AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 365 



taking into a philanthropic institution, but by the 

 adoption of the improved methods, and especi- 

 ally of the principle of co-operation, rendered 

 necessary alike by the progress of agricultural 

 science, by the competition of new countries, by 

 the annihilation of distance through the im- 

 provement and the cheapening of facilities for 

 ocean transport, and by that industrialization 

 of agriculture which requires that the farmers 

 of to-day should study the science of marketing 

 just as thoroughly as the science of production. 



It is for the reader to say whether or not 

 I have succeeded in accomplishing this task ; 

 but for my own part I must affirm that such 

 investigation as I have been able to make into 

 the conditions existing in other countries has 

 profoundly impressed me with the changes 

 which are there being brought about — changes, 

 indeed, that are having a far wider influence 

 than simply on the fortunes of the individual 

 farmers. 



It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that 

 when some future historian deals with the closing 

 years of the nineteenth century, and the opening 

 years of the twentieth, he will, in his survey, 

 especially, of the countries of Continental Europe, 

 turn much more readily to the silent revolution 

 brought about in their rural districts, ;is the out- 



