42 POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS 



from the producers and then grading and preparing 

 them for the larger market. 



(4) Economy in the use of the land itself. Over a 

 great part of the country fields are far too small for 

 cheap working, the hedges and banks occupy a notable 

 percentage of the total area and are in themselves 

 detrimental to the crops. Yet a farmer must have 

 several fields for the convenience of his stock, and when 

 working on a small scale he cannot face the expense 

 of removing hedges, straightening watercourses, and 

 otherwise improving the workability of his farm. 



(5) Economies effected by more skilful management. 

 A large enterprise can afford to pay for efficient direc- 

 tion and scientific advice. In particular a proper 

 system of book-keeping can be applied to a large farm, 

 and becomes of the utmost value by the way it enables 

 the direction to review results, detect mismanagement 

 and waste, and drop unprofitable branches of the 

 business. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance 

 of scientific book-keeping on a costs basis ; in all 

 modern productive businesses it forms the foundation 

 of the management, yet it has hardly been applied to 

 agriculture in Great Britain. With more efficient 

 management and the criticism provided by exact 

 accounts will come the power of intensifying the 

 production and of testing and developing new lines of 

 business. 



Agricultural enterprises of the character suggested 

 are few in the British Islands ; they can, however, be 

 paralleled by the estates growing rubber, copra, sugar 

 and other tropical products, but much more closely by 

 the domain farms worked by the great landowners and 



