194 My Little Farm 



adaptable to that centralisation on the grand scale 

 which tempts a master mind to increase wages by 

 economising energy. In his own lifetime the late 

 Lord Armstrong got about ten thousand workers 

 organised on a bank of the Tyne, with the total 

 supervision within two miles, and vast possibilities 

 of invention and economy from so many minds 

 operating so closely ; but the supervision for as 

 many agricultural workers would spread over 

 100,000 acres, with the lives less associated for the 

 developments that arise from close play on one 

 another. Perhaps there is not much use appealing 

 to the farmer in this connection, but there are 

 many landlords who might profitably apply more 

 of their educated faculty to the labour problem 

 on their estates, by direct employment if they 

 cannot raise their tenants to the higher efficiency 

 which would enable them to pay better wages ; 

 and I believe a day is coming when the owner of 

 land must either make it useful or lose it. Badly 

 boycotted, on a bad tract of Galway, Lord 

 Ashtown makes a much better return on his 

 capital invested in this way than he could get 

 from stocks and shares ; and because he employs 

 his tenants and their sons, they have decided by 

 resolution not to purchase the land from him, 

 seeing that they have more from it in wages, 

 because the owner applies knowledge and capital 

 beyond their means. This example at Woodlawn 

 ought to be studied everywhere, and it is long 

 past the stage of experiment, having now been at 

 work for more than ten years, with the results 



