X '-' \?. 



, ^y:'iAci TME FUTU] 



V4<c^^20 THE F^JTU^E OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



n'Iferom. A^griaiUure did not benefit. Together with land, 

 everything else connected with Agriculture went up in 

 '^OVpr'ice^'at' a giant pace. " You have no idea how much we 

 iioviLhave to pay." That is what my whilom neighbours, 

 -=--■— a'M' other agriculturists in other parts of Germany, 

 told me on my subsequent visits. The prices of my day 

 had become a matter of ancient history. Above all things, 

 labour became alarmingly dearer. And it was just at the 

 point of labour that the shoe pinched most. The veritable 

 fortunes made out of sugar beet growing and potato distil- 

 ling were made in earher days. The halcyon time was 

 beginning to wane, by reason of competition and higher 

 duties, when I was in Germany. The competition follow- 

 ing in the wake of Protection— which was to make every 

 one rich— nipped them still further. Protection had pro- 

 duced the delusive behef among agriculturists of their 

 being favoured by a paternal Government. Such matters 

 as what seemed preferential tariffs on railways (which had 

 become Government property)— although French private 

 railway companies do just as much for agricultural produce 

 in their country— served to confirm that behef, which the 

 junker squires — who, 2iS junkers, certainly were, and continue 

 to be, richly befriended by Government for political purposes 

 — did not allow to evaporate. But agricultural production, 

 the business of Agriculture, has not been benefited by the 

 value of a stiver. 



The history of modern German Agriculture is popularly 

 supposed to have begun with " Father Thaer's " publication 

 of his " Principles of English Agriculture " in 1795 to 1804. 

 Thaer was— like Scharnhorst, whom we likewise allowed 

 to become a most useful servant of the Prussian Crown 

 —a Hanoverian, and, being one of King George the Third's 

 physicians in ordinary at Hanover, in that way learnt about 

 English farming. Starting his College at Celle, removing 

 it afterwards, on his receiving a call to a University chair 

 at Berlin, to Prussian Moglin, he certainly became the 

 "father" of distinctly German agricultural education. 

 However, his teaching did not really exercise widespread 

 influence on practical Agriculture. A new impulse was 



