xii PREFACE 



as well as I do, and will be only delighted to do it 

 for the farmers whenever the nation has the sense 

 to relieve them of the politician. I need not 

 waste space on the personal aspect of the matter, 

 having no personal complaint to make. 



The farmer himself is our last court of appeal, 

 and his law of jurisprudence is his pocket. He 

 can apply his own tests to the demonstration I 

 submit, which is not an academic experiment, 

 but actual work done at a profit. I offer him 

 no quack short cut to a pet obsession, but a 

 careful account of long experience on the farm 

 all round. I do not ask him to drop what he is 

 doing and to start something he has never done, 

 in which he would probably do worse. The profit 

 of production depends less on the product than on 

 the producer, and he must depend on the capacity 

 derived from his own experience. He cannot 

 depend on the experience of others, however 

 profitable, in forms of production that are strange 

 to him. What he is doing is what I am doing, 

 but I am doing most of it differently, and doing 

 my best to show him how he can pocket the gain 

 of the difference. He will find it attempted in 

 three main sections : (i) How the land can increase 

 its production ; (2) how the value of the produce 

 can be farther increased in consumption ; and 

 (3) a collection of somewhat various matter 

 throwing farther light on the other two. 



The little farm, however profitable in itself, 

 cannot remunerate me at my rate as a writing 

 man, and the difference, on the time given to it, 



