1 8 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



We were very nearly too late in insisting 

 upon the invasion of private property and 

 setting the plough to work — very nearly. It 

 was not until the winter of 1917-18 that we 

 managed to plough up 1,806,601 acres of grass 

 land. The Corn Production Act was passed 

 in August 191 7, but what was more efficacious 

 in the enforcement of good cultivation was the 

 formation of County Agricultural Committees 

 with plenary powers. D.O.R.A. (2 m) speedily 

 became the community's Diana in the hunting 

 of big and little game. She, with shameless 

 effrontery, shot her shafts in the private deer 

 parks and the game preserve. Venison and 

 pheasant, strangely enough, appeared on tables 

 other than those of the rich. Landowners re- 

 garded this invasion of the rights of private 

 property with mixed feelings. Those who had 

 lost something far more precious than private 

 property resigned themselves to the will of the 

 nation ; others, who posed as patriots and sat 

 in the highest places of the realm, put up 

 a stubborn fight against this invasion by the 

 public, " For they had many possessions." 

 But they, too, had to succumb as the tractor 

 remorselessly ploughed its way through the 

 well-groomed turf of many an ancestral park. 

 Farmers, who had waited so long for a tariff 

 to give them high prices without the exertion 

 of producing more corn, now found themselves 

 harnessed to a machine which was driven by 



