. An 

 audience such as this will realize that the number 

 who could so carry on was very limited. 



The second and much larger class themselves 

 turned land-robbers to a greater or less degree. 

 It was not merely that four millions out of sixteen 

 millions of acres of arable land was lost to the plough 

 in England, but the whole level of production had to 

 be reduced. No farmer can complain at having to 

 compete with farmers, but when it comes to competi- 

 tion with men who have no rent, no manures, no 

 rates and taxes, and very little labour indeed to pay 

 for, it is a different question altogether. Scratch part 

 of the surface of a vast prairie, take a crop of wheat 

 grown on the fertility which the dead bodies of count- 

 less generations of weeds have accumulated for their 

 offspring, and then move on to do the same elsewhere, 

 and you have too cheap a form of production for the 

 average farmer to compete with. He has to work the 

 soil deeply, manure it, often drain it, so that the air, 

 water, and the great motive power of the world the 

 sun's rays may help his crop to such a good start in 

 life that the roots of the bread-winning plants may 

 search deep into the subsoil. There they will find 



