CHAPTER II 



From our argument so far as it has now proceeded 

 it would seem that to better the lot of men only two 

 things are needful : one is to improve the plant and 

 the other to increase the strength of men. It would 

 seem that if this is -done labour must continuously 

 produce more, and that therefore to improve the 

 condition of men nothing more is required than to 

 prosecute the branches of study which deal with these 

 matters. 



While it is the case that a heightening of the 

 capacity of plants and men has this beneficial result, 

 and while in some parts of the world these are the only 

 factors that count, yet there is another factor which 

 is liable to come into play and to offset the benefits of 

 science, so that improvements and discoveries do not 

 have the effect in raising subsistence which they ought 

 to have. 



This effect follows from the constitution of the 

 domestic plant and the nature of the medium through 

 which it works — the land. It must be remembered 

 that the plant draws the materials which it is to 

 manufacture into food from its environment — its 

 energy from the sun, and the matter from the atmo- 

 sphere and the soil. The materials for the manufacture 

 of food through the plant should all or nearly all occur 

 at the spots chosen for the operations. Of the carbon 

 and atmospheric nitrogen this is always the case ; but 

 it is by no means true that the other ingredients are 

 present everywhere either to the amount or in the 



