r 



December 15, 192 1] 



NATURE 



501 



The Study of Agricultural Economics.^ 

 By C. S. Or WIN, M.A. 



T T is now about five and twenty years since 

 ■*■ research and educational work in agriculture 

 began to be develop>ed seriously in this country. 

 Since that date a very great deal of effort has 

 been expended in investigating the forces by 

 which plant and animal life are controlled, and in 

 bringing natural science to bear in every way upon 

 the problems of food production. Work along 

 these lines has been productive of most valuable 

 results to the farmer; but at the same time the 

 fact has been overlooked that, when all is said, 

 farming is a business, and if it is to succeed as 

 such it must be carried on with a clear regard for 

 the economic forces which control the industry. 

 So, whilst desiring nothing but the fullest recog- 

 nition of work in the fields of natural science 

 applied to the investigation of farming problems, I 

 must express without any qualification the view 

 that the equal importance of the study of these 

 economic forces has never been adequately 

 recognised. 



Educational and research work in agriculture 

 which takes no account of the dominant 

 importance of economics must always be ill- 

 balanced and incomplete, for farming business re- 

 quires for its proper control a consideration of 

 human relationships, of markets, of transport, 

 and of many other matters which should come 

 within the purview of the economist, as well as, 

 or even more than, a consideration of questions 

 regarding the control of plant and animal growth 

 with which the man of science, in the limited sense 

 of the name, is concerned. No one could wish to 

 deny the need for the close and continual study 

 of the soil and the means by which it can be 

 made to produce more abundantly ; no one could 

 deny the need for research work in problems of 

 animal and plant life. But the main concern of 

 the farmer is to know not so much that which he 

 can grew and how best to grow it as that which 

 he can sell and how to sell it at a profit. Given 

 the necessary capital and labour, conditions may 

 be contrived under which any soil may be made 

 to produce any crop ; but the wisdom or otherwise 

 of embarking upon any particular form of pro- 

 duction can be determined only by a study of 

 economic forces. In Bedfordshire, for example, 

 considerable areas of very moderate land are met 

 with given up to a most intensive form of agri- 

 culture ; but land equally suitable for a similar 

 form of farming may be met with in many other 

 parts of the country which is producing not a 

 tenth part of the value in food products nor em- 

 ploying a tenth part of the capital and labour, 

 whilst at the same time the systems under which 

 it is farmed are fully justified by the results. 



The reason of the difference, as doubtless every- 

 one realises, is that the land in the former case is 

 so situated that it has access, in the first place, to 



1 Abridged from the pres'dential address delivered to Section M (Agricul- 

 ture) of the British Association at Edinbiire+i on September ij. 



NO. 2720, VOL. 108] 



supplies of organic manures on an abundant scale 

 and at a cheap price, and, in the second place, to 

 markets crying out for its produce, whilst one or 

 both of these facilities are denied to the other 

 areas. In the Chilterns district of Oxfordshire 

 farming a generation ago was mainly directed to 

 the production of corn and meat, and nothing that 

 has arisen out of the work of the investigators 

 along lines of natural science would have called 

 for any radical changes in agricultural policy on 

 these soils. But economic forces, inexorable in 

 their effect, have brought about a revolution, and 

 arable land previously under corn and sheep is 

 now laid down to grass or occupied with fodder 

 crops for the maintenance of the dairy herds 

 which have replaced sheep throughout the area. 

 Again, in the hill districts of England and Wales 

 there occur combes and valleys admirably adapted 

 by soil and climate to the production of potatoes, 

 and the highlands of Devonshire and Somerset 

 may be cited in illustration. In these places, how- 

 ever, in the majority of cases, even though good 

 markets may exist — Somerset, for example, im- 

 ports potatoes — the lack of transport facilities 

 makes it impossible for the farmers to produce 

 anything which does not go to market on four 

 legs. 



Coming last to the question of human rela- 

 tionships, we find that it is possible to organise 

 much more intensive forms of agriculture than 

 any of our own, which would be an enormous 

 advantage to a consuming nation like Britain ; 

 examples of such are to be met with in varying 

 degrees of intensity in many countries. The 

 Chinese, one reads, have increased production per 

 unit area to an almost incredible extent, and in a 

 lesser degree a similar state of affairs exists in 

 parts of France and in Belgium (so often held up 

 to us in this country as a model of productive 

 capacity which we should strive to emulate). But 

 in all these places the results are achieved only 

 by a prodigal use of labour. The nation gains, 

 no doubt, in the volume of produce available for 

 its consumption, but the individual producer, de- 

 prived under this system of the opportunity to 

 apply his manual effort in conjunction with an 

 adequate amount of capital and land, is sacrificed 

 to the consumer's advantage, and is driven to 

 spend himself, year in and year out, for a reward 

 for his toil to which the British worker, with so 

 many alternative openings in more profitable 

 directions available for him under our industrial 

 system, would never for one moment submit. 



These few illustrations may serve to indicate 

 the over-riding importance of the economic factor 

 in farming just as in any other business. It is a 

 common experience in industry that many scientific 

 and technical processes are possible which are not 

 profitable, and it is in the light of the profit that 

 they leave that all of them must be judged. 



