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CHAPTER V. 



OUR AGRICULTURE TN THE LIGHT OF MODERN 

 DEVELOPMENTS. 



We are then to accept the fact that our Agricul- 

 tural progress depends absolutely on an improvement 

 in our methods, and this implies the introduction and 

 use of complicated machinery, new standards, new 

 ideas both among people and state, farmers and offi- 

 cials, and the inversion or guaranteeing of nuge sums 

 of money. 



It may well be argued that this is quite acceptable 

 and the utility and advantages to be derived from such 

 a policy highly appreciable, but before we launch out 

 on such a policy it would be well to examine our pre- 

 sent position and particularly that of cereal growing 

 in the light of modern developments. 



In the first case have we not entered on a period 

 of development somewhat different from the past? 



Is the position the same as before, in face of the 

 obvious results to be deduced from the tendency of 

 modern thought and practice as exemplified, for in- 

 stance, in the adoption of a land programme by all the 

 states recently engaged in war in Europe? 



INCREASED PRODUCTION IN EUROPE. 



j 



Will not the tendency to increase production re- 

 sult from the dividing up of the European land into 

 small parcels affect us and our products in the Euro- 

 pean markets? And what will be the final result of the 

 intelligent efforts made during the war by all the 

 states to supply themselves with their own necessities? 

 During the war the most successful of all were those 

 which previously were our best if not the sole custom- 

 ers for our products, England and the Netherlands. 



RELATIVE PROSPERITY AT HOME. 



Again, turning home, in face of the fact that Ga- 

 naderia is, and has always been, the most steadily re- 

 munerative of rural occupations, and has oroved our 

 most successful business, equally during the period of 

 disadvantages and advantages of war as during peace, 

 the one industry in which we make and maintain our 



