54 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



given a great deal of care), for example, and the 

 custom of treating fruit trees as a kind of side- 

 line on land which produces also hay, or vege- 

 tables, or flowers. But I would defend its 

 main line of argument to-day as sound. It 

 seems to me still that England is pre-eminently 

 fitted for agriculture by soil and climate ; that 

 it was an unhappy development which sacrificed 

 the agricultural industry to the extent it was 

 sacrificed at the dawn of the industrial epoch. 



I know now that farming can be made to pay 

 in England, and does pay in many cases (between 

 1909 and 1913 there has been a steady improve- 

 ment). But it still seems to me true that farm- 

 ing as an industry is not a commercial investment, 

 but an enterprise largely subsidized by land- 

 owners from sentimental considerations ; and 

 that the acceptance as sound of the idea that 

 a landed estate may be satisfactorily regarded 

 when it is merely a dignified appanage to a title 

 of nobility, and not a profitable investment, is, 

 from a national point of view, mistaken policy, 

 however pleasant it may be in some of its effects 

 on social life. 



From the " Free Trade " era most of the 



