BRITISH FARMERS V. CONTINENTAL 367 



once threatened them ; and how, finally, they 

 promoted not alone the material, but the in- 

 tellectual, the social, and the moral advancement 

 of the agricultural communities. 



When, from a review of conditions such as 

 these, with their important influence on the 

 evolution of society and on the world's progress 

 in general, one turns to a comparison between the 

 typical Continental and the typical British farmer 

 of to-day, and traces the cause of the foreigner's 

 success, there are some strong contrasts to be ob- 

 served. The British farmer has been, in the main, 

 essentially an individualist, content to do as his 

 father before him did, depending more on tradition 

 and practice than on science, self-reliant and self- 

 sufficient, ever complaining of fate, and expect- 

 ing the world to adapt itself to his ideas instead 

 of looking to him to adapt his methods to 

 changed conditions. The foreign farmer who has 

 thoroughly imbibed the spirit of combination is a 

 man of a very different stamp. He gets his seeds, 

 his artificial manures, and his agricultural ap- 

 pliances through a local society, which in turn 

 arranges through a provincial or a national federa- 

 tion to buy such things, of trustworthy quality 

 and at the most favourable prices, and transport 

 them on the railway at wholesale rates ; another 

 society enables him to obtain the use of costly 



