BOOK REVIEWS, 
459 
informed man living outside the towns is not already to some extent 
acquainted, a thoughtful perusal of it will be a great enlightenment 
to many a townsman. The author says the object of the book is to 
" show that the land of the United Kingdom is under-cultivated, that 
it is not carrying the number of people it is capable of carrying. ..." 
It will doubtless surprise many to hear that this fertile land of ours 
produces on an average about 31 bushels of wheat to the acre, while 
the soil of Denmark produces 40 bushels, and that in Holland and 
Belgium the yield from an acre for cereals is 25 per cent, higher than 
ours. In the matter of live stock too, while the United Kingdom 
has only 39 cattle, sheep, and pigs to each 100 acres, Denmark has 53, 
Germany 63, Holland 65, and Belgium 71, though we have a larger 
percentage of acreage under grass than any of them except Holland. 
The author deals with the causes of this low standard of production, 
into which space does not permit us to enter, or into his proposals 
for remedying the evil and its attendant rural depopulation. His 
main proposal is land settlement for ex-service men, and that in 
colonies rather than as isolated units. As illustrations of what can be 
and has been done in this country he quotes Fairby in Kent, Evesham, 
and Wisbech, and states that the New Zealand Government is deriving 
a clear profit of £70,000 a year from its land settlement work. Of 
course he advocates the establishment of credit banks, and agricultural 
instruction, preceded by some manual training, in the elementary 
schools, but when he advocates a minimum price for wheat he is 
getting on more contentious ground. The foreword by the Hon. 
Edward Strutt should help the book to a large sale. 
" Reclaiming the Waste : Britain's most urgent Problem." By 
P. Anderson Graham. 8vo., 175 pp. (Scribners, New York ; 
" Country Life," London, 1916.) 3s. 6d. net. 
This handy little book is got up in the attractive style associated 
with " Country Life " publications, and though its subject may be 
considered stale it is written in a way which makes it as holding as 
a novel, and will undoubtedly insure it success in its avowed object of 
drawing attention to the vast possibilities of waste land reclamation. 
It is estimated that in the United Kingdom there are more than 
12,000,000 acres lying in complete or partial waste, and every acre of 
this that can be made productive adds to the taxable wealth of the 
country, and thus to our capacity to bear our gigantic and ever-growing 
burden of debt. Except the winning of the war, there is no more urgent 
problem to-day than the production of both food and timber, for 
the modern army is fed on timber to such an extent that our forests 
are being used up to keep it supplied, while the provision of labour 
to carry out the necessary work is a side issue scarcely less important 
than the main one. It is a remarkable fact that, while other Western 
European countries have been adding to their area of cultivated land, 
ours has considerably diminished. 
