OF AGRICULTURE. 97 



direction would increase the returns of the corn 

 crops, as also those of the roots and plants 

 cultivated for industrial purposes. The land 

 continues to go out of culture, while the 

 problem of the day is to render culture more 

 and more intensive. 



Many causes have combined to produce that 

 undesirable result. The concentration of land- 

 ownership in the hands of big landowners ; the 

 high profits obtained previously ; the develop- 

 ment of a class of both landlords and farmers 

 who rely chiefly upon other incomes than those 

 they draw from the land, and for whom farming 

 has thus become a sort of pleasant by-occupation 

 or sport ; the rapid development of game reserves 

 for sportsmen, both British and foreign ; the 

 absence of men of initiative who would have 

 shown to the nation the necessity of a new 

 departure ; the absence of a desire to win the 

 necessary knowledge, and the absence of in- 

 stitutions which could widely spread practical 

 agricultural knowledge and introduce improved 

 seeds and seedlings* as the Experimental Farms 

 of the United States and Canada are doing ; 

 the dislike of that spirit of agricultural co- 

 operation to which the Danish farmers owe their 

 successes, and so on all these stand in the way 

 of the unavoidable change in the methods of 

 farming, and produce the results of which the 



