130 THE MINORITY REPORT 



78. It is important to realise that the potato and 

 the sugar beet are not merely profitable crops in 

 themselves, but may, in addition, be made into 

 instruments for conserving and increasing soil fertiHty 

 and inducing a high standard of farming, if the State 

 will go into partnership with the farmer and enable 

 him, by means of distilleries and starch and sugar 

 factories, to turn the substance taken by the plant 

 from the air into articles of commerce, and return in 

 the by-products and waste to the soil (via the live- 

 stock) all that the plant had taken from the soil. 



79. The estabhshment of minor industries, such 

 as tobacco growing, basket making, hoop making, 

 and the encouragement of woodcraft generally, the 

 establishment of fruit and vegetable drying plants, 

 and largely increased facilities for townsmen to obtain 

 and work allotments, are all part of that larger con- 

 ception of the functions of agriculture which will 

 tend to attract men and attach them permanently 

 to the soil, and should therefore find a definite place 

 in the agricultural policy which must evolve out of 

 our deliberations unless we are to lose the greatest 

 opportunity of our days for establishing a just balance 

 between the State and this vital industry.^ 



F. — Reclamation of Waste Land 



80. With paragraphs 170 to 174 of the Majority 

 Report (Reclamation and Afforestation) we entirely 

 agree. 



1 An addendum to the Minority Report, written subsequently 

 to the presentation of the Report, discusses further the question of 

 agricultural organisation. 



