374 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



difficulty arises merely from the landlord's comparative 

 poverty. Why did we keep so much land under pasture 

 after the tyranny of bad times for wheat growing was 

 overpast ? Because landlords made it a covenant that 

 pasture, once laid down, however unsuitable the land 

 might be for pasture, must not be broken. Their fear was 

 that, once broken, it might have to be laid down afresh 

 and then it would be they who would have to pay the cost. 

 So pronounced and so widespread was this disinclination 

 that, to secure what food was possible at all from the waste- 

 fully laid down land, Mr. Prothero found himself compelled, 

 by means of the powers conferred upon him under the 

 Defence of the Realm Act, to override that covenant by 

 a temporary absolute annulhng of it. We know from the 

 evidence given before the Forestry Committee a few years 

 ago how much forest is allowed to run to waste, the good 

 trees being picked out for present money making, and the 

 rubbishy underwood being left, simply because the land- 

 lord has not the will, or else the money, to reafforest scien- 

 tifically. If we could reckon up the loss caused to the 

 Nation, on the one hand by the selection of inferior tenants, 

 on the other by the landlord's inability or unwillingness to 

 make called-for improvements, the reckoning would mount 

 up to a huge sum, from which it might easily be calculated 

 how much our present land system costs us, how much 

 shortage of food stuffs and timber has accrued to the Nation 

 in time of war, merely through the landlord's unwillingness 

 or inability to lay out the talent entrusted to him by the 

 Nation in the manner of the good servant of the parable. 

 But what are we to do ? Under our land system landlords 

 are for the most part life tenants. They have present 

 needs to think of. The future troubles them as little — 

 otherwise than in barren sentiment — as " Posterity " did 

 the Prince, who would do nothing for it, on the ground that 

 it had done nothing for him. I remember the case of a 

 Scotch Peer — who had inhabited a house in which I after- 

 wards occupied chambers — whose property was entailed in 

 the male line, and who was blessed by Providence with twelve 

 daughters but never a son. He could scarcely be expected 



