Three Books on Agriculture
The Selling Side of . Agriculture. By William H. Sessions. (Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. 5s.)
English Fanning, Past and Present. By Lord Ernie. Fourth Edition. (Longman. 12s. 6d. net.) Mn. SESSIONS writes with freshness and humour on selling in agriculture. Although this is a vastly important subject, it does not lend itself to vivacity unless the author has an irrepressible spirit. But Mr. Sessions has. He writes of what he knows, and his theme is that the British farmer can be saved by the better organization of selling and by no other means. lie says truly that the skill and science of the British farmer have long been underrated. Acre for acre our farmers produce as much as the best farmers of the world, but they are beaten again and again by the superior marketing and the stronger financial backing of their. competitors. Mr. Sessions is tired of having Denmark flung at his head. We sympathize. Although it is hardly possible. to overpraise what the Danish farmer has done, he is often praised for the wrong reasons. His success in organization is a business success, which is distinct from though coupled with a farming success, and his Government 114 l►elpd him with credits that are not accessible here. If
propagandists here run the Danish example too hard they will throw the British farmer into the temper of the Athenians who ostracized Aristides because they were wearied to death of hearing him called just.
-The luck of the market always seems to be against the farmer, but when one comes to think of it there are reasons for this. The prices he commands do not even depCnd always upon the general prices of the country ; it often happens that the prices of the market to which he has taken his produce arc lower than anywhere else simply because too many fanners have come to sell on the same day. And yet the unfortunate man stands to lose if he does not sell at whatever price he can get. This is especially true in the case of live stock ; if he does not sell he has to pay for transporting his stock home again and for feed- ing them until he tries again. It is obviously nmeli easier fur a dealer to refuse to buy than it is for a farmer to refuse to sell.
" Going to market," though it is an agreeable enough experience—especially the " ordinary " at the inn--takes up much of the farmer's time. Mr. Sessions says he knows districts in which the farmer may have to attend three markets a week. Meanwhile the supervision of the farm is neglected. This individual selling will have to be merged in combined selling.- It may be asked whether the fanner cannot (like almost every other. trader). build up such a reputation for private produce that buyers will say " I will have Farmer So-and-So's pigs (or hay) and no other." Unhappily the consumer knows nothing of Farmer So-and-So. He may be delighted when he eats Farmer So-and-So's bacon or uses Farmer So-and-So's hay in his stables, but he does not know where it comes from. The chain of buyers and consumers ;s too long for the first link to be visible.
But who is to blame ? It is only too easy to denounce middlemen for getting too large a share of the plunder, but clearly the middlemen could not exist if there were no reason for their existence. Nobody pays them for either fun or charity. They continue their superfluous work for the simple reason that the farmers have not made it superfluous. And so we come back to the vast importance of the art and science of selling. Most of the organization has yet to be built up. As Mr. Sessions says :-
" Sell a knife as Sheffield steel which is not made in Sheffield, and the a,ssociated steel manufacturers of Sheffield soon have you in the Law Courts. Why ! even if you sell fish as sardines, which no ordinary man can toll from sardines, the packers of these fish move a court of law to atop you. But cure a York ' ham in Chicago, or anywhere else, and no body of Yorkshire farmers trouble you, although it is the Yorkshire farmers who have made the York ham famous the world over."
Nevertheless, by organizing large and regular supplies farmers can compel attention to their produce as the Australian farmers have done. In spite of the great distance it travels, Australian butter has won its way here by its reasonable price and its level quality and by the large regular shipments. What the individual farmer cannot do can be done by joint action—Mr. Sessions seldom uses the word " co-operation," knowing that it is suspect. He thinks that before selling methods can become better here the foundations must be put right. He says it is not the tenant farmers-75 per cent. of our farmers—who are really in a position to start schemes ; the initiative ought to come from the landlords and the owner-farmers. The man who is called a " good landowner " displays all his goodness in the improvement of his estate ; he may be unfailingly considerate and helpful to his tenants, but it has never occurred to him to help his tenants to sell their produce. If, however, he regarded his estate as an industrial concern, selling is one of the first things that would occur to him. He would feel, as managing director, that the most important of all his duties was to discover a market. Although one farmer cannot advertise to much advantage a group of farmers very well can. We cannot go into Mr. Sessions's detailed proposals for better selling, but must content ourselves with commending this inspiring little book.
We welcome a fourth edition of Lord Ernle's famous book, English Farming, Past and Present. He has brought his figures up to date and has added a chapter on farming since the War. We wonder whether the next edition of Lord Ernle's book will have to record the new use of grass. For there really seems to be something momentous in the recent discovery that grass which is kept Closely cut or grazed supplies an exceptional proportion of proteins. Pigs are being fed with astonishingly good results on pulped grass continually cut just above the ground although their proportion of meal has been greatly reduced. It is difficult to divorce the British farmer from grass-farming ; but if grass-farming by new methods can employ as many men as are employed in arable farming, the millennial days may come in an unexpected way.
The League of Nations has issued through Messrs. Constable the collected documents on the basis of which the International Economic Conference has discussed agriculture. The Inter- national Institute of Agriculture is the only body which has power to give any effect to the recommendations of the Conference. This is made quite clear in a preface which,
however, is clumsily written. -
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