RURAL PSYCHOLOGY. 169 



is to all weathers and climates from early life, with the hardy 

 constitution to make the ideal father of sturdy children. 



But this fine race of men are wrapped up in suspicion, and it 

 is hard to blame them for it. To-day, more than at any time 

 in the memory of any of us here to-night, is the awful suspicion 

 in the tenant-farmer's mind that any post may bring him notice 

 that his farm is going to be sold, as the landowner is selling the 

 outlying portions of his estate. The last thing I should wish 

 to do is to promote a discussion on security of tenure or other 

 political problems, but the distrust natural to the thought 

 by a tenant-farmer that his home may be broken up and pass 

 into other hands is bound to be conducive to a man not applying 

 all his business capabilities, and the cash resources at his command, 

 to further the business of Agriculture. 



There are other factors in the life of a tenant-farmer to make 

 him suspicious ; let me take only one as an example a farmer 

 with an early sample of corn to sell to a local corn-dealer. The 

 farmer has, perhaps, been working all the week at harvesting 

 and threshing, with possibly a late night or two with a calving 

 heifer or a sick horse, and is a genuinely tired man at the end 

 of his day. On the Saturday he takes his sample of corn to 

 market and meets there the dealer to whom he wishes to sell 

 it. This dealer was at Mark Lane on Monday, another market 

 on Tuesday, somewhere else on Wednesday, and so on. The 

 dealer knows the weather conditions that have prevailed in all 

 the districts where he attends markets : that wheat is good in 

 this district and oats and barley in that. The dealer's business 

 is to average his bulk of samples to try and make a profit at 

 Mark Lane the following Monday. The farmer can attend 

 none of these distant markets and is too tired to study the 

 corn-trade papers at the end of his day. Is it to be wondered 

 at that the farmer should distrust his power of selling at the best 

 price, and may possibly have some suspicion of the dealer, as 

 to whether he has paid him the top price for the sample he has 

 submitted ? I frankly own that I have been in that same 

 position myself, although I had better chances than the average 

 farmer of studying the markets. And so we find in this 

 example that wretched bugbear of suspicion hindering the 

 fullest development of the business of Agriculture. 



The third class necessary to this huge industry is the agri- 

 cultural worker, until quite recent years, unfortunately, almost 

 illiterate and uneducated. What chance have the older labourers 

 had in the past ? They have had practically no chance of 

 education and very often not enough food when youngsters 

 to stimulate growth of brain. Is it to be wondered at that 

 suspicion enters largely into their life ? Only a few years ago 

 the father of a family received 12s. and 155. for a week's work. 



