120 THE POSSIBILITIES 



for 90,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate 

 the soil as it is cultivated in the best farms of 

 this country, in Lombardy, and in Flanders, and 

 to utilise some meadows, which at present lie 

 almost unproductive, in the same way as the 

 neighbourhoods of the big cities in France are 

 utilised for market-gardening. All these are 

 not fancy dreams, but mere realities ; nothing 

 but the modest conclusions from what we see 

 round about us, without any allusion to the 

 agriculture of the future. 



If we want, however, to know what agri- 

 culture can be, and what can be grown on a 

 given amount of soil, we must apply for in- 

 formation to such regions as the district of 

 Saffelare in East Flanders, the island of Jersey, 

 or the irrigated meadows of Lombardy, which 

 are mentioned in the next chapter. Or else 

 we may apply to the market-gardeners in this 

 country, or in the neighbourhoods of Paris, or 

 in Holland, or to the " truck farms " hi America, 

 and so on. 



While science devotes its chief attention to 

 industrial pursuits, a limited number of lovers 

 of nature and a legion of workers whose very 

 names will remain unknown to posterity have 

 created of late a quite new agriculture, as 

 superior to modern farming as modern farm- 



