i 
ee SS 
M.—AGRICULTURE. 195 
no one could deny the need for research work in problems of animal 
and plant life. But the main concern of the farmer is to know not 
so much that which he can grow and how best to grow it as that which 
he can sell and how to sell it at a profit. Given the necessary capital 
and labour, conditions may be contrived under which any soil may 
be made to produce any crop; but the wisdom or otherwise of embark- 
ing upon any particular form of production can be determined only 
by a study of economic forces. In Bedfordshire, for example, con- 
siderable areas of very moderate land are met with given up to a most 
intensive form of agriculture; but land equally suitable for a similar 
form of farming may be met with in many other parts of the country 
which is producing not a tenth part of the value in food products nor 
employing a tenth part of the capital and labour, whilst at the same 
time the systems under which it is farmed are fully justified by the 
results. The reason of the difference, as doubtless everyone realises, 
is that the land in the former case is so situated that it has access, 
in the first place, to supplies of organic manures on an abundant 
scale and at a cheap price, and, in the second place, to markets crying 
out for its produce, whilst one or both of these facilities are denied to 
the other areas. In the Chilterns district of Oxfordshire farming a 
generation ago was mainly directed to the production of corn and meat, 
and nothing that has arisen out of the work of the investigators along 
lines of natural science would have called for any radical changes in 
agricultural policy on these soils. But economic forces, inexorable in 
their effect, have brought about a revolution, and arable land previously 
under corn and sheep is now laid down to grass or occupied with 
fodder crops for the maintenance of the dairy herds which have replaced 
sheep throughout the area. Again, in the hill districts of England 
and Wales there occur combes and valleys admirably adapted by soil 
and climate to the production of potatoes, and the highlands of Devon- 
shire and Somerset may be cited in illustration. In these places, how- 
ever, in the majority of cases, even though good markets may exist— 
Somerset, for example, imports potatoes—the lack of transport 
facilities makes it impossible for the farmers to produce anything 
which does not go to market on four legs. Coming last to the question 
of human relationships, we find that it is possible to organise much 
more intensive forms of agriculture than any of our own, which would 
be an enormous advantage to a consuming nation like Britain ; examples 
of such are to be met with in varying degrees of intensity in many 
countries. The Chinese, one reads, have increased production per unit 
area to an almost incredible extent, and in a lesser degree a similar 
state of affairs exists in parts of France and in Belgium (so often held 
up to us in this country as a model of productive capacity which we 
should strive to emulate). But in all these places the results are only 
achieved by a prodigal use of labour. The nation gains, no doubt, in 
the volume of produce available for its consumption, but the individual 
producer, deprived under this system of the opportunity to apply his 
manual effort in conjunction with an adequate amount of capital and 
Jand, is sacrificed to the consumer's advantage, and is driven to spend 
himself, year in and year out, for a reward for his toil which the 
