2i6 PLANT PRODUCTS 



effective labour of one man, however, shows the greatest 

 conceivable variations. It is very difficult to represent this 

 in any very definite terms, but Government statistics enable 

 us to make some rough calculations, from which I should 

 conclude that one British agricultural worker by his labours 

 feeds about eight persons, one German agricultural worker 

 feeds about four persons, and one Indian agricultural worker 

 can feed no more than two, on the same scale of diet. How- 

 ever much doubt may be thrown upon the validity of any 

 such crude calculations, the order of merit in the three 

 cases is not likely to be seriously affected. The British 

 agricultural worker has been far the most efficient. There 

 are several reasons why such great differences are easily 

 explainable. The '' I^aw of Diminishing Returns" applies 

 with quite as much force to labour as it does to fertilizers: 

 Indeed, this is almost a self-evident proposition. A piece of 

 land growing nothing but weeds, with its first increment of 

 labour, will add hardly anything for human consumption, 

 but, as more and more labour is expended upon it, its 

 fertility rises, till, after a certain point, its limit is reached, 

 and further labour does no good. It, therefore, is inevitable 

 that there must be some point, in the application of labour 

 to the soil, when a maximum of efficiency of labour is 

 reached, after which the more work put upon the land the 

 less is the return per unit of labour. 



Further increase of arable land means taking up land 

 which is less suited for the purpose and putting upon the 

 land labour which is also, on the average, less suitable. 

 It is, therefore, urgently necessary to consider how the 

 efficiency of labour is to be increased, in order that we may 

 counteract the inevitable tendency to produce less per head 

 of labour employed. 



As regards the quantity of labour, there is a considerable 

 risk that England may lose her open-air population after 

 the war, just exactly when she wants it most. The future 

 may show that we are less prepared for peace than we were 

 for war. Both old and new sources of labour must be directed 

 to the land. There are a large number of men who were 



