346 TRANSACTIONS OJ? SECTION M. 



Besides these improvements in crop-production which affect all farmers, 

 even the best, there are two other ways in which we can hope for further 

 developments. 



One is to raise up the ordinary farmer to the level of the good one. The 

 average crop of wheat for the country is otiicially reported to be 32 bushels, 

 but no good farmer would be content with less than 40. If we accept the 

 official average there must be a great amount of wheat grown at much less than 

 the best that is possible even now. A vast amount of educational work has to 

 be done to spread the knowledge of the best methods, varieties, manures, &c. 

 We have all met the type of farmer who had no nitrate of soda and so used 

 superphosphate instead. The county instructor will always retain his important 

 position ; unfortunately the more backward his county the less sympathy he is 

 likely to get. 



The other is to extend the area of land under cultivation. There are still 

 wastes to be reclaimed, as Mr. Hall is reminding us, while even on farmed 

 land the proportion under the plough each year is only small, and is con- 

 stantly decreasing. Grass-land only produces about one-half of what arable 

 land yields, and it is imj^erative to the proper development of the country 

 that some of it should be broken up. The farmer knows this, but he does 

 not put his knowledge into practice. It is futile to abuse him, or to try to 

 find excuses : the better method is to try and find the causes at work. No 

 far as I can see t'here are two main reasons why he does not adopt all possible 

 devices for increasing crop-production. In the first place he caiiiiot always 

 afford the risk. There is one fundamental distinction between farming and 

 manufacturing that is often overlooked in discussions on the subject. Except in 

 rare cases — .sugar beet and some kinds of seeds — the farmer does not grow for 

 contracts, but always for what manufacturers would call 'stock.' The manu- 

 facturer makes a contract to supply certain goods at a certain price : he knows 

 what his machinery will do, he can insure against many of his risks, and get out 

 of the contract if others befall liim. He knows to a penny how much he will 

 be paid, and so he can calculate to a nicety how much he can afford to spend, 

 and how far he can go in introducing new methods. Now the farmer cannot 

 do this. He cannot be certain what yield or what price he will get. He .starts 

 spending money in August on a crop that will not be sold for fifteen months, 

 and he has no idea how much money he will receive in return. The whole thing 

 is a hazard which cannot be covered by insurance. Obviously, then, the farmer 

 must leave a big margin for safety, so he balances his risks by laying down 

 some of his land to grass where the risks are at a minimum. But when you ask 

 him to intensify his methods, and, as a necessary corollary, to break up some 

 of his grass-land, he has a perfect right to ask who is going to bear the extra 

 risk. 



I have indicated two ways in which the risks can be reduced, but they will 

 always remain, and their magnitude greatly affects the total production of the 

 farm. Mr. Middleton has recently made a very striking comparison between 

 the average farm produce in Germany and in Great Britain, showing that each 

 hundred acres of cultivated land 



In Great Britain In Germany 



Feeds 45 to 50 people Feeds 70 to 75 people 



Grows 15 tons of corn Grows 33 tons of corn 



11 tons of potatoes 55 tons of potatoes 



4 tons of meat 4^ tons of meat 



17^ tons of milk 28 tons of milk 



Negligible quantity of sugar 2| tons of sugar 



The German cultivator is not better than ours, nor is he more enterprisiUj,', 

 neither is his soil or his climate better. The result is attained because in 

 Germany the risks are balanced when only one-third of the cultivated area is 

 in grass, leaving two-thirds for arable cultivation : whilst here the farmer 

 believes they can only be balanced by putting two-thii-ds of the land into grass, 

 and leaving only one-third for arable cultivation. 



The problem has been burked in the past, but it must be faced in the future. 

 It is essentially a question of distribution of risk, and it ought not to be 



