THE LAND 

 AND ITS PROBLEMS 



CHAPTER I 

 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 



THE review of the history of agricultural develop- 

 ment in the United Kingdom must needs be 

 brief in a book of this size ; it is a subject full of 

 interest and of importance, but we shall have to confine 

 ourselves to salient features and to that side of the story 

 which relates to efforts to increase the production of 

 food from the soil. 



For it is a matter of fundamental importance that the 

 land of the country shall produce the economic maximum 

 amount of food for its people — the word " economic " 

 is here used in its widest sense, and includes not only 

 financial considerations, but also the question of the 

 conditions under which the producers of primary wealth 

 live. For where the living conditions of the cultivators 

 are bad, production is uneconomic from the national 

 point of view. 



In this chapter I shall give first a brief sketch of the 

 state of agriculture in Britain for the past two thousand 



9 



