7 o PEDIGREE BREEDING 



practice of the eighteenth century played a large part in the 

 success of the early nineteenth century, a success without which 

 this country might have fallen very low instead of rising to 

 eminence, as she did, at the opening of the twentieth century. 

 An exceptional instance of foresight on the part of a statesman 1 

 supplied money in 1910 for special advanced training in agri- 

 culture and for research in all matters connected with it. 

 Nothing, however, has been spent on the subject, though it is 

 admitted that the breeding of improved cattle played a very 

 large part in the improved agriculture which helped us to fight 

 the Napoleonic wars 2 . The authorities apparently decided that 

 practice was altogether unworthy of financial help and therefore 

 left the husbandman without any inducement to systematize 

 his knowledge. There is, however, no one in greater need of 

 systematic training in the practice of his profession than the 

 average farmer, and yet none of this money was made available 

 in the interests of work that might lead to empirical methods 

 becoming more accurate. Agricultural science, to which much 

 of the money granted since 1909 has been devoted, is bound to 

 be handicapped if it is not combined with a well thought-out 

 practice; for, after all, the teaching of chemistry, botany and the 

 like are of little use to the farmer if not superimposed upon good 

 husbandry. It seems to have been forgotten that it is practice, 

 the actual farming operations, that wins food from the land for 

 man. There was disappointment, discouragement, and morti- 

 fication amongst those who wished to help farmers and stock- 

 breeders by spreading knowledge of husbandry born of critical 

 and systematic research, at having no funds to meet the expenses 

 of the thorough and continuous investigations without which no 

 teaching can be really useful. Until a great and continuous 

 effort is made to systematize the work on farms, our husband- 

 men (like their cattle) will continue to have among them a few 

 of the best, and many of the worst, types of their profession. 

 If the history of the improvement of British breeds of cattle 



1 The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, the present Prime Minister, in his 

 famous Budget of 1909 put aside ^2,000,000 for the Development of 

 Agriculture. 



2 Napoleonic Studies, by J. Holland Rose, G. Bell and Son, pp. 195, 196 

 (and footnote, p. 196). 



