8 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



" His Majesty's sandbox." There is also less moisture in 

 the German atmosphere, less recuperative power such as 

 our own climate has shown in 1917, and there is a con- 

 siderably longer winter. 



Here is the comparison : On an average, an acre of wheat 

 yields us 31-2 bushels, Germany 31-6 bushels ; an acre of 

 barley respectively 32-7 and 36-7 bushels ; an acre of oats 

 39 and 44'6 bushels ; an acre of potatoes (that is our one 

 good point) 6-2 and 5-4 bushels ; an acre of meadow hay 

 25-1 and 33-7 tons. The figures for milk are even more 

 against us per 100 acres, namely 17-1 tons to ourselves 

 and 28-1 tons to Germany. 



The figures quoted by Mr. Middleton are of course in 

 themselves incontestable, being taken from official returns. 

 In view of the large proportion of inferior land, and a good 

 deal of bad farming still surviving — as witness the late 

 German Chancellor's, Herr Michaelis, complaint about 

 the unsatisfactory condition of German Agriculture — they 

 represent even greater achievements than would appear 

 at first glance for the land that is well tilled. However, 

 they claim a few words of comment and explanation cal- 

 culated to give us heart of grace. 



To begin with, Germany is a country sacred in respect 

 of Agriculture to the use of the plough and the harrow, 

 whereas Great Britain has become a land mainly of pasture. 

 Now tillage yields incomparably more produce per acre 

 than does pasture, whatever agricultural lights of past ages 

 may have said in defence of the latter, " which saves you 

 the expense of carting off your produce to market, making 

 it walk there instead on its own legs." We have 40-35 

 per cent, of our land under pasture, to the German 3-23 

 per cent. That alone accounts for a great deal. Next, 

 as for cereals, Germany has 45-97 per cent, sown with them ; 

 we have only 19-50 per cent. And the contrast becomes 

 particularly glaring when we come to the useful and highly 

 remunerative crop of potatoes, which Germany rightly 

 favours, and which we very wrongly neglect. There the Ger- 

 man figure is 10-44 P^r cent., and ours only 1-59 per cent. 

 No wonder Germany outlasts a war famine better than 



