22 PEOGEESS IN OTHEE COUNTEIES 



quantity of food per acre, and is the basis of the rural 

 manufactures of spirit and starch and of the farm 

 industry of potato drying. These industries find 

 employment during the off season for farm labour, 

 and the portion of the crop usually devoted to manu- 

 facture affords a useful reserve of food against 

 emergencies. 



It must be added that the attitude of the farmer 

 towards agricultural progress has done much to 

 facilitate the movement ; for the leaders amongst 

 German agriculturists regard the cultivation of the 

 land, in the best possible way, as being a duty which 

 is owing to the Fatherland. 



* England. — It is now proposed to consider the 

 case of England during the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, as an example of how progress was effected 

 in agriculture with a minimum of government action 

 or interference, progress which must be considered 

 as very remarkable and rapid with reference to the 

 period in question and the relatively small facilities 

 for development which then existed. In this case 

 there was no question of setting up any elaborate 

 machinery for the provision of credit, education, 

 research or co-operative action. Certain grave defects 

 in English farming had been the subject of constant 

 comment as far back as the sixteenth century ; 

 the technical remedies were fairly well understood, 

 and there were men with the requisite skill and 



* <( 



"English Farming Past and Present," by E. E. Protkero 

 (Longmans, 1912). 



