Land Problems and National Welfare 



of sheep and pigs were brought over from Eng- 

 land to supply the growing demand for meat. 



" And yet the cultivation of corn remained 

 unprofitable, for the increasing American export 

 inundated the country, unprotected as the lat- 

 ter was. Germany still held fast to the tradi- 

 tion of Free Trade. The German farmer, too, 

 was a Free Trader. The only branch of agri- 

 culture that paid at all was the cultivation of 

 sugar beet and potatoes. The fact was soon 

 discovered that by alternating corn and root 

 crops the land yielded far more corn ; sugar 

 factories sprang up all over Germany wherever 

 the nature of the soil permitted it ; and on 

 nearly every estate smoking chimneys showed 

 where starch and alcohol were being produced 

 from potatoes. Agricultural industry alone en- 

 abled the farmer to obtain some, though a 

 small, return from his land. But the fight 

 against foreign competition became gradually 

 harder ; Russia sent us cheaper rye than the 

 soil of Germany could produce, in spite of every 

 effort; America sent its superabundance of 

 wheat and meat, Australia its wool, while even 

 the Argentine and Canada seemed about to 

 become exporting countries. It looked as if 

 German agriculture would succumb under the 

 pressure of these circumstances ; the loss re- 

 sulting from corn-growing swallowed up the 

 profit made from the cultivation of roots, and 



42 



