62 LAND SETTLEMENT & EDUCATION 



repay the credit granted to him, leads on one 

 hand to agencies for securing better and prompter 

 markets (Co-operative Dairies and Bacon Factories), 

 and on the other to the ehmination of losses by 

 co-operative spraying against fungus diseases in 

 potatoes, injurious insects and weeds (charlock), 

 and by measures against the agents of decom- 

 position (fruit and vegetable drying, preserving, 

 pickHng and jam-making). Indeed, co-operation is 

 the foundation of all modern food production : in 

 Belgium, where it does exist and flourish side by 

 side with an almost perfect system of agricultural 

 instruction, the rate of production per acre is five 

 times as high as on our land, where it is practically 

 non-existent. 



The need of providing adequate and efficient 

 expert advice of the best kind for all classes of food 

 producers, but especially on a colony which will 

 have to rely for its success upon a highly developed 

 system of intensive cultivation, requires no urging. 

 ^ One of the great advantages of settlement in fair- 

 sized groups is that the colony may be estabUshed 

 on land at some distance from a station or market 

 town, since the old difficulty of " distance has been 

 conquered by petrol." A large colony is financially 

 strong enough to have an efficient system of motor 

 transport for collection, distribution and passenger 

 trafiic ; and since distance no longer matters, land 

 may be got very much cheaper than it could other- 

 wise be bought. But cheap land means an enormous 

 saving in capital expenditure, and a proportionately 

 easier task for every settler on the colony. 



In regard to the question of annual charges 

 payable by the settlers, the merest common sense 

 dictates that the earher years of a settler's Ufe should 



