1919.] The Sixth Indian Science Congress. xClil 
the landowners. To develop and improve a permanent 10 or 
20 acre farm is an intelligible proposition ; but to develop and 
improve a 10 or 20 acre farm which must in the near future be 
split up and fragmented is not an intelligible proposition to any- 
one; and since this is the proposition which confronts the 
seriously. In this way a low standard is set of agricultural 
methods and of agricultural results, a serious obstruction to 
permanent. His farm may fly into fragments and grow steadily 
smaller, but, generally speaking, he himself persists, whether 
he be a good, bad or indifferent farmer. In highly individual- 
istic and competitive countries, efficiency is secured largely by 
been periods of agricultural depression there, when unprogres- 
sive farmers have been ruined and squeezed out wholesale, 
while on some kinds of soil it is recognized that a bad farmer 
their places to the obstruction of the more effective members 
of the community. It is by no means contended that there 
t. 
the farmers are deficient in skill, industry and energy, and 
balance a low standard of endeavour by a low standard of 
living. 
These are the fundamental obstructions to agricultural 
progress to which I have to refer. The question is how we are 
