COUNTRY LIFE
The Royal as Index It was impossible to visit the Royal Show—the best and much the biggest ever held—without feeling that British agri- culture was vital, as well as great, among our industries. The mere expenditure on the furnishing of those 125 acres in the Great Park at Windsor is evidence in itself, though it is chiefly the urban crowd that provides the economic justification ; and the popularity of the King and Queen supplies a most potent attraction. I have never known foreign and oversea visitors so full of amazed admiration, and in spite of the wider advertisement of such side events as the flower show, or the pit ponies, it was the parade of stock winners that took first place in their imagination. We all know that there are " depressed areas " in this industry as in mining, but there is growing prosperity in many others—in milk production, especially in the West, in fruit farming, in glass farming, and in market-gardening. The area under wheat (which promises a good and early crop this summer) will probably be con- siderably increased next year. The instruction of rural youth in the craft of production from the land has never been so good. Is there any chance that it may check the lamentable deficiency in farm labour?
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