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The Future of British Agriculture. 



391 



THE FUTURE OF BRITISH 

 AGRICULTURE. 



The Right Hon. Lord Ernle, P.C., M.V.O. 



I have never before addressed an audience of agricultural 

 students. I find myself in this difficulty. I fear that what I 

 am going to say may be to you as elementary as ABC. The 

 unknown is always a bogey. I am ignorant, and, therefore, in 

 awe, of the extent of your knowledge. 



Your President has asked me to forecast " the Future of 

 British Agriculture." Prophecy is easy. It is also dangerous. 

 Fortunately for me, I am not a pessimist, and it is only the 

 prophets of evil w T ho catch the public eye. I can, of course, 

 give you nothing but my personal opinions on a subject in which 

 no certainty is attainable. The course of agriculture cannot 

 be predicted with accuracy. It depends largely on fluctuating 

 world-conditions. Even if it could be forecast in this country, 

 the influence which the play of urban interests and party 

 politics may exercise on its direction is incalculable. 



I think that the future of British agriculture is bound up 

 in arable farming — not for corn-production only, but for the 

 combined production of bread, meat and milk. I think so for 

 three main reasons. Firstly, it is tillage alone that can satisfy 

 the demands of the community. Secondly, it is in the direc- 

 tion of tillage that science seems to be moving all along the 

 line, and tillage can make the fullest use, over the widest 

 range, of scientific developments. Thirdly, tillage, for the 

 combined production of bread, meat and milk, unites in a 

 common enterprise the two great branches of the industry, for 

 the increase and improvement of our live stock become vital 

 to the interests of arable farmers. 



T shall not discuss the economic factors of the problem. 

 They lie off the line of my inquiry, and they have been 

 admirably treated in Mr. Orwin's Presidential Address before 

 the Agricultural Section of the British Institution. But T 

 realise that they strike at the root of the matter. How to 

 combine the maximum of efficiency with the minimum of cost 

 — how to attain the desired ends of increased production with 

 the least possible expenditure of means — are matters of extreme 

 urgency and importance. Economic difficulties hamper the 

 maintenance and extension of arable farming. They block the 



* An address to the Plough Club at Oxford. 



