50 POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS 



continually recruited by intelligence, and farming has 

 suffered doubly in that the more enterprising sons of 

 farmers have been tempted away by the greater possi- 

 bilities of commerce and manufactures, while at the 

 same time the business has been closed to the great bulk 

 of the community, who cannot be given a substantial 

 sum of money for their start in life. In France or 

 Germany it is always easy to find for the management 

 of an estate or agricultural enterprise, young men who 

 have added to a scientific training an apprenticeship in 

 a similar business ; such men are rare in Great Britain 

 because of the lack of opportunity of obtaining practical 

 training in a subordinate capacity. 



It will be argued that agricultural enterprises of 

 the type suggested are unlikely to be successful, 

 because farming is a business that cannot be reduced 

 to a system, as is demonstrated by the almost universal 

 failure of rich men and corporations who take it up 

 under the management of paid servants. Farming, it 

 is argued, is a personal business, dependent primarily 

 on the acumen and determination of the farmer in his 

 buying or selling — qualities that are only developed by 

 men working for their own pockets. So much is the 

 business affected by these personal factors, so little is it 

 determined by mere knowledge or organizing ability, 

 that it is useless to attempt to treat it industrially ; better 

 leave it to the enterprise of a number of individuals 

 working independently, some at least of whom will 

 manage to make a living. Such a view, which is 

 only another manifestation of that disbelief in the 

 value of intelligence to which Englishmen are prone, 

 is no more true of farming than of any other business. 

 The alleged failures have been conspicuous enongh 



