50 THE ERRORS OF THE PAST 



of hostile economic forces represented by foreign 

 competition, high railway rates, and the middlemen, 

 while the Danish farmer has nothing to do but to 

 give all his attention to getting the utmost out of 

 his land. The rest he leaves to his partner, Co-opera- 

 tion, who buys for him, collects his produce and sells 

 it for him, and so retains for him the profit which 

 in^ this country goes into the pockets of the many 

 middlemen who stand between the producer and 

 consumer. 



But bad marketing conditions are not entirely 

 to blame, for there is another reason : methods of 

 cultivation. With us a small farm is too often culti- 

 vated extensively— as if it were a big farm. These 

 small farmers try, indeed, to do what the large 

 farmer is doing, without possessing the large 

 farmer's capital, command of credit, or even his 

 knowledge and experience. They fail to reaUse 

 that a small farm is quite a distinct branch of the 

 industry of food production, and that if it is to 

 justify its existence must be intensively cultivated. 



Belgium on 4,000,000 acres of land under culti- 

 vation produces annually £80,000,000 worth of food 

 for man and beast, while our 50,000,000 acres of 

 cultivated land produce about £200,000,000. 



The rate of production with us is about £4 per acre. 



In Belgium it is five times as high — £20. 



The explanation of this startling disproportion 

 undoubtedly is that far too high a proportion of 

 our land is under grass, and as I have already 

 shown, much of that grass is very poor and neglected. 

 The faith of the average farmer in grass is perhaps 

 the greatest of all the barriers to the development 

 of agriculture in this country. For arable land 

 can not only produce vast supplies of cereals, but 



