130 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



is not known, and indeed in a literal sense cannot be 

 known. In the last resort it can only be an estimate, and 

 an estimate which, however carefully compiled, must be 

 very approximate. The reason is apparent. Statistics 

 are collected at the ports of all our oversea supplies, but 

 for the food supplies produced at home there are no 

 complete returns. Estimates of a very large part of the 

 home supplies have recently been made in the Report on 

 the Agricultural Output issued by the Board of Agriculture 

 and Fisheries, but these cannot in the nature of things be 

 exhaustive. Until we can calculate the amount of food 

 grown or produced on private premises and consumed in 

 the households of the producers, we cannot claim to make 

 an accurate or complete statement of the food of the 

 nation. 



At the outset, it is necessary to define what we mean 

 by food. In the Trade Returns one of the main groups 

 in which imports and exports are classified is " Food, 

 drink and tobacco." There is little difficulty in excluding 

 the last item, for the most ardent devotee of My Lady 

 Nicotine will shrink from contending seriously that 

 tobacco can be classed as a food. At first sight it may 

 also seem easy to exclude drink, but it is not quite simple. 

 We may perhaps avoid controversy by excluding at once 

 all alcoholic liquors, but are cocoa, coffee and tea also to 

 be excluded ? Even if we were to exclude them as 

 doubtful, we are still left with one drink to which none 

 can deny the claim to be classed as food, viz., milk. In 

 the Trade Returns grouping, the term food includes not 

 only human food, but the imports of such grains as barley, 

 oats, buckwheat, maize, &c, which are only to a very 

 small extent used directly for human food. It is evident 

 that there is no ready-made definition by which we can 

 make an unchallengeable list of articles of food, and we 

 must, therefore, for the purpose of discussion, define the 

 term for ourselves. 



I propose to deal in this paper only with such commo- 



