36 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



bringing all this large part of the rural population into 

 subjection to it, was great. 



Before drawing a conclusion from what as a main result 

 the Emperor and his Government have achieved by the new 

 policy of 1894, let us briefly review the specific features 

 distinguishing the position of their agricultural department 

 and agricultural community from ours, which have favoured, 

 as they may on the other hand have obstructed, German 

 agricultural progress. Those features, as it happens, stand 

 out so plainly that there is no mistaking them. 



Germany began, let it be repeated, on our ground, with 

 our seed. The implements employed were hers. But the 

 principle was ours. She accepted our rotation and our 

 high farming. That was the seed. It fell on good ground 

 — carefully prepared and tilled where it was not naturally 

 favourable. And its germination and growth were stimu- 

 lated by particular conditions. 



In the first place, German farmers distinctly are " a 

 reading class of people "—which we have Lord Somerville's 

 testimony, and that of other authorities as well in other 

 terms — that ours are not ; and " reading " in this applica- 

 tion of the word, of course, means more than mere perus- 

 ing books. Pushed on by the sense of their backwardness, 

 they were determined to exert themselves so as, if possible, 

 to outstrip us, their teachers, on our own ground. We 

 might be content to sit still like lazy Issachar between his 

 two burdens. Persuaded, as they were, that they were 

 the " coming " Nation, they would go farther. They 

 thoroughly believed in Education and made the most of it 

 — pedantic and over-meticulous about minutiae, as it might 

 be, but in any case teaching. Their chemists, their physio- 

 logists, all their army of scientific men, and all the best 

 among their practical men, set to work a-thinking and 

 dissecting, analysing and experimenting, tracing effects 

 minutely to their immediate causes, and determined, in 

 the stockbroker's phrase, to " run profits and cut losses " 

 — while our farmers were quite content to go on in their 

 humdrum routine way, retaining the bad along with the 

 good. For that work of analysis and research the Germans 



