A 4- . THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE --^ BY HENRY W. WOLFF Author of ** Co-Operation in Agriculture " Honorary Adviser to the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, one of the Founders of the British Agricultural Organization Society, 1899, and of the Agricultural Organization Society, 1900 • ^ * » , • • t > * » » » I • 3 J J J J 3 ^ 3 ' > » >J3 33, ' ", • ' > ', ' 3 '3* ' » 1 3 J 3 » LONDON P. S. KING & SON, LTD. ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1918 1-1 A ^^i^ ■< en PREFACE GO During the sixty-one years which have passed ^ since the author first became practically interested ^ in Agriculture as a farm pupil, great changes have taken place m the craft to which Aristotle in his ' day assigned the premier rank among callings. In spite of the rare skill and remarkable command of resource exhibited by our leading farmers, recent inquiries prompted by war troubles have made it clear that British Agriculture has lost something of that " pride of place " which it held at the beginning of the period spoken of, when it was '^-. recognized as the teacher in Agriculture of all nations. Apart from peculiar features in our land system, which appear opposed to progress, the main reason uj of this is seen to be that the bulk of our farming community have failed to follow the good lead given. However there has also been some progress among our whilom pupils which has made them eclipse their erewhile masters on some not unim- portant points. Just as in matters of constitutional government some of our daughter nations, accepting §the principles of the British Constitution, have in § their freer atmosphere learnt to graft improved new ^practices upon the old stock, which we now gladly est' CD c^if^f^vr^^ >, vi PREFACE accept as being better suited to altered circumstances, so Agriculturists beyond the seas, emulating our own, have devised new and improved methods, from which we ma}'^ learn. It has been the author's lot to see a good deal of such modern methods, which are more particularly interesting in that part of the subject which applies to that important social and economic problem interlaced with the agricultural, namely, that of settling more people on the land and so increasing agricultural production, while providing a larger supply of labour, and creating ampler contentment, happiness and prosperity. The subject matter having been systematically divided under distinct heads, some recurrence to the same practices under different aspects has proved inevitable. H. W. W. January, 1918. CONTENTS CHAP. I Shortcomings of our Agriculture II Remedies Suggested III Education IV Organisation . V Working Credit for Farmers VI Labour .... VII Small Holdings VIII A Full Reward for the Tiller IX Reclamation of Waste Land . X Conclusion .... Index page I 49 97 158 217 274 313 364 409 456 497 The Future of our Agriculture CHAPTER I Shortcomings of our Agriculture The demand for " Agricultural Reform " is at present on nearly every one's lips. And at all points of the country are minds concentrating their attention upon the question : ' ' In what way may the position of our Agriculture be effec- tively improved ? " The war has found out our " heel of Achilles," at which even the well-equipped warrior is vul- nerable. It has meant a rude awakening for us. For, just as the Germans did with their" HindenburgLine," we in our self-complacency cherished the fond belief, nurtured by long-continued peace at sea, that our position with regard to the supply of food was impregnable. A disappointing morning came to our dream. Germany had challenged us at arms. And we responded, so to put it, by challeng- ing her " at food." But — lo and behold ! Germany re- taliated in kind and caused us at any rate some severely troubled three or four years. In our sense of security we had reckoned without the submarines. It is only characteristic of human nature that, so dis- illusioned, we should have at once jumped overreadily to the opposite extreme, forgetting in our anxiety — after a hopeful rejoicing over " a century of peace " with our most powerful sister nation, heralding, as we are still bound to hope, a coming reign of world peace — that the world war was, after all, only a passing episode, one of — 1 B 2 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. " those momentary starts from Natme's laws. Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite But for a time, then pass, and leave the earth With all her seasons to repair the blight In a few summers," and that the very motive for our own and America's inter- fering was, to ensure that there should be no " next time " and to secure peace and freedom at sea as an abiding bless- ing for the world. The French have a proverb which says. La paix se conserve enfin par la guerre, that is, there are cases in which peace is best secured by war. Evidently the present is such a case. The hour is trying. But its length is irrevo- cably measured, and beyond it lies, so we must hope, an era of " peace and concord among nations," in which the submarine will cease from troubling and our commerce at sea will once more be at rest. But, however uncalled for may be a dread of the future with its submarine nightmare, the discovery that our Agriculture is below par — much below that point — and, as we have recently ascertained, quite unequal to the requirements of the Nation, is no less disconcerting. Pro- vidence has meted out to us our cultivable land with a sparing hand. Of that land, war or no war, we ought in reason, and in duty to the Giver of it, to make the most, putting it to the best possible use, seeing what our teeming population is in proportion to our narrow territory. Should it come to war again and should others once more set up for us a Chinese Wall, we shall have to produce what food we possibly can, so as to preserve our population from starving. While war is in abeyance, while the temple of Janus remains closed, we shall be failing in our duty, not only if we do not produce upon our soil what value we can, for the sake of national prosperity and — besides making proper provision for any fresh emergency — to keep our own money at home, but also if we fail to use our land for the purpose of giving healthy productive employment to a maximum number of persons, and provide a maximum number of persons with appropriate rural homes and rural happiness. SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 3 On this point the inquiries which the war has prompted have shown us to be miserably unprepared. Indeed, the discovery is of much older date than the war and than the institution of Departmental inquiries begun in 1915. Really the evil has stared us in the face for many years back. All the world knew that our Agriculture had long passed its zenith and was struggling through trying times. Ever since the close of what Mr. Prothero has styled " the golden age of English Farming " the realm of Ceres had been troubled. Some of us still remember the dire scourge of rinderpest, carrying ruin for thousands in its train. That being done with, a period of agricultural unrest set in, in all grades of the calling. Tenant right claimed its own. There were spirited debates between spokesmen of the landlords and of the farmers, the echoes of which still ring in aged ears. Landlords' supremacy was held to signify tenants' wrong. There was then no compensation for improvements. Game had a free run across farmers' fields. The rabbit pest was rampant and accounts of its depredations filled columns of our agricultural and pro- vincial papers with tales of woe. Time after time were legislative remedies asked for and denied, till the tenants mustered in the ranks of their " Alliance " and, like the French revolutionaries, " forming their battalions," ex- torted redress. The result was a series of Agricultural Holdings Acts (which do not even yet set all things right) the first of which was that passed by Mr. Disraeh in 1875. By that time labourers had likewise risen in not unprovoked revolt and, once united — for too brief a time to serve their own purpose — they succeeded in obtaining at any rate some measure of improvement of their condition. Shortly after, the first period of Agricultural Depression set in — a severe visitation, only too soon to be followed by a second, as ruinous. Every one who chose to open his eyes could see then that British Agriculture was losing ground. Mil- lions of acres passed out of arable cultivation, the national wheat crop shrank ; the profits from newly laid down grass did not approximately make up for the loss ; labour deserted and became scarce, ^^'arning voices were heard. 4 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. but were disregarded — at the very time, as it happened, when, unobserved by ourselves, speaking collectively, the country which was destined to become our deadliest enemy, fighting us in the food war as well as with military weapons, was rapidly mending its pace, systematically and remark- ably improving its husbandry, in order to overtop us. Some years ago a loud warning note was sounded, un- fortunately in a decidedly sensational way, such as never produces the desired effect, recalling rather a novelist's vision than an agricultural expert's sober judgment. Agriculture was reported to be " going to the dogs." The picture drawn was, of course, true up to a point ; but it was overdrawn and contained not a few exaggerations. And the overdrawing defeated its effect. We had had a similar Cassandra's call only a few years before, with regard to our Trade and Commerce — a call easily refuted by refer- ence to facts. What were we to think of the progressing ruin of Agriculture, when so undoubtedly eminent an authority as Mr. A. D. Hall wrote, in 1913, in his " Pilgrim- age of British Farming " about the " pre-eminence " which " our farming still enjoys " and of our getting " more out of the land and getting better crops and stock than by any other existing system " ? The dismal tale of failure was, however, taken up abroad as gospel, sympathetically or else gloatingly, as the case might be. A distinguished Italian statesman, who had in the Nuova Antologia re-echoed Mr. Chamberlain's doleful cry about ruined British trade and commerce, and described our country as living, like a hibernating bear, upon its own accumulated fat, took up a similar parable again in the same Review, about our ruined Agriculture, which he represented as bankrupt. And when in the German Parliament, a well-meaning, hapless deputy, Herr Gothein, referred commendingly to some feature of British farming, which he held up as a model, the Chamber resounded with the derisive cry, " British Agriculture is bankrupt " [Die ist ja pleite) from the Conservative benches. Unfortunately that delusion helped not a little to strengthen the German Government in its warhke determination, in the belief that there was SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 5 really a good prospect of the submarines starving us, so that that sensational cry was proved to have done harm, rather than good. " // nc faut jamais defier un foil de mal faire." But even without such excessive apprehensiveness we were warned since a very long time. We are beholden to the proprietors of the Times newspaper for most illuminating and instructive reports on inquiries of a less sensational but far more useful character, conducted periodically by agriculturists of the first rank, commissioned to take stock of the condition of our Agriculture, such as Sir James Caird (whom not a few of us remember in St. James's Square) nearly sixty years ago, and Mr. A. D, Hall only a few summers back. Mr. A. D. Hall's letters tell their own tale — of brilliant light, coupled with creditable variety, and disclosing much masterly skill and command of resource, but also of very, very dark shade, which shade unfortunately greatly predominates. However, practically precisely the same tale was told under both aspects — suited to the period, in 1850-51, by Sir James Caird — down to the really shaming particular of splendid light prevailing " on one side of the hedge," with the darkest of shades, to set it off, oppressing the view, " on the other," only a few inches off — on the same soil in the same climate, probably under the same landlord, and conceivably under the same terms as to rent. The little Hght, however brilliant in brightness, unfortunately will not redeem the darkness of the shade. Taking it as a whole, our Agriculture is not at present a matter really to be proud of. "It was manifest from the evidence laid before us," so reports the Departmental Food Committee presided over by Lord Milner, and composed, among others, of such unquestionably highly competent and experienced men as the present President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, Mr. R. E. Prothero, and Mr. E. Strutt and Mr. A. D. Hall, " that, speaking generally, the land of England is being kept at a comparatively low level of cultivation and that it might be made to produce a greater amount of 1 "A Pilgrimage of British Farming," p. 432. 6 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. food without the withdrawal of labour from more profitable industries." Average yields are low — considerably lower than those of Belgium, Denmark, and Germany. The very same acreage might very well produce twice or three times the present quantity, very likely more. Cultivation is backward. There is much land out of heart. And wide stretches which ought to bear corn for food are left for the most part under unprofitable pasture — 3,700,000 acres having been added to the extent of grassland, in sheer penny wisdom, to keep down the labour bill, within the past forty years. The picture is one to shame our agriculturists of the present day, whatever section of their own particular calling they may belong to, whether landlords or farmers. They hold the valuable national possession of our cultiv- able land in keeping — unquestionably, as we now discern — though up to now we would not realise it— as something of " a trust," on behalf of the Nation. The war has taught us that it is a trust. And how have they administered it ? Previously the burden of every pronouncement on land and agriculture was " property, property, property." So the planters of the Southern States had argued when they were reproached for illtreating their negro slaves, whom they regarded as simply " property." Our landlords made the same mistake with regard to their land. A time has come when that contention will no longer pass. Every- thing else has been placed at our disposal without limit or measure. We can multiply manufactured goods and money value at pleasure. Our land alone is narrowly restricted, and the limit obviously imposes a duty, which the clamours and complaints of the poorer classes, threatened with famine, or something very closely approaching to it, has at length during the war made us to realise. The Nation's land is not " property " in the sense of money or chattels. Our discovery of our backwardness, or retrogression, has been made much more striking than it otherwise would have been by the foil of German achievements, in juxta- position to which it is placed and which is glaringly set off by it, possibly beyond its actual desert, While we SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 7 have been lazily resting upon our oars — it is Mr. Hall who has called pasture farming " lazy farming " — Ger- many by our side has been pulling vigorously ahead. " If Agriculture," so stated Lord Selborne, when still at the head of the Board of Agriculture, in July, 1916, while addressing a gathering of farmers in Lincoln, " had made no more progress in Germany than it has in the United Kingdom, during the period 1895 to 1915, the German Empire would have been at the end of its food resources long before the end of the second year of the war," adding that the war was, as a matter of fact, " being fought just as much on an agricultural as on a military organisation of the Nation." The statement is probably correct, and Lord Selborne was right in laying particular stress upon the word " Organisation." Very opportunely then has the Board of Agriculture — still acting under Lord Selborne's judicious and timely instructions, pubHshed a masterly memorandum, written by Mr. T. H. Middleton, on the condition of Agriculture in the country of our great enemy rival, Germany, with whose position in the matter we are naturally led to com- pare our own. Mr. Middleton's inquiry has revealed some highly disconcerting facts. On every point, except one, in the comparison of average yields of crops per acre, do we come out below the German figure. The main result is perhaps best summed up in the statement, made upon the ground of official statistics, that Germany manages to feed from seventy to seventy-five persons per 100 acres of cultivated land, as contrasted with our only forty-five to fifty, notwithstanding the fact that the German cultivated area includes wide sweeps — about two-fifths of the whole area — of soil of unquestionable inferior quality — sand of the diluvium, descending from the point of still fair pro- ductiveness to that of almost absolute barrenness— even below that of the Belgian " Campine," which Lavelege styled " the VN^orst in Europe "—which, with an allusion to the antiquated custom, still adhered to in many a German Government office, of using sand in the place of blotting paper for absorbing ink, passes popularly by the name of 8 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. " His Majesty's sandbox." There is also less moisture in the German atmosphere, less recuperative power such as our own climate has shown in 1917, and there is a con- siderably longer winter. Here is the comparison : On an average, an acre of wheat yields us 31-2 bushels, Germany 31-6 bushels ; an acre of barley respectively 32-7 and 36-7 bushels ; an acre of oats 39 and 44'6 bushels ; an acre of potatoes (that is our one good point) 6-2 and 5-4 bushels ; an acre of meadow hay 25-1 and 33-7 tons. The figures for milk are even more against us per 100 acres, namely 17-1 tons to ourselves and 28-1 tons to Germany. The figures quoted by Mr. Middleton are of course in themselves incontestable, being taken from official returns. In view of the large proportion of inferior land, and a good deal of bad farming still surviving — as witness the late German Chancellor's, Herr Michaelis, complaint about the unsatisfactory condition of German Agriculture — they represent even greater achievements than would appear at first glance for the land that is well tilled. However, they claim a few words of comment and explanation cal- culated to give us heart of grace. To begin with, Germany is a country sacred in respect of Agriculture to the use of the plough and the harrow, whereas Great Britain has become a land mainly of pasture. Now tillage yields incomparably more produce per acre than does pasture, whatever agricultural lights of past ages may have said in defence of the latter, " which saves you the expense of carting off your produce to market, making it walk there instead on its own legs." We have 40-35 per cent, of our land under pasture, to the German 3-23 per cent. That alone accounts for a great deal. Next, as for cereals, Germany has 45-97 per cent, sown with them ; we have only 19-50 per cent. And the contrast becomes particularly glaring when we come to the useful and highly remunerative crop of potatoes, which Germany rightly favours, and which we very wrongly neglect. There the Ger- man figure is 10-44 P^r cent., and ours only 1-59 per cent. No wonder Germany outlasts a war famine better than SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 9 we had expected. With regard to meadow hay Mr. Middle- ton has necessarily had to compare a poor quinquennium on our side with an exceptionaUy favourable one in Ger- many. Also, it should be borne in mind that the German figure includes the aftermath — in some rare cases even also a third cut — as against our generally only one cut, after which stock is as a rule turned out on the grass. Wheat, once more, is in Germany a crop reserved only for very good soil, which is invariably manured. The popular breadcorn crop in Germany is rye, which, under proper cultivation, has proved anything but the " miser, grudging rent and tithe/' for which it is given out in the well-known song of " John Barleycorn." Mr. Middleton does not give the figure for rye. That cereal is so much cultivated in Germany, not only because in Germany inferior soil pre- ponderates — soil which will not bear wheat — but also because it is reckoned the safer crop, among other things in view of the severe winter — which kills our English breeds of wheat — and as admitting, in Germany, of later sowing, up to Christmas {Christkindelkorn) , which is a liberty that you could not there take with wheat. Spring wheat is but little cultivated. A further point in favour of rye in Ger- man eyes is the superiority of its straw and its bran. There- fore in comparing wheat crop with wheat crop we pit our omnium gatherum against the German elite. After all that has been said and written in this country about rye as an inferior breadcorn, to which Germans have repHed with the assurance that they prefer ryebread — which is not quite strictly correct ; for the preference is to a great extent utilitarian — it may be worth mentioning that rye is in Germany much valued as breadcorn on account of its keeping quality, which, however, is in great part attributable to its being, as a common practice, baked with leaven instead of with yeast. I have never heard of wheaten bread baked with leaven. Probably that would make it, hkewise, keep better. Rye bread, baked with yeast, is more palatable than that baked with leaven ; but it soon gets dry and stale. Of course, rye is in ordinary times cheaper than wheat (the proportion used to be as 10 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 2 to 3), especially since in Germany land of any descrip- tion will bear rye, and only the best will bear wheat. " Wei- zenboden " admittedly ranks first among classified soils, also above " Gerstenboden." And the long straw, keeping straight better, and the more nourishing bran, are advan> tages which tell in the balance. Rye, now undeservedly despised in this country, so it may not be amiss to remind farmers, used at one time, as Mr. Prothero reminds us in his book, to be " the breadstuff of the English peasantry." And it would not be amiss if English farmers, farming on poor soil, were to follow the example recently opportunely set by their Irish comrades, of cultivating it again on land which produces but poor crops of wheat. The heavier yield of (better) straw alone might serve as an argument in favour of this. When thrashing machines first came in, German farmers v/ould not use them, because, taking the sheaves only lengthways, they broke up and spoilt the straw, which is greatly valued for its straightness and its length. The wider machines of later make avoid such spoiling. In Germany, by the way, rye does not ripen later than wheat, but rather earlier. Probably the time of sowing and our practice of soiling or cutting in spring in part accounts for the difference. In Germany the rye harvest is generally at least half over when the wheat harvest begins. And on fields sown with the two cereals together, next year you will find more rye growing in the new crop from cast grains than wheat. The yield of potatoes, on the other hand, is in Germany not by so much inferior to our own, as would appear from Mr. Middleton's figures. Rightly, potatoes constitute in Germany the favourite crop, which may be grown any- where, even on the lightest sand, and accordingly is so grown, not only because it gives the best return among crops, but also because its use for industrial purposes has become quite general, and in this way it is made to yield money first, and valuable winter fodder after. Therefore, as a reversed case to that of wheat, our good yield compares with a yield in Germany which includes very much poor stuff, including " strings of pearls " not worth the lifting. SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE, ii All the more unwise for us to miss so excellent and tempting an opportunity of turning the plant food contained in our soil into money. After Mr. Prothero's promising reference to the very great utility of potatoes for remunerative indus- trial purposes we may hope that a very much larger quan- tity of potatoes will be grown in this country in the future. Our Agriculture will gain by the changes. The greater equableness of our climate, ensuring a longer period of vegetation than in Germany, and our practical freedom from the danger of early frosts in the autumn — stand decidedly in our favour. Over and besides all this, it ought to be borne in mind that in Germany practically there is no raising of rent. For the most part the occupier is also owner of his land and secure of a return for all his improvements, in the shape either of annual yield or else of selling value. So far as he is a tenant, he as a general rule farms under a pretty long lease, which enables him to manure freely and till well without fear of being dispossessed of his rightful reward. In such cases also, as a rule, he has a good landlord, that is, the State, some municipality or foundation, or a very large landowner, all of whom are Ukely to deal fairly by him. And, furthermore, it ought to be borne in mind that Germany has no game preserving to speak of. It is only in few districts that there is sufficient game to do any serious damage. And there the landlord meets his tenants in a very fair way, permitting them to scare the big game off their fields at night with the help of dogs and trumpets and torches, though of course they must not kill any. The consequence is that bags are less heavy, but game is " game," and there is really more genuine sport in shooting it. Hunting is relegated to very few regions of large estates, as for instance Pomerania and Mecklenburg, in which squires are very much in the ascen- dant. All this helps to produce a difference. Unquestionably Germany has stolen a substantial march upon us and left us for the moment behind in the race. Her land, under a different land system, more appropriate to the present age, yields considerably more than does 12 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. ours, and to that extent her superiority has baffled our measures of food-war by means of a blockade. How- ever superior the best of our farming may be, as a nation we shall have to admit that for the moment we are beaten. That fact is bound to give rise to bitter reflection. How are the mighty fallen ! Fifty and sixty years ago we were the observed of all observers as leaders in Agriculture. Great Britain was the farming Mecca for agriculturists to journey to in quest of knowledge. It was we who had held up the light of agricultural learning which had illuminated the world. It was from us that France, Germany, Switzer- land — every country of the Continent, in fact — had learnt superior farming, as " Turnip Townshend," " Coke of Nor- folk," Lord Somerville and their coetaneans and successors had perfected and taught it. In France it was Saussure who had acted as our apostle. The important Societe Nationale d' Agriculture de France was set up in imitation of the Agricultural Society of Dublin. In Switzerland the chosen prophet of modern Agriculture, the founder — in company with Pestalozzi — of the first farm-school, and in this way the " father " of Agricultural Education as a whole, Emmanuel von Fellenberg, had preached from English texts, laying stress, more particularly, upon the merits of our system of rotation. In Germany " Father Thaer " — born, as a Hanoverian, a subject of King George the Third— who is the reputed " father " of modern German Agriculture, held up our Agriculture as the model to follow — just as did many years after, in the same country, in the period here spoken of — ^which was the German agricul- tural rinascimento — Stockhardt and his fellow pioneers — Stockhardt having learnt, as he himself owned, mainly from Rothamsted. It is with our own weapons that the Germans have for the time being vanquished us, with our own heifer that they have been ploughing their field. The application is theirs, past masters as they are in the art of borrowing and adapting; the principle is ours. And what they have grafted upon our native stock, it must be a comfort to SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 13 o reflect that we ought, mutatis mutandis, to be able to graft back again to our profit. Then let us see how Germany has done to reach her present vantage point. The study cannot be unprofitable. For Mr. Middleton has sufficiently shown that we may find lessons to profit us in the inquiry, which may result to our benefit. I approach the subject with some confidence since, by a ruling of Providence, which I did not relish at the time, I was fated to spend a good part of my youth in Germany, being there engaged mainly with Agriculture, to the study of which, comparing it all the time with British, I devoted about twelve years of my hfe, observing everywhere and farming for myself — a property of my own of 1,000 acres, in Prussian Upper Lusatia — during six years. My father having, on his retirement from business in Leeds, gone to live at Dresden, it was natural that, during my early years, he should have wished to keep me near him. And, once interested in the matter, it is surely needless to say that I have never lost touch with German Agriculture, nor ceased watchfully to observe its progress. We must not conceive of German Agriculture as of one homogeneous whole of unvarying quahty throughout, " without spot or wrinkle." There is not a little bad farming still in Germany, as Herr MichaeHs has confessed. Nor must we conceive of it as affording to ourselves a model to follow on all points. Indifferent husbandry apart, there are many things in German farming, even successful points, which would do anything but suit ourselves in our very different circumstances. And there are points also in respect of which we are the more advanced of the two. But there are some outstanding points distinctly deserving of attention and study. The principles of German Agriculture, as we see it now, being borrowed from our own, by the way, is no exceptional or solitary feature in German economy. For, admirable adapters and perfecters as Germans unquestionably are, their originating power seems limited. Their boasted ani- line industry came from our Perkins. And their applied chemistry generally, which, with peculiar aptitude for that 14 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. science and exceptional capacity for entering into minutiae, and with tlieir own peculiar heirloom of characteristically persevering labour, they have carried to a high point of perfection and profitableness, they owe in like manner to our Muspratt and Graham, who were the accepted standard authorities on the subject some fifty and sixty years ago, when I studied chemistry in the laboratories of Bonn and Heidelberg, and when the great German advance began to take place, with which Germany has lately dazzled the world. Our Johnstone was also appreciated and studied. Again, those famous " social " measures which we have recently been studying and adapting — not altogether on improved lines — namely. Workmen's Accident Assurance, Old Age Pensions, Health Insurance, and so on, are distinct developments and a State socialised reflex of our Friendly Societies' practices, made general and compulsory. It is a fixed belief in high quarters in Germany, submissively accepted and shared by the ol ttoWol, that every popular movement must be under Government leading, lest it go astray and lest there be not sufficient inducement to fill its ranks. That is the secret of the German reputation for exceptional aptitude for " organisation." In the same way that Co-operative Credit, which we are now rightly longing to graft upon our Agriculture after German example, and do so little effectually to acclimatise, is another direct offshoot from our Friendly Societies' provident prac- tice. It was on Friendly Society lines that both Raiffeisen and Schulze began their beneficent work, perfecting the system as they went along. In the province of Agriculture there is little enough indeed in Germany which is not copied from us, although, of course, there are some inter- esting racy features brought forth by special circumstances — such as the reclamation of peatmoss, " dry farming " on the Brandenburg and Pomeranian sand, the impress- ment of industrial undertakings to better utilise agricul- tural produce such as potatoes and sugarbeet, and the intimate interconnection of Agriculture with forestry. How- ever, in their adaptation of our " Townshend and Coke " Agriculture Germans have with remarkable ingenuity and SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 15 rare application achieved signal success. The reason is that, having written Education topmost upon their banner, and enjoying an enviable freedom from — to put it in Sir James Caird's words — our disease of having " a very pre- valent dislike to learn," they have painstakingly analysed processes and results, in order to arrive at the discovery of the operating causes and push those which answer to the utmost, while discarding those that do not. It was the same " schoolmaster " who, as Was said at the time, vanquished at Sadowa, who has also triumphed on the cultivated ager. To these causes must be added another, which we in our insular isolation often enough lose sight of. Germany was poor — very poor ; and it was a neces- sity for it to strain every nerve to improve its condition. Besoin fait la vieille trotter. For some centuries German soil had been the chosen battle-ground of hostile armies, the prize disputed for among foreign potentates. And the invading armies had known how to destroy and rob. Turenne and Crequi had wrecked castles, as Demetrius had wrecked " cities." Then came the first Napoleon with all his host and their " indemnities " and pilferings from palaces and museums, which have served the Germans as a pretext for organised brigandage — a thousand times aggravated, of course — such as Germans may be said to have been the first to set an example for — "oil Us retires ont passe on ne doit point de dimes."'^ Anyhow the result was that Ger- many was impoverished and its people were backward and cowed, a ready prey to autocratic usurpation, as well as a people condemned to cheeseparing. Our humorists have frequently ridiculed German parsimony and penury. That was a ready subject for cheap wit, which not un- naturally has left its sting behind. But with the Germans parsimony was not a matter of choice. The country was impoverished, and the " groschen " was to Germans valu- able as the " penny " of the Bible. Parsimony and cheese- 1 In the days of the retires and lansquenets there was a saying cur- rent in France that these German mercenaries having, for their misdeeds, been refused an entrance into Paradise by Saint Peter, the devil equally refused to receive them in hell, because he con- sidered them too bad to mix with his host. i6 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. paring extended up to the Throne. In the Thiergarten of Berlin stands a statue of Frederick William III, the king of Napoleon's time, showing a patched boot. That was put there on purpose to commemorate his parsimony at a time when parsimony was a distinct necessity and a virtue. Agriculture necessarily shared in the effects of general impoverishment. It had to be conducted — and was so — on skinflint lines. What impressive warnings addressed to German farmers I remember reading, in my days of German residence fifty and sixty years ago, against under- feeding — with chopped straw — and undermanuring ! How- ever, Hobson had no choice then. Needs must when the devil drives. To Agriculture long so situated British high farming came as a revelation — at a time when, it should be remarked, the most pressing necessity for economising farthings had already passed away. Germany was just beginning to breathe afresh, emerging from her long period of need. Under the " Zollverein " and a liberal tariff policy, the consequences of a long continuance of administratively good government and rigid economy began to make them- selves felt and cheeseparing was, although a revered tradi- tion, no longer a necessity of quite the same imperativeness as before. A brief sketch of the advance of German Agriculture may here be in place. It is not quite correct to say, as has been done, that the present perfection of German Agriculture as a whole was the work " of the last forty years." The real and most substantial improvement began earlier, the latest intensification of the process — for political purposes — which at the present time mainly fixes our atten- tion, more than twenty years later. However, before beginning to tell the tale of gradual development, in view of very erroneous impressions freely prevailing in this country, it may be well, in order to guard against misapprehension, to call attention to Mr. Middleton's well founded— and in his pen assuredly unbiased — judg- ment, which says : "It cannot be alleged that the extra SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 17 money which tariffs brought to Agriculture is the sole, or even the main, cause of the increase in production. If other, and quite different, causes had not been operating, German Agriculture must have been bankrupt ere now. . . . An examination of prices shows that, if world prices had not favoured the agriculturist, the protective tariffs of Germany could not have removed his financial embarrass- ment." That is really to some extent understating facts as they are. The matter was thoroughly threshed out in Germany itself during the heated tariff controversy of 1903, when a new, higher tariff was under consideration. And the facts brought forward in the perfect library of publi- cations, issuing from the highest authorities on either side, have made it convincingly clear that Protection has had nothing whatever to do with the happy development of German Agriculture — if indeed it has not actually checked and retarded it. The tariff policy began in 1879, ^s a purely political move — although the fact that by its Constitution the Empire was debarred from raising money for its growing wants by direct taxation, when it wanted money badly for its ambitious military measures, of course, served as a pretext. That hindrance might at the time spoken of have been got over without serious difficulty. However, to serve those " vast ambitions " of which Lord Beaconsfield pointedly spoke at a Guildhall Banquet during his last Premiership, the leading classes concerned — agriculturists on the one hand and commercial men and industrialists on the other — were to be won over, bound to the Throne — which still, as in the 'sixties, distinguishes between " king's friends " and others — by the golden chains of apparent benefits coming out of other people's pockets. Agricul- turists, like industrialists, required a gread deal of per- suasion to make them accept the boon, because they had been well enough off before. In truth, barring the recent war, prices for cereals were higher under comparative Free Trade than after, although at the earlier date Germany was still a meat and grain exporting country. I have then heard our maintaining that shilling registration duty upon wheat denounced in Germany as a piece of " Protection " c l8 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRlCULTURfi. telling against her Agriculture. It may be worth reminding people that, as Huskisson's speech delivered in Parliament in 1823 shows/ it was Prussia which first forced a policy of Free Trade upon us, by threatening retaliatory measures in the matter of coasting trade. I was witness to the great rejoicings among agriculturists in 1864 over the conclusion of the Anglo-Prussian — or rather Anglo-Zoll- verein — commercial treaty, which was considered a distinct step towards Free Trade, and was certainly hailed as a great gain for German Agriculture. " You may now order what- ever you please," so said to me the late Consul Hesse, of Dresden, from whom I was in the habit of buying English implements ; " the duty is a mere nothing." I remember that it was just half a crown on a Ransome and Sims plough. English implements were then badly needed in Germany, because German implement making was still lamentably backward. But that was not the only point. It so hap- pened that immediately after the proclamation of the commercial treaty referred to the periodical " All German " Agricultural Congress and Exhibition took place at Dresden. There were representative leading agriculturists present from all parts of Germany and Austria (which then still formed an integral part of Germany, and was indeed the leading power) . And so one could there hear genuine opinions of all sections of the agricultural community. There was no dissonant note in the chorus of rejoicing. Bismarck's secession to Protection indeed cost him the services of the highest agricultural authority in the land, his colleague, Dr. Friedenthal, a most capable Minister of Agriculture, who resigned at once, deprecating Protection as directly detrimental to Agriculture, in which opinion Prince Bis- marck's " right-hand man " of long years, the " Deputy-Chan- ^ See "Huskisson's Speeches," vol. i, p. 205 ss. Prussia had threatened us with retahation for the dues which we still levied on Prussian bottoms. The Prussian Minister announced that " His Prussian Majesty desired to substitute a policy of " reciprocal facilities " for that of " reciprocal prohibition." Huskisson seized the point with great eagerness. The Editor of his " Speeches " compares the result of Prussian " facilities " with that of " French Prohibition" in 1831. SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 19 cellor " as he was popularly called, Dr. Delbriick, joined him, likewise resigning on this particular issue. The new policy entered upon in 1894 — when incidentally Protection was aggravated — undoubtedly made a difference in the output of German Agriculture. But that increased output was not earned, but dearly paid for with public money in a serious crisis. However, coming back to " our muttons," the decisive step, the step which really initiated progress and laid down the lines upon which German Agriculture has since grown up as a lusty tree, sending its root downward and spreading its branches upward, bearing fruit richly, was taken in the late 'fifties and the early 'sixties, as I can testify from personal observation. It was then that the " new era " set in, following closely upon our own " golden age," as Mr. Prothero has called it, and obviously stimulated by that. As will still be shown, the Germans saw in the remarkable advance of our British Agriculture at that time a direct consequence of our new policy of Free Trade, which had put our farmers " upon their mettle." Such was the inter- pretation given in Germany by all the leading authorities to our advance. And German observation of this fact became the turning point in the development of German Agriculture. It was our Free Trade Agriculture which fecundated German soil. Protection, on the other hand, when it came, had in truth in Germany this decidedly adverse effect upon Agri- culture, that it made the principal raw material of that industry — that is, land — appreciably dearer. The expected higher price to be obtained for produce was at once clapped on to the price of the land. And accordingly the price of land shot up. That benefited the owners of land at the particular time, to the detriment of those who were to follow after. And what gain there arose from that, German landowners were foolish enough to fritter away most reck- lessly. The nominal advance in the price of land encouraged borrowing. And debt incurred fostered improvident and extravagant li\ang. It is the consequences of that, that all too many German landed proprietors are now suffering X '-' \?. , ^y:'iAci TME FUTU] V4