IVf 



PREFATORY NOTE 



Agricultural Organisation ranks to-day as one of those 

 world movements to which countries great and small 

 throughout the civilised globe are devoting attention, while 

 the fact that in 1913 the members of an American Agricul- 

 tural Commission made the tour of Europe in quest of infor- 

 mation on the subject is but one of many recent develop- 

 ments which might be adduced as evidence of the earnest 

 study now being devoted to a subject that affects so closely 

 the social and economic well-being of the nations. Though, 

 also, based primarily on the principle of combination for 

 the three-fold purposes of production, transport and sale, 

 Agricultural Organisation is concerned directly or indirectly 

 with a wide range of other questions and problems of the 

 day, including those relating to the rural exodus, the settle- 

 ment of more people on the land, the revival of country life, 

 wages and housing in country districts, the higher cost of 

 living due to (among other causes) the world's increasing 

 consumption of food supplies, and the desirability of reducing 

 so far as is practicable our dependence on foreign imports. 



The time has thus seemed to be opportune for the re-issue 

 of the present work in a cheaper and somewhat more compact 

 form, the detailed account of " Work Done or Projected " 

 by the Agricultural Organisation Society of England, which 

 occupied considerable space in the first edition,* being here 

 omitted ; though all the material facts in relation to the 

 " Rise, Principles, and Practice " of agricultural organisa- 

 tion, both abroad and at home, as given in the original 

 edition, have been retained. 



Edwin A. Pratt. 



June, 1914. 



* Copies of the 1st Edition can still be procured from the publishers 

 at 3s. 6d. net. 



i . .162 



