CONTENTS 



PAGE 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xi 



CHAPTER I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES i 



I. WAYS OF GETTING A LIVING. The subject matter of economics, i ; 

 "War as a means of livelihood, 2 ; Economic and uneconomic methods, 2 ; 

 Purpose of law and government, 3 ; Classification of economic methods, 4 ; 

 The fundamental industries, 5 ; Changing the environment, 6 ; Why man 

 dominates nature, 7 ; The pastoral stage, 8 ; Inefficiency of the hunting 

 and fishing stage, 9; Transcendent importance of agriculture 10; Why 

 agriculture is losing ground, 10; Extracting a living from other men, n. 



II. FARMING AS A WAY OF GETTING A LIVING. Conditions of agricultural 

 success, 13 ; Wherein the farmer is independent and wherein he is not, 14; 

 Seasonal character of agriculture, 17 ; Domestic character of agricul- 

 ture, 18; Farmers generally self-employed, 18 ; Reaction of business 

 upon life, 20 ; Relation of the sexes in farming communities, 22 ; The 

 rural districts the seed bed of the population, 25; Assumption "of urban 

 superiority, 26; Isolation the menace of farm life as congestion is of 

 city life, 27. 



CHAPTER II. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF MODERN AGRI- 

 CULTURE . . -. 29 



I. THE EARLY STAGES. Hunting not universal, 29 ; Our own ancestors 

 probably herdsmen, 30 ; Origin of the domestication of animals, 31 ; Reac- 

 tion of the pastoral life upon character, 33 ; Reaction upon civilization, 33 ; 

 Reaction upon family life, 34; Property in land, 35; Village commu- 

 nities, 35; Communal farming, 36; Private property in land, 38; The 

 open-field system, 38; The two-field system, 39; The three-field sys- 

 tem, 39 ; Lack of individual initiative, 40 ; Limited number of crops, 40 ; 

 The manorial system, 41 ; Description of a manor, 41 ; Origin of the 

 manor, 44 ; Inflexibility of the manorial system, 45 ; Decay of the manor, 

 4*5 ; Beginnings of commercial agriculture, 46 ; Inclosures, 46. 

 II THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. Our indebt- 

 ed ness to English agriculture, 48; Our indebtedness to other countries, 

 48 ; English indebtedness to the New World, 50 ; Transition to the modern 

 system of rural economy, 51 ; The growth of tenancy, 52 ; New crops, 52; 



