FINANCIAL ASPECTS 211 



places the farmer in a position of less dependence upon the 

 weather. 



For an emergency, a country with a considerable quantity 

 of arable land is much safer than a country containing much 

 grass land. It takes, roughly, from 8 to 10 lbs. of absolute 

 food of vegetable origin to produce i lb. of absolute food in 

 the form of meat, though some part of that vegetable food, 

 such as grass, is of no value for human consumption. The 

 advantage in an emergency of having plent}^ of tillage is very 

 marked, and if it had to be paid for in normal times the 

 expense must be looked upon as an insurance against mis- 

 fortune. To develop agriculture at home it is necessary to 

 have more capital, labour, and machines. Farmyard manure 

 must be better stored, more land should be cultivated, 

 market gardens and allotments in the vicinitj' of towns must 

 be increased. As far as possible, milk should be consumed 

 in preference to butter, but where milk cannot be transported, 

 owing to carriage difficulties, more attention should be paid 

 to the production of cheese. 



Increased facilities for cold storage of summer milk, 

 summer beef, and summer mutton would enable a larger 

 fraction of cattle food to be derived from grass. 



The Financial Aspects of Agriculture. —The supply 

 of better credit and capital to agriculture needs the earnest 

 attention of the Government. If the Government supply 

 a better security as regards prices, an improvement in credit 

 will follow automatically. The mere fixing of a price here 

 and there is no solution of the difficulty. Directly one 

 attempts to regulate prices, one must be prepared to go in 

 for the whole business thoroughly and systematically. The 

 attempt to fix a maxinmm price for wheat, and no maximum 

 price for meat, has the inevitable result that the farmer 

 directs his attention more to meat than to wheat, which is 

 directly opposite to what is wanted. A complete scheme 

 is required before action is taken. Of course, mistakes are 

 bound to be made at the beginnhig, but unnecessary changes 

 should be avoided. It is a rather striking fact that, in spite 

 of the great rise in the price of wheat, so little increase of 



