REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 71 



which we want as urgently, which wc can produce at a 

 good profit and much of which we could not with advantage 

 import from abroad. Every day new wants are making 

 themselves felt. And every day also, fortunately, Agricul- 

 ture is showing its capacity — though still on all too small 

 a scale — of rising to the occasion and meeting those wants. 

 Our lovers of old w^ays will have to recognise that times 

 have changed and still change. The old order has given 

 way to a new, in every country marching onward to perfect 

 civilisation. A country in the natural order of things, 

 according to what has been called " von Thiinen's law," 

 begins with forest and pasture. Pasturage gains on forest. 

 In course of time comes reclamation. Then enclosure. 

 Then comes extensive cultivation of cereals. As town 

 populations increase and spread out cereal fields recede. 

 Market gardens take their place. A belt of such gardens, 

 and grass fields of better quality, is formed round cities, 

 producing much more in the shape both of food and of 

 money than the cereal fields. That belt deepens as time 

 goes on. It keeps encroaching upon what remains of cereal 

 culture. We are in that stage now. Cereal cultivation 

 must give place to higher husbandry, as the Red Indian 

 has given place to the white man. We do not in the present 

 day (outside war-time) eat less bread. But we consume 

 more other articles. And, especially, as they pay better, 

 and are less fit for transport, they must be allowed the 

 preferential claim. Milk, above all things, we cannot 

 import in its fresh state. But it pays to produce it. And 

 milk — mainly by the light of foreign teaching — we are 

 learning to produce more scientifically and therefore of 

 more marketable quality. What with cow testing, analysing, 

 bacteriological examination and improved processes, it is 

 becoming better and better worth producing. It w^ants 

 pushing. Milk and dairying pay so well that Danes and 

 Dutch have given up wheat growing in their favour and beat 

 us with them in our own markets while, crying out for the 

 " wheat " which they have discarded as unprofitable, we 

 foolishly neglect the gold for the dross. British meat 

 will always be appreciated above other meat. We are 



