32 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



capital. So little had our agriculturists heard of it that they wholly 

 disbelieved my story, and not only charged me with romancing but 

 tried to prove that the very thing, which nevertheless was an estab- 

 lished fact, was inherently impossible. And so our agriculture has 

 had to pass through a time when co-operative credit would have 

 been a most precious boon to it, without such help. 



I have, as it happens, two instances that I can quote from my 

 own experience which show very clearly, what the taking notice of 

 what is being done in other countries will effect. 



One is the case of German agriculture. Fifty and sixty years ago, 

 when our agriculture admittedly occupied the first place among 

 nations, I found German agriculturists very keen upon studying 

 it and learning about it at close quarters. I was in Germany at the 

 time and was, of course, freely questioned. People wanted to see for 

 themselves. The agricultural press of Germany was full of British 

 methods. Quite a " library " of books was published about " Eng- 

 lish " agriculture. Dr. Lobe, the principal of the Agricultural College 

 of Liitzschena, in Saxony, brought out a bulky volume — and a very 

 good volume it was — about English farm implements and machinery, 

 which volume had a capital sale and really revolutionised German 

 machinery and implement-making. I believe that at that time 

 Garretts and Fowlers had not yet opened their German branch 

 factories, for which Dr. Lobe's book in great part made the initial 

 running. Even such books as one on English farm buildings, by 

 one Andrews — a book which could not have the slightest value for 

 farmers in Germany, where buildings of a totally different sort are 

 required, and, according to local custom, are set up in an entirely 

 different way — was considered worth translating and bringing out 

 by no less an authority than the then Principal of the Agricultural 

 Section of Bonn University, Dr. Hartstein. Germans came over to 

 study our agricultural ways on the spot. And you now see the 

 result. Germans did not blindly copy, as our author just quoted 

 warns us on our part not to do. They stuck to their barns in place 

 of our favoured ricks, and they continued raising their fodder crops 

 on ploughed land, and keeping their beasts under cover in place of 

 adopting our system of pasturing. But they learnt a good deal all 

 the same, so much that, on some points — witness Sir Th. Middleton's 

 report and Lord Selborne's confession made at Lincoln — they now 

 beat us. 



My other instance is that of our co-operative organisations. 

 Thirty years ago I found them wrapped up in themselves, not 

 knowing— so the late J. C. Gray, General Secretary of the Co- 



