The Survival in Farminrj. 
273 
and tins is highly desirable, and might be managed to a much 
greater extent than it is. The possibility of selling a good deal 
of their produce by retail is one of the chief advantages which 
small farmers enjoy, though the greatest of all is the economy of 
labour which they effect by working with their men, and often 
by employing members of their own families. On the other 
side may be set the economy effected on large fariiis by the use 
of labour-saving implements and machines. 
Another point alluded to by most of the witnesses is the need 
of keeping the land well stocked, which is also an argument for 
high farming. Skill in the buying and selling of stock is as 
frequently mentioned as essential, and general business ability is 
dwelt upon in several instances as the reason why some men 
have held on during the depression, while their neighbours 
have gone under. Business ability is, of course, essential in all 
branches of industry and at all times ; but it has been peculiarly 
important in farming under the long and severe strain to which 
that industry has been subjected. 
The advantages of breeding stock of all kinds are alluded to 
by several correspondents, and Messrs. Simmons particulai'ly 
point out the benefit of rearing a certain number of calves every 
year. Apparently breeding has greatly extended of late upon 
medium and small farms, and if we can but clear the country 
of pleuro-pneumonia, as we have cleared it of foot-and-mouth 
disease, a further extension of this desirable movement may be 
expected. At such a time the opening of this country to 
American stores would be a calamity of the worst description. 
The subject is too large to be dealt with fully in this article ; 
but, in connection with the evidence given above, it is not out of 
place to protest against the shortsighted views of those who 
would incur a great danger in oi'der to get cheap -lean stock for 
a year or two, or perhaps only for a few months. Home breed- 
ing would be crippled if the American stores came in great 
number, and dairy farming would be seriously injured through 
the rearing of calves being rendered unreuiunerative. Sooner 
or later, too, disease would be brought over by the foreign 
beasts — possibly Texas fever, and pi'obably pleuro-pneumonia, 
and then, after we had been led to rely upon the foreign supply 
of stores for fattening, they would be shut out of the country, 
and something like a lean-stock famine would result. 
During the last ten years the struggle for existence among 
the different systems of farming in the world has been severe, 
and the results appear to me already to show very clearly which 
is likely to prove the fittest, and therefore to survive. It is a 
notable fact that while the wheat area of Europe during the 
