98 THE POSSIBILITIES 



British writers on agriculture are complaining.* 

 But it is self-evident that hi order to compete 

 with countries where machinery is largely used 

 and new methods of farming are resorted to 

 (including the industrial treatment of farm 

 produce in sugar works, starch works, and the 

 drying of vegetables, etc., connected with farm- 

 ing), the old methods cannot do ; especially 

 when the farmer has to pay a rent of twenty, 

 forty, and occasionally fifty shillings per acre 

 for wheat-lands. 



It may be said, of course, that this opinion 

 strangely contrasts with the well-known superi- 

 ority of British agriculture. Do we not know, 

 indeed, that British crops average twenty-eight 

 to thirty bushels of wheat per acre, while in 

 France they reach only from seventeen to twenty 

 bushels ? Does it not stand in all almanacs 

 that Britain gets every year 200,000,000 

 sterling worth of animal produce milk, cheese, 

 meat and wool from her fields ? All that is 

 true, and there is no doubt that hi many respects 

 British agriculture is superior to that of many 

 other nations. As regards obtaining the greatest 

 amount of produce with the least amount of 

 labour, Britain undoubtedly took the lead until 



* See H. Rider Haggard's Rural Denmark and its Lessons, 

 London, 1911, pp. 188-212. 



