EVOLUTION OF THE A.O.S. 99 



completely abandoned. Lord Winchilsea died on Sep- 

 tember 7th, 1899, his health having broken down as the direct 

 result of his excessive zeal in the interests of British 

 agriculture. 



REASONS FOR FAILURE. 



With the wisdom that comes after the event, the reasons 

 for the failure of the well-intentioned efforts on the part 

 alike of Lord Winchilsea and of the railway companies can 

 easily be given. 



Inquiry into the conditions under which the organisation 

 of agriculture had been successfully carried out in other 

 countries showed that a beginning had invariably been 

 made with the simplest forms of combination, and more 

 especially with combination for the joint purchase of agri- 

 cultural necessaries. In this way the advantages of co- 

 operation could be brought home to cultivators, who were 

 gradually educated in the theory and practice of combination 

 without having their suspicions aroused and their mutual 

 distrust stimulated by proposals that they should at once 

 alter their old conditions of trading in accordance with that 

 system of combination for transport or sale which really 

 constitutes, not the beginning of agricultural organisation, 

 but one of the most difficult and most complicated of all its 

 many phases. 



In the circumstances it was not surprising that the earlier 

 efforts here in question should have failed to secure the 

 desired results. While, also, they so far influenced public 

 opinion as to modify the popular view that " the railways 

 were the chief stumbling-block in the way of the development 

 of British agriculture," and to show that the most practical 

 means of effecting this development would be found in 

 agricultural organisation, these initial failures left the 

 impression that it was hopeless to attempt to secure that 

 remedy here because, as was said, " British farmers won't 

 combine." Thus the task to be attempted later on by others 

 who were convinced that British farmers would combine if 

 only they were approached in the right way was rendered 



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