90 THE POSSIBILITIES 



It must be said that during the last few years 

 there was a slight improvement. The area under 

 all corn crops was slightly increasing, and it 

 fluctuated about 7,000,000 acres, the increase 

 being especially notable for wheat (1,906,000 

 acres in 1911 as against 1,625,450 in 1907), 

 while the areas under barley and oats were 

 slightly diminished. But with all that, the 

 surface under corn crops is still nearly one-and- 

 a-half million acres below what it was in 1885, 

 and nearly two-and-a-half million acres below 

 1874. This represents, let us remember it, the 

 bread-food of ten million people. 



The cause of this general downward movement 

 is self-evident. It is the desertion, the abandon- 

 ment of the land. Each crop requiring human 

 labour has had its area reduced ; and almost 

 one-half of the agricultural labourers have been 

 sent away since 1861 to reinforce the ranks of the 

 unemployed in the cities,* so that far from 

 being over-populated, the fields of Britain are 

 starved of human labour, as James Caird used to 

 say. The British nation does not work on her 

 soil ; she is prevented from doing so ; and the 

 would-be economists complain that the soil 

 will not nourish its inhabitants ! 



* Agricultural population (farmers and labourers) In Eng- 

 land and Wales : 2,100,000 in 1861 ; 1,383,000 in 1884 ; 

 1,311,720 in 1891 ; 1,152,500 (including fishing population) in 

 1901. 



