TWO BOOKS ON AGRICULTURE.*
SINCE the Corn Production Acts were suddenly repealed English agriculture has fallen into a very uncertain state. Nobody knows what the future may bring forth. Tho Corn Production Acts, whether they had or had not the elements of final success, did aim at presenting the country with a detailed and scientific policy. That policy was to get the greatest possible value out of the land by bringing as much land as possible under the plough. Arable land, as many laymen do not know, pro- vides for a much larger head of stock than does grass land, as well as supplying the staple food of the people. The policy was desirable, not merely because highly-cultivated land employs more labour and therefore attracts more people to live in the country, and not merely because it promised to restore a healthy balance between the population of the towns and that of the country, but also because it offered a greater degree of safety in war. We admit that the nation might have been required to pay considerably for these advantages. If farmers had not been able to sell their wheat at the guaranteed price, the financial responsibility would have rested with the State. When extreme industrial depression sprea4 like s black cloud over the country • (I) Rural Rfoonstruel4oh. W. Wolf!. London telwyn and Blount. (15s. net.)—(2) The Land and Us Problem. By Christopher 'LIMN. London ; Methuen. 17s. 6d. utt.1
the Government, in alarm, scrapped their policy, and in the immediate circumstances their argument was irresistible.
ft is unfortunate that the two books before us were written before the repeal of the Corn Production Acts. We should
greatly have liked to know what such experts as Mr. Wolff and Mr. Christopher Tumor think of the prospects under the changed conditions. The repeal must have been much less of a blow to Mr. Wolff than to Mr. Tumor, for Mr. Wolff did not set very much store on the Acts, and the recommendations which he makes for the improvement of agriculture are mostly independent of them. He believes that there are two keys to prosperity.
One is education, and the other is the creation of credit systems so that the " small man " may be enabled to buy and -equip his land. Mr. Wolff, though we cannot say that we agree with all his arguments, notoriously has a right to be heard, as he has for long been a notable writer on such subjects as " People's Banks," " Co-operative Banking," " Co-operative Credit," and co-operation in farm work generally. He is intensely earnest in his desire for the amelioration of country life, and his writing is inspired by the sentiments which Mr. Roosevelt expressed about the land and which are printed on the title-page of the book :- " Our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country. Upon the development of country life rests ultimately our ability to feed and clothe the hungry nations, to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain of modern life. We need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the nation."
Agricultural education is backward in this country, and Mr. Wolff certainly does well to insist upon its importance. He believes that the rural child ought to be captured early for agriculture by having its attention directed to the why and the wherefore of all the processes going on around it. He also has some sensible things to say on the keeping of accounts by farmers.
Education in this matter is a long row to hoe, as many farmers keep no accounts at all. Mr. Wolff will not be satisfied till they are accomplished in " coatings " accounts and have the ability to ascertain how they stand from year to year in respect of money invested and to determine what are the exact results of each year's operations. He desires to see some system of profit-sharing extended, and he describes with appreciation the systems (although they fall short of his ideal) which have been adopted by Sir Hereward Wake and Mr. Edward Strutt- whose name, by the way, is not Edwin. As regards the small- holder, Mr. Wolff is no extreme advocate for either tenancy or ownership. He regards ownership as the right and proper aim, but he does not recommend a headlong rush into ownership while difficulties are still very great and credit systems have been insufficiently developed. Nor does he encourage the small- holder to think that he will succeed without hard work and careful thought. He wisely emphasizes the importance of making various ancillary village industries fit in with the routine of the small-holder. That this dove-tailing can be successfully accomplished has, of course, been proved at Evesham and else- where.
Although Mr. Wolff wrote when the Corn Production Acts wore still in existence, with their accompanying institution of the Wages Board, he took a very gloomy view of the prospects of the farm labourer. He saw no possibility of advance for him along those lines. Perhaps he will discover new hope—though the labourer himself will probably disagree with him—new that the Wages Board has been swept into limbo, together with the Corn Production Acts themselves. What is going to happen about wages we frankly do not know. All that is certain is that the Wages Board, with its State backing, has been replaced . by Conciliation Committees. These committees consist of representatives of the employers and the workers, and they have none of the " appointed members " which were a feature of the Wages Board. If the employers and the workers can agree among themselves upon a scale of pay, it may be submitted to the Minister of Agriculture and be invested for a whole district with a kind of official authority. Yet the State will not be able to enforce anything, and at present the committees are more disputatious than conciliatory. In some counties 38e. is being offered for a week of 50 hours—the Wages Board had imposed a minimum of 42s. for a 48-hour week in most districts-- but in others 366, has been offered as a maximum.
Mr. C. Tumor is one of the most encouraging of our agticul. rural writers, because he is invariably serene and optunistio oven when he feels it necessary, as he frequently does, to exhort the farmer to greater efforts and better ways. In this book he insists upon the national importance of maintaining the area now under the plough and of increasing it wherever it is wise to do so. Another of his aims is to lay stress upon the importance of maintaining the number of small holdings—farms of 50 acres and under—and of improving the living and business conditions of the small-holder. He does not suggest that the United Kingdom should become entirely a country of small holdings nor does he suggest that all grass lands should be ploughed up. He does, however, point out the urgent need of putting grass lands, wherever they are retained, to their greatest economic use by farming them aeientifically. It is his great hope that his book may interest people who are not connected with the land. He hopes to persuade them as voters to demand that the land shall be put to its fullest national use, that the cultivators shall live under the best possible conditions, and that their children shall be given educational opportunities equal to those enjoyed in the towns.
Appropriately to his purpose, Mr. Tumor describes the elements of agriculture and traces the history of farming back to its earliest times. Many people will be surprised to learn that in the reign of Elizabeth there was a very drastic Corn Production Act, though it did not go under that name. Elizabeth, wishing to increase the arable land and reduce the grass, enacted that all land which had been brought down to grass since the beginning of her reign should be reconverted to tillage and that no existing arable should be converted into pasture. Modern agriculture, in which machinery and artificial manures play so great a part, has been practised only since the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. Nevertheless, a great development of agriculture had begun in 1730 with such means as were then available, and the development continued unchecked until 1875, when extreme agricultural depression set in. That depression was as pro- tracted as it was acute, and it was not until 1904 that definite signs of improvement in the agricultural situation could be seen. It must be remembered, however, that though prices were rising from 1904 onwards, there was not much corresponding increase in the productivity of the soil. We advise any boy who is thinking of adopting agriculture as a profession to read Mr. Tumor's most interesting chapter entitled " On Taking Up an Agricultural Career." Mr. Tumor has achieved admirably the design which he set before himself.
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