28 THE POLICY OF THE PLOUGH 



has his own interests to consider hke any other man. 

 He must not be grudged his caution. Undoubtedly he 

 takes fewer risks in extending his area of grass instead 

 of producing cereals. The memory, either derived or 

 personal, of the disastrous years of British arable 

 farming when the small men, who had not enough 

 capital to hold on through the cycle of bad harvests 

 which coincided with low prices, went under and were 

 ruined, is still bitter within him. 



Misgiving is never wholly absent from the mind of 

 the wheat-grower. 



Round the husbandman's head, while he traces the furrow. 

 The mists of the winter may mingle with rain. 



He may plough it with labour, and sow it in sorrow. 

 And sigh while he fears he has sow'd it in vain. 



Even if the farmer were prepared to stake his capital 

 on arable farming, he has not enough capital to stake. 

 Farming in England is notoriously under-capitalised, 

 and in no other country is capital for agricultural pur- 

 poses so difficult to find. In grazing the farmer does 

 not tempt fortune. He sees his prospects clearly ; bad 

 weather at a critical moment will not transform his 

 profit into a loss. He will not make a fortune, but he 

 can do very well on grass farming and therefore he is 

 content with it. Indeed he believes that on an average 

 of years he can make more money out of grazing than 

 by growing cereals. 



But, most unfortunately, the farmer^s interest is not 

 the interest of the nation. The two interests must be 

 reconciled. And here comes in the need of resorting 

 to what the Free Trader, arguing on first principles, 

 would call an " artificial " expedient. The incentive 



