228 Suggested Changes of Farming System. 



of the plant's growth. Without these aids, or ample supplies 

 of humus, in some form, the stimulated plants must deplete 

 the soil, 



As we are living in changing times, the members of this Society 

 will probably agree with me in thinking that it is very desirable 

 that we should occasionally meet in order to interchange opinions 

 and mutually communicate our experiences. You will observe 

 that I have proposed for our consideration the changes necessary 

 in our farming system, and I have done so because it is becoming 

 every day more clear that farming on the old lines is unsuited to 

 the times, and because circumstances are gradually becomiug more 

 and more unfavourable to it. Here, for instance, is one important 

 difficulty to which, so far as I am aware, no attention has as yet 

 been called — the fact that, as compared with twenty years ago, we 

 have a shortage of no less than one and a half millions of children 

 in Great Britain. This indicates a movement of great importance 

 to farmers, and if the people of these islands are showing such an 

 active desire not to propagate their species, it is high time that we 

 should propagate our ideas as to the best way of working our farms 

 with a smaller number of hands. ', For the present the anti-child pro- 

 ducing movement seems to be confined to the towns and manufac- 

 turing centres, but it is sure to spread to the country ; in the meanwhile 

 there wUl, of course, be a much larger draft of population from the 

 country districts, and consequently we must look forward to 

 scarcer and dearer labour. With the other adverse conditions you 

 are all familiar, and I need only say that all of them are, from 

 whatever point of view we may regard the subject, unfavourable 

 to the present farming system. What that is we all know — 

 expensive tillage, the use of purchased foods and manures, and a 

 rapid rotation of crops, calling for much expense and labour, and 

 entailing much exhaustion of the soil. When prices were high 

 they could cover the cost of production and leave a good profit, but 

 not so, of course, when prices fell ; and we must recognise the fact 

 that high farming on the present lines is no remedy for low prices, 

 and the further fact that the only remedy available is to lower the 

 cost of production. This may be effected, as I shall show, by an 

 alteration of system, which will lead not only to the utmost 

 economy of production, but render all production more free from 

 risk than it is at present. The whole of my experiments at 

 Clifton-on-Bowmont have been devoted to these ends, and I am 

 now satisfied that whereas the old farming system gave us good 

 crops at a high cost, we can, with the aid of improved farming, 

 produce as good, and often much better, crops at less cost, and 

 certainly with far less risk from adverse seasons. With it we can 

 not only repair the exhaustion of the soil, caused by our farming 

 system, but continually increase its fertility, and while this can be 



