220 SELF-HELP NOT PEOTECTION 



outlay, freedom of and in contract, sliding scales for rent, 

 would remove the principal hindrances which scare away 

 improving tenants. Farms at present rentals may, it is 

 believed, be made to pay. Undoubtedly if farmers slumber 

 in their empty corn-bins dreaming of Protection, they will 

 be worn out before things wear round. But capable men 

 of energy and enterprise, wide awake to every chance of 

 profit — men who in personal expenses cut their coats to 

 their cloth, who thoroughly understand and keep the 

 master's eye upon their business — can, and do, make farm- 

 ing answer. They have, in many respects, rarely occupied a 

 more favourable position ; they have a choice of holdings 

 and their own terms. But profits do not lie in the old 

 ways, nor are fortunes to be expected. Profits lie in pennies 

 saved rather than in pennies made — in careful planning, 

 skilled management, economy of working expenses, minute 

 attention to detail. Many losses might be prevented or 

 controlled if farmers more often remembered that no 

 part of their holdings better repays tillage than their 

 heads. 



Profitable farming has been revolutionised by the an- 

 nihilation of time and space, and the reduction of freights 

 of ocean transit which steam and trade-depression have 

 together effected. But agriculture, like some heavy body 

 which has reached a high rate of speed, cannot be pulled 

 up abruptly. The machinery has ceased to drive it for- 

 ward, but the way that is still upon it carries it in the 

 direction of wheat. Yet the mass shows signs of breaking 

 off into different directions. Low farming takes the place 

 of high because it is safer. Holdings are reduced in size — 

 a change which may prove advantageous to agricultural 

 labourers ; breadths of arable land are diminished, and 

 farms better proportioned for mixed farming. Dairying, 



