8 CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE OX LANDS, COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



2 GEORGE v., A. 1912 



wheat on English farms was about 26 bushels to the acre 400 years ago. Then it 

 went down until some of the records — I do not know whether the records are wholly 

 reliable — point to a rate of between 8 and 10 bushels per acre some 200 years ago. 

 From that time on they began to make improvements and progress; on some estates 

 it became a rule that a farmer must follow a systematic rotation of crops. The chief 

 means for restoring and improving English agriculture v.-as a rotation of crops with 

 a clover or a bean crop in between the grain crops Now the rate of yield in 

 England is from 32 to 34 bushels of wheat per acre. That is a glance at experience 

 spread over a period of four hundred years. From want of a good system of farm- 

 ing, the yield per acre went down to an exceedingly low level, and by the adoption of 

 good systems and methods it has been raised to a high level. 



From the long cultivated lands in Germany, there is a yield of some 10 bushels 

 to the acre more than there was 30 years ago, as the result of the application of more 

 intelligent methods and better management. In Hungary, on one of the large estates 

 of which correct records have been kept, the increase in the yield per acre has been 

 remarkable. Between 1851 and 1860 the yield of wheat was 10-9 bushels to the acre, 

 and between 1891 and 1900 th'e average yield of wheat was 30-3 bushels to the acre. 

 During 1851-1860 the yield of barley was 14-7 bushels to the acre; during 1891-1900 it 

 was 43-9 bushels to the acre. The yield of oats was 17-1 bushels to the acre as against 

 51-3 bushels to the acre, The yield of Indian corn was 21-3 bushels to the acre during 

 the former period, as compared with 41-6 bushels to the acre during 1891-1900. This 

 has been brought about by intelligent and intensive cultivation instead of by following 

 primitive methods. 



TO BRIXG ABOUT ASSOCIATED EFFORT. 



From the Experimental Farms we learn that a great deal of use is being made 

 of the information by the intelligent wide-awake farmers. Professor James, a very 

 competent authority on s|u.ch subjects, says that the age of talking to farmers has 

 gone by the day of demonstration is here. There i.s a difference between talking 

 about agriculture, even in a most interesting way, and showing the farmer the appli- 

 cation of systems and methods on an illustration farm managed for profits in such a 

 way that he will understand, and want to do on his own farm, what he has seen being 

 done on the other. We have not yet established the contacts between the local 

 natural leaders in farming and the other farmers, such as prevail all over Denmark, 

 for example. A farmer in Denmark who discovers anything from his farm whereby 

 he obtains better crops, cleaner land and more milk,, passes the knowledge on and the 

 whole neighbourhood is ready to receive it. We must begin to correct our separate- 

 nesses, our isolations, our want of cordial co-operations. You cannot correct those 

 by bulletins or by speeches. The way is to get the farmers to come together and do 

 something for themselves and others, something defijiite, something they can see and 

 understand — something that they can use for their own benefit. Wlien each becomes 

 a co-operating partner in some definite undertaking for the good of the locality, all 

 grow strong in associated effort. 



SYSTEMATIC ROTATION OF CROPS. 



I come back again to some of the salient points of information obtained by this 

 investigation — this survey of farms. 



Dealing with rotation of crops, what have we found? We found first of all that 

 in many localities the farmers did not know the real meaning of the phrase. You 

 know I am reluctant to say anything that would seem to throw the shade of even a 

 thin shadow of a suspicion on the knowledge and ability of our people. When they 

 do not know the meaning of the phrase — systematic rotation of crops — I ask myself: 

 Why should a farmer know if he has not seen and done the thing for which the phrase 



