WHAT FARMERS HAVE TO REALISE 39 



the usual number of heads or legs, or of a cow, 

 which, " prompted by a desire to do her bit, had 

 given birth to triplets." 



FARM LABOUR DEMANDS SKILL 



Naturally one's inclination is to let by-gones be 

 by-gones, and to console oneself with the thought 

 that at last Britain has awakened to the fact that 

 there is such a thing in existence as British Agri- 

 culture. To forget the past, might, from the farmers' 

 standpoint, appear magnanimous. Nevertheless it 

 would be a serious error. In agriculture, at least, past 

 conditions are, in the absence of a crisis, apt to be 

 identical with conditions of the future. We cannot 

 afford to neglect the lessons of the past. " To cure is 

 the Voice of the Past; to prevent, the Divine Whisper 

 of the Present." 



True, we farmers were recently enjoined in 

 numerous pamphlets, lectures, and speeches, largely 

 emanating from those who had been ruling, or 

 rather misruling, the agricultural destinies of these 

 countries, to put more land under the plough. 

 Little heed, however, was paid by practical farmers 

 to these admonitions. The reason was not far to 

 seek. In Great Britain, at that time, we had one 

 Government Department advising farmers to put 

 more land under the plough, and another reducing 

 the supply of available labour so effectively as to 

 prevent them from carrying out all such excellent 

 advice. Attempts were then made to substitute 

 unskilled labour for skilled on the land, but as might 

 have been expected, and as every practical man did 

 expect, those efforts, to say the least of them, gave 

 very unsatisfactory results. 



