254 RURAL DENMARK 



fore if the opportunity comes his way there can be 

 no worthier occupation than to cultivate the land. 

 Moreover and this is the second answer I write 

 upon this subject, and what claim should I have to 

 do so if I did not study and make experiments, 

 both as one who works acres of his own and also 

 those that belong to others? Thus I learn both 

 sides of the matter, the landlord's side and the 

 tenant's side. I am aware that many think them- 

 selves quite competent to write and talk of agri- 

 culture who have never actually farmed. But surely 

 it is only those who do the thing that can really know. 

 Have we not been taught that an ounce of practice is 

 worth a pound of theories ? 



A larger subject remains to be discussed. Does 

 it pay to farm well in many parts of this country? 

 When all is said and done, is not the old-fashioned 

 tenant who " muddles along" with insufficient stock, 

 growing half crops and employing half the labour 

 that is needed per acre, wise in his generation? He 

 gets a good house to dwell in rent free ; to a great 

 extent he lives upon the produce that he grows ; his 

 expenses are small, his anxieties are lessened, and 

 he remains a person of some importance in his neigh- 

 bourhood. If he did better by the land, the extra 

 labour and manure would eat his added profit; he 

 would be no richer at the end. That is how he 

 argues, if he takes the trouble to argue. 



There is something to be said for this line of 

 reasoning. The sad truth is that under our present 

 system farming, high or low, except under exceptional 

 circumstances of markets, soil, and locality, or other 

 advantages, such as the breeding of pedigree stock, 

 scarcely pays its way, at any rate in this and some 



