1918] EDITORIAL. 103 



land, while wheat land produces about eighteen times as much. An 

 acre of these crops yield fifteen hundredweight of flour or six tons 

 of potatoes, as compared with one hundredweight of meat from an 

 i.cre of grass. The Board of Agriculture has shown that the grass 

 lands of the country were feeding about twenty persons per hundred 

 acres, whereas the same area of cultivated land feeds about eighty- 

 four persons. Moreover, as the president of the board has pointed 

 out, special emphasis was laid in the nineteenth century on the pro- 

 duction of quality, while the present situation emphasizes quantity. 

 •' This grave situation therefore insists that we should recast the 

 rules of good husbandry as imderstood by ourselves and practiced by 

 our forefathers." 



In the early stages of the war the main reliance was placed on ap- 

 peals to voluntary action and the organization of machinery for 

 stimulating greater production of staple foods. A proposal in 1915 

 to provide a guaranty for wheat as a means of inspiring the confi- 

 dence of farmers was rejected by the government. Such a fixing of 

 prices came later, and the past year especially has witnessed a gi-eat 

 change in the attitude toward agriculture. It has come nearer to 

 developing the foundation of an agricultural policy than anything 

 that has gone before, and has shown the possibility of quickly 

 etfecting changes of most sweeping character. 



Naturally, this has entailed a great many disturbances of long es- 

 t<iblished customs and systems in agriculture and resulted in inter- 

 ference in individual action to a degree heretofore unheard of. The 

 long list of orders, regulations, and prohibitions would have been 

 regarded as very highhanded and autocratic a short time ago, and on 

 the other hand things are now being done for the farmer which had 

 not been dreamed of before. For the British farmer has not been ac- 

 customed to the various forms of governmental aid and assistance so 

 prevalent in this country. 



At the outset of the war the farmer's labor and his horses, as well 

 as certain of his products, were largely claimed by the army. This 

 placed him under great disadvantage in even maintaining his usual 

 production. As early as 1915 the army requirement for hay approx- 

 imated one-fourth of the entire annual production. Farmers were 

 required to make returns as to the stocks on hand and to oifer their 

 supplies to avoid having them requisitioned. In 1916 and again in 

 1917, the Army Council took possession of all hay and of oat and 

 wheat straw, to be held subject to its disposal. 



Restrictions were placed by the food controller on the extent to 

 which cereals might be used, including ultimately the prohibition 

 of their use except for purposes of food and seed. License was re- 

 quired for buying or selling these products, and restrictions were 



