[To the Editor of the SpEark.rou.) SIR,—It is a waste
of public money to educate more people for the profession of agriculture in this country until the marketing problem is solved. The women of England haye shown in the War what they can do on the land, and it is the deplorable condition of the industry that is driving men and women off the land to-day. No one denies the credit due to the farmers of France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Sweden for their efficient farming, hard work and intelligence, but it is indiscriminate dumping-by-these and other countries that causes chaos in our home markets, over which the British farmer has no control. In this country no attempt is made to reduce overlapping or competition in the markets. I am a fruit farmer. With regard to shiploads and trainloadi of foreign fruit brought to this country, my Association informs me foreign combines settle its destination on arrival. We have no means of knowing the markets it is destined for : the Ministry of Agriculture do not attempt to inform us.
My fruit is graded, of guaranteed weight and packed to suit the market it is sent to ; it is marked " British Grown " ; the farm was awarded a bronze medal by the Royal Agricultural Society of England this season. All this is of no avail on •a glutted market, as I know to my cost. If the Associations in this country and the Colonies would combine at the invitation and with the co-operation of the State to organize the markets of this country, and if that • policy should be national and not a party measure, it would be a step towards remedying the existing state of affairs.
The type of manager required for such organization (as pointed out in the Report issued by the Ministry of Agricul- ture and Fisheries on large scale co-operative marketing in the United States, 9. 105) " is one accustomed not to farming but to business. In brief, the atmosphere of the modern super- co-operative is that of big business in the sphere of farming." British agriculture should be one of the biggest businesses in the world.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A BRITISH FARMER.
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