38 THE STATE AS FARMER 



texture, moisture and warmth, at the eradica- 

 tion of weeds and the abolition of sourness, 

 at fertility generally and the making of 

 humus — how much simpler to look at the 

 natural area as affected by its fundamental 

 formation, than to take a sample from this 

 plot and the other and ask for advice on 

 a five-acre field ! This latter method is 

 getting the whole fraternity of learned men 

 into disrepute because of its inherent stupidity. 

 We cannot afford the men to do justice to each 

 five-acre field separately. We must use them 

 for large areas and leave them to deal with 

 detail in their own way and at their own time, 

 until a vast system of carefully thought-out 

 treatment is commenced and kept in being 

 with the needful corrections as the seasons 

 pass. I do not wish to deprive a single 

 farmer of the pleasure to be derived from the 

 study of the romance of soil ; but I take it 

 for granted that in this, as in everything 

 else, there are chiefs and leaders upon whom 

 we depend for the solution of the more 

 abstruse problems of land culture. The profit 

 on farming never comes from the experimental 

 stages of discovery. It might take a small 



