xvi Preface to Third Edition. 



other expenses than the labour of planting and lifting, in 

 contrast to the regular potato districts, with their high rents and 

 enormous expenditure of artificial and farmyard manure." 



High farming on the old lines is no remedy for 

 low prices. For our sole resource in the face of 

 foreign competition we must look to an economy 

 of production which will carry with it, free of 

 expenditure on commercial fertilizers, an increas- 

 ing fertility of soil. These objects have through- 

 out been kept steadily in view, and have been 

 successfully carried out at Clifton-on-Bowmont. 



It is remarkable, or perhaps it is not remark- 

 able, that the Board of Agriculture should have 

 not only failed to distribute leaflets on this 

 important subject, but should even have declined 

 to send (as I suggested it should) to the various 

 County Councils notices of the work at Clifton- 

 on-Bowmont, on the ground that for it to do so 

 would be to identify itself with a system — the 

 principles of my system being as old as agricul- 

 ture, though the method of carrying them out 

 may be new, and, so far as I know, is new. 



I have much pleasure in acknowledging my 

 obligations to Dr. Voelcker and Mr. James Hunter, 

 who have throughout taken great interest in the 

 work at Clifton-on-Bowmont, and supplied me 

 with much valuable matter, which will be found 

 in the appendices. 



ROBERT H. ELLIOT. 

 Clifton Park, October 22, 1904. 



