RURAL ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 51 



have occurred in the profit obtainable from 

 different crops or methods of farming. Corn- 

 growing and cattle-farming on a large scale 

 have become relatively less profitable, while 

 the supply of milk an article unaffected 

 by foreign competition has been immensely 

 developed during the last ten years. The 

 growing of potatoes and other vegetables on 

 small farms, poultry keeping, and fruit culture 

 have all received increased attention. 



On the whole, except where farmers are 

 burdened by debts inherited from less pros- 

 perous years, or where they have started with 

 insufficient capital, they are making a fair 

 living, though they are not amassing fortunes. 

 Much depends upon the standard of living 

 to which farmers, like other people, are 

 practically compelled by the public opinion 

 of their class to conform. Many of the 

 complaints which are heard are in reality 

 founded on the difficulty which farmers 

 experience in maintaining a scale of personal 

 expenditure approaching that of the well- 

 to-do tradesman, solicitor, or bank manager 

 in the country town. Working farmers who 

 are content with a little and particularly the 

 Scotch and West-country farmers, who have 

 so largely invaded the south and east of Eng- 

 land are not doing badly. At any rate, when. 



