70 POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS 



the introduction of a certain amount of arable cultiva- 

 tion for cattle food. In such circumstances example 

 will have more effect than any amount of lecturing. 



The question of internal transport, again, requires 

 careful examination in the interests of better farming. 

 Though preferential rates to the foreign producer are 

 not allowed, without doubt they do exist in the form of 

 combined rail and steamship rates at a level designed to 

 meet the competition of a possible purely water-borne 

 traffic. Apart from these actual cases of preferential 

 treatment the British farmer compared with similar 

 producers in other countries is heavily handicapped by 

 high internal freights. It is not only in marketing his 

 produce that he suffers, but the cost of carriage is a 

 serious item in the price of materials like lime and 

 fertilizers ; his production would be improved if he could 

 make more use of seed corn, seed potatoes, etc., from a 

 distance ; in many directions the high railway charges 

 oppose an obstacle to the introduction of improved 

 methods. 



4. The Reclamation of Land, 



The area of land under cultivation in England rose 

 year by year from the date at which exact records 

 begin up to 1892 ; since then it has declined similarly 

 year by year, about 800,000 acres in all having been 

 lost. In the main this loss represents urban encroach- 

 ments which have no longer been balanced by the 

 bringing into cultivation of portions of the margin of 

 waste still existing in the country. The work of re- 

 claiming, which had been most active towards the middle 

 of the last century, proceeded in two ways : occasion- 

 ally, on a large scale, as a landlord's enterprise ; more 



