262 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



of the period the average yield of wheat was of the order of 20 bushels per 

 acre, this being the crop the land was capable of maintaining under a 

 conservative rotation with no extraneous source of fertility. But between 

 1840 and 1870 artificial fertilisers were introduced and became a generally 

 accepted part of British farming, with the result that the yield of wheat 

 had risen to about 30 bushels per acre, though no other marked change in 

 the routine of cultivation had been adopted during the period. The 

 employment of fertilisers still lags far behind the opportunities of employing 

 them to profit ; from 1870 onwards came the great depression upon 

 British agriculture consequent on the growing irruption of the cheaply 

 grown American corn and meat. British agriculture had to shorten sail 

 and restrict expenditure ; falling prices breed lack of confidence and 

 even lack of knowledge, for why should a farmer study a science that calls 

 for expenditure when the safer procedure is to let the land grow a small 

 crop without cost rather than to buy a big crop at a dangerous price ? At 

 any rate, our employment of fertilisers continues to be unnecessarily low 

 even under later conditions of prices, and the revolution that is being 

 brought about in the production of nitrogenous fertilisers finds our 

 farmers comparatively disinclined to take advantage of it. The various 

 processes of bringing atmospheric nitrogen into combination to which 

 the war gave such a stimulus are now being developed on a vast scale in 

 all civilised countries, and will result in an almost unlimited increase in 

 the amount of nitrogenous fertiliser available at low prices compared with 

 the prices of agricultural produce. Here at least is the opportunity for 

 another step up in production from our cultivated laiids comparable with 

 the progress that was made between 1840 and 1870. It is not all plain 

 sailing; the farmer has to study carefully where an increased supply of the 

 cheapened nitrogen can be most suitably applied to his land and what 

 changes in his system of cropping are demanded. The plant-breeders' 

 art is needed ; on most of our land any great enhancement of growth of 

 cereals brought about by the use of nitrogenous fertilisers is attended with 

 the danger of lodging. Few of our cereals possess stiff enough straw to 

 remain standing on a soil enriched to the degree even that is reasonably 

 practicable to-day. Thus the more immediate outlet for the new 

 fertilisers would appear to be the fodder crops which are convertible into 

 meat and milk. 



But in the solution of the main probleni under discussion — the 

 possibility of intensification of production from the existing farmed land 

 to meet the needs of a growing population — ^the development of the 

 synthetic nitrogen fertilisers must play a dominant part. C'rookes' 

 prophecy is coming true. 



I have reserved until the end the question of whether the intensification 

 is necessary or probable. From previous experience it would appear to 

 be probable that as long as new land is available the increase in food 

 supplies will be won less by increased skill and expenditure applied to 

 existing land than by taking in new land. The recent history of 

 United States land affords an illustration ; we see little improvement 

 in farming or increase of yield on the older land — we see even 

 abandonment of farms in the eastern States ; at the same time we 

 see continued attempts to win new land by forcing into cultivation 

 the arid lands and alkali soils which the earlier settlers had rejected. 



