102 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



— or whether our national necessities do not require an 

 apportionment of grass to arable more nearly approaching 

 that of Germany ? In general terms looo acres of grass 

 land, and the stock which it carries, gives employment 

 to one-third the number of men employed upon looo 

 acres under the plough. 



So that for every looo acres laid down to grass less 

 labour by two-thirds is employed, and the other two- 

 thirds are driven from the land. 



Nationally, this is perhaps the most serious point of 

 all ; and bound up with the national point of view is the 

 imperial one. Imperially, we must have an over- 

 flowing agricultural population ; so that each year 

 we can send out to our Dominions overseas a certain 

 number of men born and brought up on the land, 

 without depleting our supply of cultivators at home. 



The second point is that the land must be made to 

 yield the maximum amount of food for the nation. And 

 land under the plough feeds more people than does 

 even the best grass land. Here are the facts as stated 

 by Sir Thomas Middleton, late of the Ministry of 

 Agriculture : — 



*' Taking the figures for the five-year period 1909-13, 

 it is apparent that live stock farming in the United 

 Kingdom was paramount. It may be shown that 

 36,000,000 acres were devoted to producing meat and 

 milk as against 2,950,000 to the growing of wheat and 

 potatoes. 



" The sales of live stock and of stock products totalled 

 some ^^151, 000,000 per annum, while wheat and potatoes 

 produced 3(^26,750,000 only. 



" The entire food supply of our live stock is not, 

 however, produced from the soil of the country. 



