100 THE FUTURE 



The linking up of agriculture with industries, 

 due to its logical development as the primary 

 source of all new wealth, leads with equal logic 

 to a set of conditions of the utmost importance 

 to the further harmonious development of both : 

 the best brains, influx of fresh capital, bold yet 

 cautious and far-seeing enterprise are no longer, 

 as they are still with us, the monopoly of other 

 industries, for the reason that modern scientific 

 husbandry and industrialised agriculture have 

 wiped out the harsh dividing line which still stands 

 like a forbidding Chinese wall between the two in 

 England. 



While our agriculture shows a tendency to decline, 

 on the Continent it has been developing all along 

 the line ; for science, practice and commerce have 

 formed a triple entente whose progress is irresistible. 

 That is the reason why Belgium on poorer soil than 

 ours produces five times our average per acre, and 

 also why Germany says she is confident of escaping 

 the strangle-hold of our blockade. In Germany 

 the ideal of public opinion instructed in the true 

 laws of national production and housekeeping was 

 to become entirely independent of all foreign 

 supplies of human and animal food, because her 

 people recognised the fundamental truth, to which 

 I alluded before, that the soil in the hands of the 

 modern farmer is an inexhaustible mine of wealth. 

 And her farmers accepted readily the dictum of 

 the scientists that there is no known limit to the 

 yield of the soil if it is worked under the most 

 favourable conditions. 



To obtain the optimum crop became an object 

 of equal importance and interest to farmers, com- 

 merce and the State. Hence we see the Distillers' 



