CHAPTER XXVI 

 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION 



WHILE the readers of these pages may not agree with 

 every view I have advanced, the facts given afford, in 

 my humble opinion, ample justification for looking at 

 the present position and future prospects of British 

 agriculture always using this word in its widest sense 

 from a more sanguine standpoint than that which 

 is usually adopted. Great as the falling off has been 

 in some directions, I have shown that compensating 

 developments have taken place in others. Agriculture 

 has suffered, and suffered severely, in the past ; but the 

 experiences of those engaged therein have often enough 

 been paralleled in the industrial world. There are 

 industrial centres such as (Birmingham and Coventry), 

 which in the course of their history have seen once 

 prosperous industries decay, and even die out, because 

 of changes of fashion, new inventions, or foreign com- 

 petition ; but, though there has been a set-back for a time, 

 relief has been found in a resort either to new methods 

 or to new branches of production, with the result that the 

 towns in question have re-established their position, and 

 even, it may be, become more prosperous than before. 

 Had the agricultural world shown a like power of initia- 

 tive, a like fertility of resource, and a like recognition 

 of the need for changes in production or of method to 



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