AGRICULTURE AND THE WAR 87 



and the financial resources of the country were one of the great weapons 

 with which Britain was fighting the war. To buy corn abroad was, further, 

 to make a call upon the mercantile marine which could be used for more pro- 

 fitable transactions; and it was to requisition fresh labour after the corn 

 had been imported, for unloading at the docks, reloading into trains and 

 distribution. Thus the importation of corn stuffs during the war was not 

 a strength but a weakness to the whole country. 



Wheat. — The country depended on two fundamental foodstuffs — 

 wheat and meat — and the last harvest had shown a serious decrease in the 

 area of wheat as compared with 1915. Last summer, in England and 

 Wales alone, the area under wheat which had been harvested had been less 

 by more than a quarter of a million acres than in 1915, and the average yield 

 over the reduced acreage would probably prove to have been considerably 

 less than in that A^ear (i). 



It was essential, with a view to the prospects for next summer, that 

 the maximum area should be planted with wheat in the coming months. 

 Although it was probabb; impossible to match the high results of 1915, what 

 could be done should and must be done. To plant wheat would paj- the 

 farmer, for prices would be remunerative next August even if peace w^ere 

 declared at Easter, and it would pay the country. It should be remembered 

 that the only basis on which the Board of Agriculture could press for the 

 retention on the land of all possible labour, was that the labour now avail- 

 able was being used to the utmost in the national interest, regardless of 

 whether the ultimate profit were going to be large or small. 



Live Stock. — In Somerset the work started by the Board of Agricul- 

 ture in connection with the Eive Stock Improvement vScheme had been taken 

 up as successfully as in any county in England, if not more so. The first 

 grant imder the scheme was made onlj" six months before the war broke 

 out, yet Somerset was now earning the maximum grant which the Board 

 was entitled to pay, namely £1,000 a year. 



The live stock societies in the county owned seventeen subsidized boars, 

 averaging £7. 6 s. in value a piece, and thirty-four bulls averaging over £40 

 in value a piece, and their record as to Shire horses was good. The improve- 

 ment effected by the Live Stock Scheme was illustrated by the fact that 

 these bulls replaced others, existing before the scheme, of which the average 

 value certainly did not reach £25. 



The first milk recording societ}^ under the Board's scheme was established 

 at Cadbury in April 19 14 and its members and others had realized that a 

 milk recording certificate had a definite commercial value. There were 

 two other milk recording societies in the count}' ; and all three had — in 

 spite of shortage of milkers and other war difficulties — made satisfactory' 

 progress. 



(i) The preliminary statement issued by the Board of Agriculture on i November 1916 

 showed the total production ot wheat in England and M'^ales in 1916 to have been of 

 6,942,559 qurs. — that is less by 1,500,000 qurs. than in 191 s but more than in 191 2 

 or'1913. 



