SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 5 



really a good prospect of the submarines starving us, so 

 that that sensational cry was proved to have done harm, 

 rather than good. " // nc faut jamais defier un foil de 

 mal faire." 



But even without such excessive apprehensiveness we were 

 warned since a very long time. We are beholden to the 

 proprietors of the Times newspaper for most illuminating 

 and instructive reports on inquiries of a less sensational 

 but far more useful character, conducted periodically by 

 agriculturists of the first rank, commissioned to take stock 

 of the condition of our Agriculture, such as Sir James 

 Caird (whom not a few of us remember in St. James's 

 Square) nearly sixty years ago, and Mr. A. D, Hall only a 

 few summers back. Mr. A. D. Hall's letters tell their own 

 tale — of brilliant light, coupled with creditable variety, 

 and disclosing much masterly skill and command of resource, 

 but also of very, very dark shade, which shade unfortunately 

 greatly predominates. However, practically precisely the 

 same tale was told under both aspects — suited to the period, 

 in 1850-51, by Sir James Caird — down to the really shaming 

 particular of splendid light prevailing " on one side of the 

 hedge," with the darkest of shades, to set it off, oppressing 

 the view, " on the other," only a few inches off — on the 

 same soil in the same climate, probably under the same 

 landlord, and conceivably under the same terms as to 

 rent. The little Hght, however brilliant in brightness, 

 unfortunately will not redeem the darkness of the shade. 

 Taking it as a whole, our Agriculture is not at present a 

 matter really to be proud of. 



"It was manifest from the evidence laid before us," 

 so reports the Departmental Food Committee presided 

 over by Lord Milner, and composed, among others, of such 

 unquestionably highly competent and experienced men as 

 the present President of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries, Mr. R. E. Prothero, and Mr. E. Strutt and Mr. 

 A. D. Hall, " that, speaking generally, the land of England 

 is being kept at a comparatively low level of cultivation 

 and that it might be made to produce a greater amount of 

 1 "A Pilgrimage of British Farming," p. 432. 



