262 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



a hasty glance at this large subject, with Its many interesting ramifications, 

 any one of which might well have a whole volume to itself. But inade- 

 quate as the survey has been, there are one or two deductions that may 

 perhaps be drawn from it. 



Comparison of an agricultural country like Denmark with an industrial 

 country such as ours must not be carried too far. Marketing and other 

 organisation, opportunities of alternative employment, standards of living, 

 necessarily differ in the two countries. But allowing for all this, the 

 statistical tables quoted in the earlier part of the paper suggest that British 

 agriculture at present falls short of producing as much home-grown food 

 as is possible and desirable for the nutrition of the people and also of 

 affording employment on the land to as many persons as is reasonably 

 practicable. The need of higher nutritive standards for a number of our 

 population and the importance, in attaining these standards, of larger 

 supplies of certain foods, in the production and marketing of which our 

 farmers have some natural advantages, are now generally recognised. 

 This recognition is tending to encourage the development of certain 

 branches of our agriculture and it is to be hoped that the process will be 

 a progressive one. Some authorities seem to consider that the sole 

 impetus required to accelerate the process is to increase the purchasing 

 power of the lower-paid groups of the population. That is certainly a 

 factor of much importance, but there may be need too for education in the 

 principles of nutrition, not only among these groups, but among some 

 others as well. This aspect of the matter will no doubt be kept in mind 

 should it be thought advisable to devise schemes for securing the desired 

 object. 



When speaking of the greater employment of the people on the land, 

 one is apt to be reminded at once, and quite properly, that, thanks to the 

 activities of the scientist and the engineer, the output per unit of agricul- 

 tural labour is steadily rising. This is a tendency that can be neither 

 ignored nor retarded. Increased production, therefore, may not neces- 

 sarily cause increased employment. But, on the other hand, it is probably 

 true that it will be long ere, in this country, the large-scale mechanised 

 farm, the ideal of the economist, is the general and normal agricultural 

 unit. And, given reasonable prospects of even moderate commercial 

 success, there are many for whom rural life holds a fascination and inde- 

 pendence denied to the townsman and the factory worker. For agricul- 

 ture, as has been said, notably by Professor W. G. S. Adams, in his paper 

 read to this section at Aberdeen, is not only a living, but a way of life. 

 To live in that way, they are willing to risk the financial vicissitudes of the 

 farmer or even to undertake the arduous labours of the small-holder. 

 Cynics may call it sentiment ; it is none the less a fact, But the question 

 is by no means entirely one of settling people in new holdings ; at present 

 it is indeed rather one of making up leeway both in land and in the people 

 employed on it. Since before the war, two million acres have gone out 

 of arable cultivation. The reclamation of waste lands in England, the 

 repopulating of our Scottish glens are perhaps less immediately possible, 

 but is it too much to hope that at least a good part of these two million 

 acres might be recovered .'' Were it solely a matter of farming economics, 

 the shrinkage of our cropping area and extension of our grass-lands 



