vi PREFACE 



manufacturer would have his parks and shootings, while 

 the commons and other open areas were to be preserved 

 for the wage earner in search of health and quiet. 



But from that Gradgrind vision we have been 

 steadily progressing. Statesmen have begun to see the 

 weakness of a nation developed on one side only, and 

 the value of a rural population for the stability and 

 habit of work it contributes to the community. Social 

 reformers found the condition of the rural labourer 

 intolerable in itself and a standing menace to the 

 position of the labourers in more organised trades. 

 Again, men of science discovered a new interest in the 

 problems of growth that are always being revealed in 

 the course of agricultural operations, and on the other 

 side the attitude of farmers towards education and 

 science has undergone a very general, though not as yet 

 an entirely effective, change. 



These movements of opinion have been suddenly 

 strengthened and drawn into a common stream by the 

 war ; there are few people now who have not been 

 taught by events that agriculture must be revivified in 

 the national interests. The high prices current for all 

 foodstuffs, and the menace of the submarine to send 

 them still higher, speak facts and not opinions as to the 

 necessity of increased food production at home. The 

 prospect of debt after the war, the possibilities of dis- 

 organisation of industry and consequent unemployment, 

 direct our attention to the land as the great undeveloped 

 asset of the nation, the prime source of real wealth and 

 the first link in the whole chain of industries. 



Every one will be disposed to grant the case for the 

 reconstruction of agriculture ; in these pages the neces- 



