220 PLANT PRODUCTS 



labour must therefore be increased, and to increase the 

 efficiency of labour the ratio of machinery to men must be 

 increased, and also the ratio of manure to land must be 

 increased in order to economize labour. Where much hand 

 work can be put into the soil, very large crops can be raised, 

 without the expenditure of much manure. Extra labour will, 

 indeed, cure many of the troubles which the land suffers from, 

 although it may sometimes be more economical to employ the 

 soil fertilizers described in the earlier parts of this volume. 

 To increase the efficiency of labour, one must also consider 

 the question of management. One of the difficulties in the 

 way of industrialized farms is that the ratio of managers 

 to men must decrease, since the employment of many 

 managers would ruin the balance sheet. It will probably 

 be found that there is a limit to the industrialization of 

 agriculture, because, if you decrease the ratio of management 

 to labour, the labour will gradually become more and more 

 inefficient. Moreover, we require to increase the yield per 

 acre as much as anything else. It is the last quarter of 

 grain that takes the greatest amount of management, labour 

 and manure to obtain. High farming is only possible with 

 high prices, and unless the town labourer is prepared to 

 pay these high prices, and thus support his companion on 

 the farm, increased plant production becomes impossible. 

 If prices are increased, wages must also be increased. If 

 the farmer pays out much larger amounts of money for wages, 

 he, like any other business man, must make larger profits to 

 pay for the risks and interest on the capital that he handles, 

 and, indeed, this is truer of the farmer than it is of many 

 other business men, because the interval between the time 

 when he has to pay out and the time when he begins to 

 receive is, on the average, not less than six months. 



Education. Education concerns all classes on the 

 land. The landowner himself must be prepared to study 

 agriculture seriously, and to send his sons to receive an 

 agricultural education. At present the landowner is content 

 to send his son to the University for a purely classical 

 style of education, whereas he should prefer his son to 



