8 PREFACE 



shares with Sociology the character of being 

 perhaps the most backward of the applied 

 sciences. In many other directions the splendid 

 inventiveness of man has made giant strides 



&Tropo<; I 

 T6 (jiiXXov. AtSa (i6vov ysufyv oux 



We have mastered the principles of aerial 

 flight and wireless telegraphy ; our sub- 

 marines navigate the depths of the sea ; we 

 can analyze and weigh the planets. But many 

 of the problems of poverty are still unsolved, 

 and agriculture, the earliest and most universal 

 of the sciences, makes but slow progress. 

 It even appears probable that many parts 

 of the globe's surface are cultivated with far 

 less success now than in earlier centuries. In 

 our own country no land drainage on scientific 

 lines appeared until 1835 ; and the formation 

 of artificial soils by mixture, discussed by 

 Columella and even earlier writers, is still in 

 its infancy as far as England is concerned. 



The complaint, so often heard in country 

 districts, that the agricultural population 

 " does not count " is not without foundation. 

 Of the eleven chapters in Mr. Masterman's 

 admirable book The Condition of England, 

 only one deals with the sociology of the 

 countryside. " Nobody," said a farmer to 



