36 THE POLICY OF THE PLOUGH 



It has already been said that the German soil is 

 less naturally fertile than ours. On this subject Mr. 

 Middleton writes : 



" There is much very poor land in Grermany. Only 

 one-fifth of the soil of Prussia, for example, can be 

 classed as good ; two-fifths consists of indifferent 

 loams ; and two-fifths is very poor. The climate of 

 Germany may, on the whole, be better adapted for 

 the ripening and ingathering of corn than the British 

 climate ; but it is certainly not so weU suited for the 

 growing of large crops of grain, potatoes, roots, and 

 hay as our own." 



Naturally German farming employs much more 

 labour than is employed here. Mr. Middleton finds 

 that while on every hundred acres EngUsh agriculture 

 employs (male and female) 5'8 persons, German agri- 

 culture provides whole or part time employment for 

 18*3. 



In Denmark, before the war, to take another ex- 

 ample, it was almost the same story. While the 

 average gross value of the products of the land in 

 England and Wales was only £4 per acre, the average 

 in Denmark — a> country of small holdings and inten- 

 sive farming — ^was £8. 



In England and Wales only about 40 per cent, of 

 the cultivated land is arable.^ In France in 1910 

 nearly 65 per cent, was arable ; in Denmark in 1912 

 as much as 89*4 per cent, was arable. Even in Hol- 

 land, afflicted with an excess of polders and wet land, 



1 Out of 27,000,000 acres of cultivated land 16,000,000 acres 

 are grass and 11,000,000 acres arable (Cd. 7325, Agricultural 

 StatiaHcs for 1913, Part I., p. 28). 



