The Cheap Production of a Good Turf. 11 



CHAPTER II. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



IN the treatment of almost any subject it is hardly 

 necessary to say that there is generally some 



leading point, or principle, which mainly governs 

 it, and which should be constantly kept before the 

 attention. As regards religion, for instance, Confucius 

 was once asked whether it might all be condensed into 

 one word. " Certainly," he replied ; " is not reciprocity 

 such a word ? What you do not want done to yourself 

 do not do to others." And so, to take another instance, 

 the whole of the agricultural competition we mainly suffer 

 from may be condensed into one expression — the cost 

 of heat, for those who compete most successfully with us 

 are enabled to do so because they obtain gratis from the 

 sun a large supply of what we have to pay very highly 

 for in the shape of clothing, lodging, and fuel ; and it is 

 hardly necessary to point out that in India and mild 

 climates, like the best of Argentina, the labourers' 

 expenses are necessarily far less than those of our 

 islands. To turn to the point with which we are more 

 immediately concerned, it may be said that the solution 

 of all our agricultural difficulties, so far as they can be 

 solved by the wit of man, resolves itself into one ex- 

 pression — the cheap production of a good turf. That is 

 the principle which, as I shaU show, dominates the whole 

 subject, and that it does so is evident if we consider 

 carefully the following points : — 



I. The success of our agriculture depends on the 

 cheapening of production. 



n. The cheapest fodd for stock is grass. 



