PREFACE vii 



supply and was pre-eminent among the nations of the 

 world in her agricultural processes and prosperity : 

 the disappearance of village industries, the waning 

 of the leadership of the Church, and the rise of 

 the country squire and the capitalist farmer in 

 the XVIIIth and XlXth centuries: the periodical 

 recrudescence during the last hundred years of 

 emancipatory labour movements, headed by such 

 sturdy countrymen as William Cobbett, Robert Owen 

 and Joseph Arch : the improvements in agricultural 

 machinery and rural science in the middle of the last 

 century : and finally the catastrophe of the great 

 agricultural depression which commenced in its late 

 seventies, which ruined landlords, farmers and labourers 

 alike and depleted the countryside both of men and 

 money. 



The writer lightly and hopefully touches upon the 

 rural Renaissance of the XXth century, now rudely 

 interrupted by the great European War. He rejoices, 

 as all who really love their country must rejoice, at 

 the improved amenities of village life, at the increasing 

 facilities for a more rational system of education, and 

 particularly at the spread of the Co-operative move- 

 ment, invading, as it rightly does, every branch of 

 agricultural activity, and not merely affording to 

 the small-holder and allotment-holder the commercial 

 advantages enjoyed by the larger farmer, but also 



