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course, and the landlord engaged in running a home farm is usually 

 content to employ as bailiff a man who is nothing more than an elderly 

 farm labourer, and who has had no opportunity of learning anything 

 more than the practical side of farm work. Such a man, though not 

 infrequently put in charge of farming capital running into thousands 

 of pounds, rarely commands a wage of more than thirty shillings or 

 two pounds per week, and the employer gets from him work of a standard 

 corresponding to the standard of pay. With large scale production 

 would come a demand for trained men to act as managers of departments 

 and as scientific advisers, and many men who have that love of farming 

 inborn in most people, but who never give a serious thought to its 

 indulgence, would turn to agriculture as a profession just as they now 

 turn to engineering and other vocations, and in this way a new and 

 powerful force would be brought to bear upon the industry. 



Not only would the technical management of farming be greatly 

 stimulated by large-scale production, but the commercial organisation 

 would gain enormously. The study of markets and of marketing 

 would form an important branch of the work. The middleman is 

 not always the rapacious exploiter of producer and consumer that 

 he is so often represented as being, for not infrequently he is quite as 

 ignorant as the farmer of changes in supply and demand which occur 

 outside the narrow circle in which he moves ; but however this may be, 

 the big-scale enterprise would be to a large extent independent of him, 

 and would be able to place its foods on the best market, while it would 

 study simultaneously the questions of grading, packing, and trans- 

 porting produce, the difficulties surrounding which are quite beyond 

 the grasp of the small producer. 



The financial organisation of urban industries could be applied 

 equally to agriculture if the scale of operations warranted, and with 

 the same beneficial results. The farmer usually dismisses the question 

 of book-keeping with the remark that he has no time for accounts 

 and no money to pay a book-keeper, and so in directing his management 

 he is deprived of the great assistance provided by cost-accounting, nor 

 can he make the eloquent appeal through the balance-sheet when 

 seeking to finance his operations. It is the habit of farmers to obtain 

 their financial help by taking long credits with their merchants and 

 tradespeople, a method far more expensive than the risk demands, 

 or than many of the farmers realise. The large-scale enterprise with 

 its staff of accountants would find in its books the surest indications 

 of profitable developments, and would be able to influence in the 

 direction of English agriculture the flow of capital just now attracted 

 to rubber-growing in the Tropics, or to other industries in all parts 

 of the world. 



The development of the large, industrialised farm should therefore 

 go far to increase the amount of technical skill bearing upon agriculture, 

 and thus to increase production. It should also reduce the cost. 

 Just as the majority of our roads were laid out and constructed for 

 slow-moving vehicles and light transport, and are in consequence 



