74 Agriculture and the Community. 



as to weed out the inefficient and indifferent landowners 

 and farmers ; the second is the development of new methods 

 of farmings ; and the third is the improvement and 

 reclamation of land suitable for agriculture. In each of 

 these directions it is important that the work of research, 

 demonstration and education at present going on should 

 be more fully developed, and the closest relations kept 

 between the scientific side and the practical work. 



Control of Land and Cultivation. 



Under the Corn Production Act powers were given to 

 the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Board of Agriculture 

 for Scotland, to enforce a standard of cultivation. These 

 powers were not used to any extent during the War, as 

 it was found simpler to rely upon the powers under the 

 Defence of the Realm Acts. By virtue of these powers a 

 considerable amount was done, principally in the direction 

 of breaking up grass land and in securing an increased 

 acreage devoted to cereals. The Ag^riculture Act, 1920, 

 was introduced to make permanent the provisions of the 

 Corn Production Act, and as it was first drafted, did 

 promise to give powers which could have been used to 

 deal with owners and tenants who were failing to make 

 proper use of the land they controlled. During the passage 

 of the Act through the House of Lords, the old spirit of 

 opposition to any interference by the community with the 

 private ownership and control of land was sufficiently 

 strong to secure such a weakening of the powers that the 

 Act as passed falls very far short of what is required. The 

 central weakness of the Act is that the powers to secure 



