SOUTH AFRICAN AGRICULTUKK : AN ANAL^ SIS. I 53 



and thereafter rapidly increased the output until it reached in 



1913 72,858 tons; 



but the prices realised in England fell from £8 lis. $d. per ton 

 in 1904 to £/ 5s. id. per ton in 1908, and £6 9s. 5d. per ton in 

 1913; and now we have reached a point at which marketing in 

 another form has to be resorted to in order to find a wider de- 

 mand and so create stability or, we hope, greater prosperity for 

 this industry, namely, by exporting the bark extract in place of 

 the bark itself. 



If we analyse the statistics quoted, two outstanding facts are 

 observable. Firstly, there was a period of stagnation as regards 

 the production of wool and mohair in the last decade of the pre- 

 vious century, attributable, in my judgment, as I have already 

 mentioned, to diminished earning ])ower of farmers on account 

 of disease among stock, periods of drought, and visitations of 

 locusts, the destruction of which by arsenical poisoning was not 

 then known. Secondly, a period of imparalleled progress com- 

 menced in about 1905 to 1908, due to several favourable causes 

 operating simultaneously. In examining these causes, the 

 various products dealt with above fall into three grou]:)S : — 



r. Ji'twl and Ostrich I'catlicrs. — Much ijreatcr knovvlcdoe in l)rocriinL;, 

 management and marketin*); had heen acqnired. 



II. Ostridi Feafhcrs. ]Jai:zc, Fruit, and If 'attic Bark. — Oversea mar- 



kets had either l)een created or had extended. 



III. Butter. U'licat. and Sugar. — .A free internal market had been 



established over the whole of British Soutli Africa by a Customs 

 Unioii, and encouragin.t^ railwav rates liad been fixed. 



The lesson in regard to all three groups, and therefore in 

 regard to all our chief agricultural and pastoral products, is that 

 there is no educating factor as powerful as the creation of wealth. 

 There are several direct agencies to l)e employed for this purpose. 

 though some are more potent than others. Our needs lie in a 

 number of directions, all of which will, when applied, place 

 agriculture in the position, not of the chief industry, for that it 

 is already, but in a far better position than it holds to-da}' : rail- 

 ways to reduce distance ; suitable railwav rates ; better roads and 

 bridges ; better management of markets ; more education, agri- 

 cultural and general, and therefore a better opportunity to under- 

 stand the needs of plants and animals, and to assimilate technical 

 information; more irrigation, and better use of water; above all, 

 more business in agriculture, and wider markets. Hut when this 

 is said, what does it really amount to? At the bottom of all 

 our difficulties is distance, and always distance, and, surely, the 

 only ultimate means of reducing distance is population. We 

 must look to iK>])ulation as the first essential in the advancement 

 of agriculture : population to consume our products, population 

 to supplv the farmers' wants, population to make railway and 

 road extension economicallv advisable ; in short, pojmlation to 



