PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 547 



beyond the political insight and economic wisdom of those whose business it is 



to settle these matters. 



Another factor operates against the most intense production, and it is more 

 dilHcult because it is more deep seated. 



Agriculture is more than a trade ; it is a mode of life, and the system in 

 vogue profoundly modifies the life and the outlook of the whole countryside. 

 The farmer lives on the top of his work ; he has few evenings away from it, 

 no week -ends, not much holiday and still less prospect of retiring on a fortune ; 

 his life has to centre on his farm. Few people set out solely to make money, 

 and most farmers and landowners look to find their pleasure as well as then- 

 profit on their land. And so it comes about that things are not always arranged 

 to ensure the maximum of crop-production. Trees and hedges are left becau.se 

 they make up a pleasing landscape : excuses are found for them, and in some 

 places they may be really useful, but over much of the country the land would 

 produce more without them. Copses are left, pheasants are bred, foxes and 

 hares are preserved, and rabbits spared, not because they add to the food- 

 supply, but because they minister to the pleasure of the countryside, and in 

 spite of the facts that the crops would be bigger without them and that the 

 plague of sparrows might be considerably less if it were not for the gamekeeper. 



It would be wholly unreasonable to expect the farmer to lead a life of 

 blameless crop-production imrelieved by any pleasure, and it would be social 

 folly of the highest order to make the young farmer exchange the innocent 

 pleasure of an occasional day's shooting or hunting in the country for the night's 

 pleasure in town. I am not going to attempt to justify the syndicate-shoot or 

 the reservation of great areas of land for the pleasure of a few. But I think 

 we shall always have to be content with getting less crop-yields than the land 

 might produce because we must always keep up the amenities and the pleasures 

 of the country.';ide. We must maintain the best equilibrium we can between 

 these somewhat — but not wholly — conflicting interests. 



And as agriculture strikes more deeply at the roots of human life than any 

 mere trade, so agricultural science possesses a human interest and dignity that 

 marks it off sharply from any branch of technology : it is, indeed, one of the 

 pillars of rural civilisation. For the farmer's daily task brings him into con- 

 tinuous contact with the great fundamental processes of Nature, an'd the function 

 of agricultural science is to teach him to read the book of Nature that lies always 

 open before him, and to see something of the infinite wonder of every common 

 object in the fields around him. The investigator in agricultural science is out 

 to learn what he can of these things, and to pass on his knowledge to the 

 teacher, who in turn has to put it into a systematic form in which the young 

 men and women of the countryside can assimilate it. After knowledge comes 

 control. When we know more about the soil, the animal, the plant, &c., we 

 shall be able to increase our crop-yields, but we shall lose the best of our vi'ork 

 if we put the crop-yield first. Our aim should be to gain knowledge that will 

 form the basis of a time rural education, so that we may train up a race of men 

 and women who are alive to the beauties and the manifold interest of the 

 countryside, and who can find there the satisfaction of their intellectual as well 

 as their material wants. If we can succeed in that, we shall hear far less 

 of rural depopulation ; instead we may hope for the extension of that type of keen 

 healthy countryman which has always been found among the squires, farmer.s, 

 and labourers of this country, and which we believe was already increasing before 

 the war. With such men and women we can look forward with full confidence 

 to the future. 



The following Papers were then read : — • 



1. Soil Protozoa and Soil Bacteria. By Dr. T. Goodey. 



2. British Forestry, Past and Future.'^ 

 By Professor W. Somebvillb, B.Sc. 



' Published in The PoUfiral Qiinrferli/ for February 1917 (Oxford: Tlie 

 University Press). 



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