66 



ill-adapted for modern conditions of locomotion, so the small farms 

 and smaller inclosures into which the country is divided make it 

 difficult for the farmer to take advantage of modern mechanical 

 inventions. It has already been pointed out that the numbers of 

 unnecessary hedges and fences not only waste valuable land, but also 

 hinder the performance of mechanical operations. Another great 

 hindrance in the path of the small farmer who wishes to take advantage 

 of mechanical power is the fact that the scale of his production does 

 not justify the use of his capital in these labour-saving appliances. 

 The process of hay-making, for example, has been revolutionised 

 during the last twenty years by the introduction of machinery, so that 

 on the best farms the grass is not touched by manual labour from the 

 time when it is cut to the time it reaches the mouths of the live-stock 

 which consume it. At the same time, the great majority of farmers 

 are unable to avail themselves of this process simply because the 

 interest and depreciation on the capital invested in the various machines 

 outweigh the saving of labour on the small areas to be dealt with. 

 Farmers who are thus compelled to forego these results of modern 

 invention are also deprived of another very considerable advantage 

 which helps to make the use of machinery so valuable on the farm. 

 This is the concentration of labour on any particular job requiring to 

 be done at speed. No farm manager can control the weather, but the 

 big organisation can make itself far less dependent upon it than the 

 small one. It is a common experience on heavy land that the soil 

 is too wet for ploughing in the late part of the winter, whilst a few 

 days of dry weather will bake it so hard that no implements can work 

 it. In the short time at his disposal between these two conditions, 

 the farmer may have been able to do no more than to draw a few 

 furrows across the fields, whereas if he had at his command the use of 

 steam or other form of mechanical power, he could probably get the 

 whole of the work done at the most favourable moment, working 

 double shifts, if necessary, and even day and night. 



We now come to the last and most important consideration of all, 

 namely, the position of the agricultural worker under a system of 

 large-scale production. Under the present system he is very largely 

 a Jack-of-all-trades, badly paid and often badly housed. It is not 

 surprising, therefore, that there should be a constant stream of migration 

 from the country on the part of the younger and more enterprising 

 men. While it is not possible or even desirable to check this movement 

 entirely, the fact is recognised that the country should not thus be 

 drained of the strongest and most intelligent of the men. Attempts 

 to deal with the situation have had little effect ; the result of the offer 

 of allotments has been, as statistics show, that only where wages 

 are unusually low is there any real demand for the allotment ; the 

 same would be true of the organisation of ' home industries ' for 

 labourers, and more particularly for their wives, for these are nothing 

 more or less than ' sweated industries.' The advocates of these systems 

 say, in effect, " we recognise that you cannot earn enough at agriculture 



