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PREFATORY NOTE &i 



This book does not aim at being a Farmer's Compendium or 

 a Guide to Prospective Small-holders, but an urgent plea for 

 farmers to go out and dig up some of the hidden treasure in their 

 fields. Of course, farmers have really been trying to do that ever 

 ■ since the remotest days of antiquity. The trouble is that there is 

 - '■ a good deal too much of this antiquity evident in farming to-day. 

 Mr Gilbert says all this is not good enough. If farmers are to 

 make a decent living they have got to take their nightcaps offand 

 hunt round for a better way. Plenty of farmers have already dis- 

 covered that better way and are making money fast. Mr Gilbert, 

 who is a practical farmer, tells here of the methods by which 

 farmers in Lincolnshire are making fortunes. He pictures a 

 countryside flowing with motor-cars and money, full of straight- 

 backed independent farmers with good bank balances and a very 

 keen interest in politics. He tells us ofprosperous farmers who were 

 ten years ago poor labourers, and who instead of emigrating to 

 Canada, turned round and discovered England as a place in 

 £» which to grow a fortune. 



o5 And Mr Gilbert insists thatthissortofthingisgoingto increase, 

 cc England is one big mouth, he says, and it is our everlasting shame 

 ' that foreigners are feeding it. That is work for English farmersand 

 J-J he urges them to be up and about it. It can be done. You rise from 

 ^ this book feeling that undoubtedly it can be done. It requires a 

 judicious mixture of intelligence, attention and trades-unionism 

 and the business methods which make the city ironmonger or grocer 

 successful. Finally, Mr Gilbert wants to see the agricultural scien- 

 tist talking things over with the practical farmer. Why should it 

 not be done here as well as in Canada ? 



The book cannot fail to inspire a new hope in our agricultural 



assets. Its author looks over things with a far-reaching eye. He has 



a good deal to say of the farm of the future. That is as it should be, 



\ for it helps us to shape the farm of to-day. And he points out, too, 



.. in no uncertain way, the advantages of the well-placed farmer. 



I No other citizen is so well able to face national adversities as the 



" man whose daily food grows in his own fields, and whose 



capital is buried in the safe vaults of mother earth. 



For, as Mr Gilbert says, The Land Remains. 



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