Conclusion 



207 



the average value of the wheat imported in 1908 and 1909 was 

 4 1, 700,000 \ 



The prophets of the nineties who held that the consumption of 

 such produce would soon cease to expand were therefore obviously 

 mistaken. The import figures prove that, on the contrary, the con- 

 sumption of precisely those articles which are produced by small 

 holders has vastly increased. There has also been an increase in the 

 consumption of products which are not imported, as fresh milk, which 

 has already been mentioned. Here again no figures are available, 

 but every authority on English agriculture admits the growth of the 

 consumption of milk as an undisputed fact. So Mr Anderson Graham 

 wrote in April I9O3 2 : " Mr Hunter Pringle was of opinion when he 

 wrote" (i.e. in his Report to the Commission of 1894) "that too many 

 people were going into this (the dairy) branch of farming, and that it 

 would be ruined by over-competition. Experience has not justified his 

 forecast. The consumption of milk appears to grow, not only with the 

 population, but per head." But the figures quoted above show that 

 this undoubted increase in the consumption of articles proper to the 

 small holder has by no means all inured to the benefit of the English 

 agriculturist. The increase in the stock kept, in the area under fruit 



1 Agricultural Statistics for 1909, p. 293. 



2 In the Morning Post of April n, 1903, p. i. 



