6 INTRODUCTORY 



the greater importance in view of the general attention 

 now being attracted in Great Britain to questions con- 

 cerning the land. If the country will only realize ade- 

 quately what can be done, and what is being done, with 

 land popularly supposed to have * gone out of cultiva- 

 tion,' more or less, because ' corn crops do not pay,' 

 there will be a still greater willingness to take practical 

 interest in schemes for a closer land settlement. To 

 my own mind it seemed that the securing of definite 

 facts, showing what was actually going on along these 

 particular lines, would be worth any possible amount of 

 trouble that might be involved in collecting them. The 

 restoration of wheat-growing to its former position in 

 this country may or may not be possible ; but assum- 

 ing, for the sake of argument, that the latter be the 

 case, then it becomes a matter of really national impor- 

 tance to see (i) what, under the continuance even of our 

 present economic and fiscal conditions, can be done with 

 the land instead; and (2) how far the new industries 

 which are either taking the place of, or at least consider- 

 ably supplementing, wheat production, are suitable for 

 the small holders whom it is desired to establish in 

 greater numbers on the soil. 



Combined with these problems there are others. 



Granted the capabilities of the land, as regards these 

 alternative purposes, how are the producers to gain the 

 best results from the enterprises they carry on ? Under 

 this head I propose to discuss various questions 

 connected with the theory of combination, and I hope 

 to adduce such evidence as will convince the reader 

 that here again a stage of transition has been un- 

 mistakably entered upon, as shown by the increasing 

 (though still far from complete) willingness to adopt 

 the principles and practice of co-operation. In connec- 

 tion with the idea of combination as a means of securing 



