REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 75 



position. It requires manuring heavier than that which 

 it has hitherto received. And for some time to come the 

 hmit at which " increasing returns " give place to " dimin- 

 ishing returns " — although in every case of course there is 

 such — may reasonably be left out of account — certainly 

 in those fields distinguished by the backward farming which 

 the Departmental Committee and other high authorities 

 have singled out as answerable for our deficient production. 

 Time was when we produced wheat that was then called 

 " fivefold." There may be farms now where we do so 

 still. But, generally speaking, we now produce " fourteen- 

 fold." That makes all the difference to the producing price 

 of the bushel. 



The story of our Agriculture of the past half-century 

 is not a particularly bright one. It has, as Mr. A. D. Hall 

 puts it, been " one of continuous decline." We began well. 

 We were the vanguard of the Agricultures of civilisation. 

 AU the world came to us to learn. However, the time of 

 trying arrived. And under our present system we were 

 not found equal to the probation. The time of trial found 

 out our weak spots. Tenants discovered that they were 

 being wronged. Being Britons they would not take it 

 " lying down," but combined to obtain redress. It was a 

 stirring time, agriculturally, the time of the Farmers' 

 Alliance. We were as forward in it in Sussex as farmers 

 anywhere. The Alliance fought and secured some relief — 

 without, however, exterminating what is considered to be 

 amiss. We still in the present day hear echoes of once 

 familiar battle cries and complaints — about covenants, 

 about rent raising, about excessive interference, about 

 failure to pay full compensation, and so on. During the 

 depression much, ver}^ much money was lost — and with 

 it heart and elasticity of enterprise. One notable conse- 

 quence, as observed, was the wholesale conversion of arable 

 land into pasture and the taking up what Mr. A. D. Hall 

 has appropriately called " lazy " farming — a warning 

 symptom of a widely diffused proclivity in the farming 

 class. The object was to save outgoings, above all things, 

 Labour, If it be argued that it was a necessary policy, 



