SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 13 



o 



reflect that we ought, mutatis mutandis, to be able to graft 

 back again to our profit. 



Then let us see how Germany has done to reach her 

 present vantage point. The study cannot be unprofitable. 

 For Mr. Middleton has sufficiently shown that we may 

 find lessons to profit us in the inquiry, which may result 

 to our benefit. I approach the subject with some confidence 

 since, by a ruling of Providence, which I did not relish at 

 the time, I was fated to spend a good part of my youth 

 in Germany, being there engaged mainly with Agriculture, 

 to the study of which, comparing it all the time with 

 British, I devoted about twelve years of my hfe, observing 

 everywhere and farming for myself — a property of my 

 own of 1,000 acres, in Prussian Upper Lusatia — during six 

 years. My father having, on his retirement from business 

 in Leeds, gone to live at Dresden, it was natural that, during 

 my early years, he should have wished to keep me near him. 

 And, once interested in the matter, it is surely needless to 

 say that I have never lost touch with German Agriculture, 

 nor ceased watchfully to observe its progress. 



We must not conceive of German Agriculture as of one 

 homogeneous whole of unvarying quahty throughout, 

 " without spot or wrinkle." There is not a little bad 

 farming still in Germany, as Herr MichaeHs has confessed. 

 Nor must we conceive of it as affording to ourselves a model 

 to follow on all points. Indifferent husbandry apart, 

 there are many things in German farming, even successful 

 points, which would do anything but suit ourselves in 

 our very different circumstances. And there are points 

 also in respect of which we are the more advanced of the 

 two. But there are some outstanding points distinctly 

 deserving of attention and study. 



The principles of German Agriculture, as we see it now, 

 being borrowed from our own, by the way, is no exceptional 

 or solitary feature in German economy. For, admirable 

 adapters and perfecters as Germans unquestionably are, 

 their originating power seems limited. Their boasted ani- 

 line industry came from our Perkins. And their applied 

 chemistry generally, which, with peculiar aptitude for that 



