ALTERNATIVES TO WHEAT 3 



all classes of the community, and a consequent greater 

 ability to gratify the increasing taste for articles of 

 food, and other things besides, which had previously 

 been regarded by the lower-middle and artisan classes, 

 at least, as luxuries altogether beyond their means. 

 Apart, also, from any question of increased earnings, 

 the very fact of bread and meat being cheaper, by 

 reason of the abundant foreign supplies, naturally 

 allowed of more money being spent even where the 

 wages remained the same as before on extensions of, 

 and variations in, a hitherto more or less restricted 

 dietary. 



So it is (i) that the popular consumption in Great 

 Britain during the last two or three decades of milk, 

 cream, butter, vegetables, fruit, preserves, poultry, eggs, 

 etc., as supplementary to bread and meat, has been 

 greater than ever before in our history ; (2) that there 

 is a continued demand on the part of large sections 

 of the community for the best qualities of English or 

 Scotch meat, in spite of the large supplies of frozen or 

 chilled with w T hich other consumers are satisfied; and 

 (3) that the breeding of high-class live stock of all types 

 has undergone great expansion, partly in order to pro- 

 vide good dairy cattle and those best qualities of meat 

 already mentioned, and partly as a separate commercial 

 enterprise, to supply the requirements of countries 

 which have looked to Great Britain as the land whence 

 the best of breeding stock could be obtained. 



Home producers who either recognised at once these 

 newer wants and enlarged opportunities, and hastened 

 to take advantage of them, or else were already engaged 

 in what may be termed the ' lesser,' as distinct from the 

 * greater' agriculture, went through the period of 

 distress with comparative immunity, and did well, or 

 at least fairly well, at a time when large areas of land 



I 2 



