PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 637 
an end despite the continued increase of population. The area of land under 
cultivation has declined but little despite the growth of the towns, but the 
process of taking in the waste lands stopped and much of the land already 
farmed fell back from arable to cheaper pasture. But as soon as production 
in the newer countries failed to keep pace with the growth of population 
prices began to rise again, and we are now in the old world endeavouring to 
make productive the land that has hitherto been of little service except for 
sport and the roughest of grazing. Even the most densely populated European 
countries contain great areas of uncultivated land; within fifty miles of 
London blocks of a thousand acres of waste may be found, and Holland and 
Belgium, perhaps the most intensively cultivated of all Western countries, possess 
immense districts that are little more than desert. Of the European countries, 
Germany has taken the lead in endeavouring to bring into use this undeveloped 
capital; her population is rising rapidly and her fiscal policy has caused her to 
feel severely the recent increase in the prices of foodstuffs, which she has deter- 
mined to relieve as far as possible by extending the productivity of her own 
land. It has been estimated that Germany possesses something approaching 
to ten million acres of uncultivated land and a Government department has 
been created to reclaim and colonise this area. 
Before dealing with the processes by which the rough places of the earth 
are to be made straight there is one general question that deserves considera- 
tion—Is it more feasible to increase the production of a given country by 
enlarging the area under cultivation or by improving the methods of the 
existing cultivators? There is without doubt plenty of room for the latter 
process even in the most highly farmed countries: in England the average 
yield of wheat is about 32 bushels per acre—a good farmer expects 40; the 
average yield of mangolds, a crop more dependent upon cultivation, is as low 
as 20 tons per acre when twice as much will not be out of the way with good 
farming. A large proportion of the moderate land in England is kept in the 
state of poor grass—even as grass its production might be doubled by suitable 
manuring and careful management, while under the plough its production of 
cattle-food might easily be trebled or quadrupled. Why, then, trouble about 
adding to the area of indifferent land when so much of what has already been 
reclaimed, upon which the first capital outlay of clearing, fencing, roadmaking, 
&c., has been accomplished, is not doing its duty? We are at once confronted 
by the human factor in the problem. The existing educational agencies which 
will have to bring about better farming will only slowly become effective, 
and however imperfect they still may be in England, they are mainly so because 
of the lack of response upon the part of the farmers. The present occupiers of 
the Jand do obtain in many cases a very inadequate return from it, but they 
make some sort of a living and they hold it up against others who, though 
they want land, cannot be guaranteed to use it any better. Improved 
farming means more enterprise, more knowledge, often more capital, and the 
man who can bring these to the business is far rarer than the man who, given 
a piece of land even of the poorest quality, will knock a living out of it by 
sheer hard work and doggedness. While, then, there should be no slackening 
in our efforts to improve the quality of the management of existing land, there 
is a case for also using every effort to increase the cultivable area; indeed, it 
is probable that for some time to come the second process will add most to 
both the agricultural production and the agricultural population. 
Let us now consider what are the factors which determine the fertility of 
the land that is first brought into cultivation and remains the backbone of 
farming in the old settled countries. Foremost comes rainfall, and the distvi- 
bution is almost as important as the amount. Winter rain is more valuable 
than summer, and though cereal-growing is none the worse and may even 
obtain better results with a rainless summer, stock-raising and the production 
of fodder crops are the better for a rainfall that is distributed fairly evenly 
throughout the year. Rainfall, again, must bear some relation to temperature ; 
some of the best farming in the Kastern Counties of England is done on an 
average rainfall of 20 inches; there are great areas in South Africa with the 
same average rainfall that are little better than desert. In temperate regions 
we may say that the naturally fertile land requires a rainfall of from 20 to 
