4i6 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



" living " — in the sense in which Lord Beaconsfield used 

 the term, when bringing in his " Agricultural Holdings 

 Bill " in 1875. The proposal now made, namely, to con- 

 centrate the work of would-be small holders upon waste 

 land, is of course — admittedly — put forward with a view 

 to protecting present large tenants against disturbance 

 in the use of their holdings of old land for the benefit of 

 the coming small holders. And if the assignment of a 

 holding, to be paid for in rent or else by a terminable rent- 

 charge, really meant the giving of a " living," the plan would 

 be plausible enough. However, farming of every kind, 

 and more specifically this description of it, will yield a 

 " living " only if the farmer knows precisely how to make 

 one out of it. The " piping times " — in this case of war — 

 that is, of abnormally high prices — ^are, thank God, not 

 likely to last for ever. 



We have had some curious instances of false handling 

 of land— even cultivated land— in the course of past experi- 

 ences. I remember more in particular some in the, now 

 happily defunct, " EngHsh Land Colonisation Society," 

 in which settlements undertaken with great hopes turned 

 out miserable failures. What kind of settlers discharged 

 soldiers will make and whether they will take to settlement 

 at all, and stick to it, we do not yet know. Why then set 

 these inexperienced, untried men to work upon what is 

 really the most difficult task to be set to a cultivator of 

 the soil ? Many of these men are not likely to find much 

 " living " in it. And put them under State direction, supply 

 them with State means, and you destroy all spirit of self- 

 reliance and promise of the land reclaimed by such men 

 becoming an asset to the Nation — rather a white elephant. 

 In truth, reclamation of land is not by any means the 

 easy, self-regulating thing for which it is given out. Plough- 

 ing up pasture is one thing and reclaiming waste land 

 another. German discoveries are quoted, about saturating 

 the land to be cultivated with fertiHsing plant food, inocu- 

 lating it, and the rest of it. That is not all that is required. 

 And it is not practicable everywhere, as Germans them- 

 selves have discovered. On very much of their drift-sand 



