4 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



MODERN RAINBOWS OF PROMISE 



During the past fifty years there has grown up in 

 certain European countries a new treatment of the 

 farmer and in some respects a new attitude toward 

 him. He has acquired a new power in affairs. Per- 

 haps the most conspicuous examples of this new situa- 

 tion are Germany, Denmark, and Ireland. Other 

 countries, such as Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, 

 France, and even Italy, in many ways stand out in the 

 light of a splendid progress and an intelligent states- 

 manship in rural affairs. But on the whole the three 

 countries first named are the best illustrations of a rural 

 development which has been planned in advance; each 

 country has made a special contribution to rural im- 

 provement. 



Germany had probably developed before the war the 

 most far-reaching agricultural policy that we know a 

 policy grounded in national aspirations and designs. 

 The principles underlying this policy were simple 

 enough, especially as we view them now in the light of 

 the world war. Germany encouraged agriculture for 

 two great reasons: (i) That she might feed herself 

 in time of war; (2) that she might breed soldiers. 

 Her tariffs on food products; her encouragement of col- 

 lective selling of farm products and of collective pur- 

 chase of farm requirements; her remarkable machinery 

 for furnishing the farmer with both short-time and 

 long-time credit; her more than tolerance of great asso- 

 ciations of farmers and the granting of semi-official 

 standing to their leaders; her widespread and very effec- 

 tive system of agricultural education all these 

 (added to the fact that German agriculture, and conse- 

 quently the very structure of German society itself, rests 



