REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 77 



And the profit " quoted " was not bad. However, the 

 " really knowledgeable farmer " is not forthcoming in any- 

 thing like sufficient numbers. He distinguishes himself 

 " on one side of the hedge." And on the other side and 

 all round there is backward old " leather jacket " farming, as 

 " grandfather " practised it in times when, as Lord Beacons- 

 field put it, there were still really " three livings " to be got 

 out of the land. In truth, the " really knowledgeable farmer " 

 does not exist in anything like adequate number to answer 

 the requirements of the Nation. 



" The real limitation," once more to quote Mr. Hall, " lies 

 in the lack of skill and enterprise among the farmers of the 

 country taken collectively." " The ordinary farmer," so he goes 

 on, " is a pretty good master of his craft. He knows how to 

 manage his land. He has an instinct for stock, and he gives 

 very little away in the practical day-to-day management of his 

 business. He is, however, very closely bound inside the routine 

 of his district ; he has little acquaintance with the methods by 

 which other people attain the same ends, and is impatient of 

 even attempting to think whether he cannot introduce modifica- 

 tions in his own system. He is apt to regard his style of farming 

 as inevitable, something that Nature imposes upon him and that 

 he ought not to attempt to alter. It is just this lack of flexi- 

 bility of mind, of the power to look abroad and consider his 

 business in a detached fashion as a whole, putting aside for the 

 time details which are otherwise essential, that marks the imper- 

 fection of the education of the farmer to-day." And again : 

 " What the ordinary farmer needs above all things is better 

 education. And by this we mean not so much additional know- 

 ledge of a technical sort, but a more flexible habit of mind and 

 the susceptibility to ideas that is acquired from acquaintance 

 with adifterent atmosphere." And once more : " We feel justi- 

 fied in concluding that the average British farmer is not educated 

 up to his position or his opportunities ; but it is not so much 

 technical education that is lacking as an awakening to ideas that 

 is acquired from acquaintance with a different atmosphere." 



The excessive preference given to grazing, which, barring 

 Mr. Prothero's temporary, very timely interference, land- 

 lords will not consent to have reduced — because, as Mr. 

 Hall shows in another place of his book quoted, they are 

 afraid that they might eventually have to pay over again 

 for a second laying down — is answerable for a good deal 



