REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 67 



early days Sir J. Caird gave farmers the very reasonable 

 advice to grow that which would pay them best. " Tenants 

 should cultivate as much as possible that description of 

 produce which has a tendency to increase in value." And 

 there is no gainsaying the good sense of that. 



Are we in time of peace to keep our men and women 

 munition making? Are we in time of peace to keep up 

 our emergency army, because there may be a fresh war ? 

 Are we to deprive ourselves of the profitable production 

 of factories and workshops, of trade, banking and commerce, 

 in order to keep all our people under arms ? But that is 

 just what it is proposed that we should do in matters of 

 Agriculture — forgo the profitable, in order to push emer- 

 gency work. 



We are spending thousands of millions to purchase abiding 

 peace. Having paid that insurance, are we not to profit 

 by it ? Are we to go on as if we were uninsured ? That 

 does not seem worthy of a " Nation of Shopkeepers," — 

 which, put into less uncomplimentary language, means 

 " a Nation of Businessmen." 



Wheat is not the most paying crop, among other reasons, 

 because we cannot produce it of premier quality. It is 

 in our country an exotic. We grow it, and produce quan- 

 tity, but not quality. For baking purposes it has to be 

 mixed with grain from some more sun-warmed clime — 

 Hungary, or India, or, best of all, Manitoba. Cambridge 

 is hopeful of " breeding " a new type of wheat which is 

 to pass muster by itself with the baker, just as Pusa has 

 produced its famous " Pusa No. 12." However, Pusa is 

 operating in the wheat's own native land, or at an}^ rate 

 very near it. For it seems likely that the original home of 

 wheat was Mesopotamia. Cambridge is doing ver^^ clever 

 and very useful things. But it cannot produce sunshine 

 and sun warmth. And that is what wheat wants. It 

 likes a dry climate a.nd\v3innih— Aimee seche n' a jamais fait 

 pauvre son maUrc. Our wheat is greatly deficient in 

 gluten. Its gluten is described as " soft, moist, of great 

 extensibility and lacking in tenacity," which makes it 

 indifferent for baking purposes. The Germans have in their 



