150 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



city of the present day, already referred to, says with great truth : 

 ' We may fairly say that the ordinary farmer is a pretty good 

 master of his craft ; he knows how to manage his land, he has an 

 instinct for stock, and he gives very little away in the practical day- 

 to-day management of his business. He is, however, very closely 

 bound inside the routine of his district ; he has little acquaintance 

 with the methods by which other people attain the same ends, and 

 is impatient of even attempting to think whether he cannot intro- 

 duce modifications into his own system. He is apt to regard his 

 style of farming as inevitable, something that Nature imposes upon 

 him and that he ought not to attempt to alter. It is just this lack 

 of flexibility of mind, this power to look abroad and consider his 

 business in a detached fashion as a whole, putting aside for the time 

 details which are otherwise essential, that marks the imperfection 

 in the education of the farmer to-day." 



To " want of flexibility of mind " our author might have added 

 ' breadth of outlook." For it is not only pliancy and adaptability 

 that is wanted, but also a discerning the effect of methods or the 

 carrying of new theories into practice. However, our author goes on 

 to say : " America and the Colonies, so often quoted as examples 

 of modern farming, have nothing to teach us, and the lesson of the 

 highly-farmed continental countries — Holland, Belgium, Denmark 

 — is not the transplantation of this or that industry, but that intelli- 

 gence and foresight will be always finding openings for profit in 

 various directions." Now, with what is there said about " America 

 and the Colonies " I confess that I cannot at all agree ; and, in 

 respect of the Continent, I would extend the sphere of observation 

 a good bit beyond the three countries deservedly named. It is not, 

 of course, suggested that our farmers should become mere copyists 

 of their foreign or colonial craft-comrades and competitors, although 

 at some points there probably is room even for that ; and we have, 

 in point of fact, seen such points to be good and " copied " foreign 

 procedure. We are doing so now in the matter of a " pure milk " 

 market. We learnt that directly from the " Americans," whom our 

 author particularly singles out as having " nothing to teach us." 

 We are also to a considerable extent, now that we are bent upon 

 developing our milk yield, putting our cherished native breeds of 

 cattle, previously considered unequalled, on one side, in order to 

 make up good milking herds of such approved pail-fillers as Hol- 

 steins and Frieslands. We might very well, as we have been re- 

 commended to do, copy Dutch methods in the utilisation of our 

 peat. And when it comes to the Dutch wheat crop having been 



