148 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



agricultural organisation movement, who held that it 

 tended to encourage individualism on the part of the farmer 

 in place of that principle of co-operation in which the greatest 

 hopes of effecting an improvement in his position were 

 centred. 



The policy adopted by the railway companies in regard to 

 the milk traffic is dealt with in the section on " The Dairy 

 Industry," and references to the egg and poultry demonstra- 

 tion car in South Wales in April, 1910, will be found in that 

 on " Eggs and Poultry." 



The A. O. S. and the Railways. 



Much attention had naturally been paid throughout by 

 the A. O. S. to these questions of cost of transport, which it 

 regarded as often being no less important to the grower than 

 the two other items that influence so materially his final 

 balance sheet — namely, cost of production and market prices. 

 Where there is but a comparatively small margin between 

 these two, an undue cost of transport may, of course, convert 

 an otherwise possible profit into a loss. 



While, however, there may have been, at first, a certain 

 degree of prejudice entertained towards the railway com- 

 panies in respect to their transport of English farm, market 

 garden, or dairy produce, further experience showed that, 

 although the action of the railways in regard, more especially, 

 to various matters of detail, might still afford scope for 

 criticism, the great need of the situation was, not to abuse 

 the companies for their unwillingness to carry produce at 

 unremunerative rates, but to induce the agriculturists 

 themselves to adapt their business to the transport con- 

 ditions which would enable them to secure the lower rates 

 already often available, provided these conditions were 

 fulfilled. 



The complaint as to preferential rates, which had formed 

 a leading item in Lord Winchilsea's original programme, 

 appeared less substantial to the Society when it was looked 

 at from the points of view here suggested ; but there came 



