Let the nation put that reflection in its pipe and smoke it day by day; for only so shall we emerge from a bad dream and seize again on our birthright.
Let us dream a little of what we might become. Let us not crawl on with our stomachs to the ground, and not an ounce of vision in our heads for fear lest we be called visionaries. And let us rid our minds of one or two noxious superstitions. It is not true that country life need mean dull and cloddish life; it has in the past, because agriculture as been neglected for the false glamour of the towns, and village life left to seed down. There is no real reason why the villager should not have all he needs of social life and sane amusement; village life only wants organising. It is not true that country folk must be worse fed and worse plenished than town folk. This has only been so sometimes because a starved industry which was losing hope has paid starvation wages. It is not true that our soil and climate are of indifferent value for the growth of wheat. The contrary is the case. "The fact which has been lost sight of in the past twenty years must be insisted on nowadays, that England is naturally one of the best, if not the very best wheat-growing country in the world. Its climate and soil are almost ideal for the production of the heaviest crops": Professor R. H. Biffen. "The view of leading German agriculturists is that their soils and climate are distinctly inferior to those of Britain": Mr. T. H. Middleton, Assistant Secretary to the Board of Agriculture.
We have many mouths in this country, but no real excuse for not growing the wherewithal to feed them.
To break the chains of our lethargy and superstitions, let us keep before us a thought and a vision—the thought that, since the air is mastered and there are pathways under the sea, we, the proudest people in the world, will exist henceforth by mere merciful accident, until we grow our own food; and the vision of ourselves as a finer race in body and mind than we have ever yet been. And then let us be practical by all means; for in the practical measures of the present, spurred on by that thought, inspired by that vision, alone lies the hope and safety of the future.
What are those measures?
II
WHEAT
The measure which underlies all else is the ploughing up of permanent grass—the reconversion of land which was once arable, the addition to arable of land which has never been arable, so as to secure the only possible basis of success—the wheat basis.
I have before me a Report on the Breaking up of Grass Land in fifty-five counties for the winter of 1916–1917, which shows four successes for every failure. The Report says: "It has been argued during the past few months that it is hopeless to attempt to plough out old grass land in the expectation of adding to the nation's food. The experience of 1917 does not support this contention. It shows not only that the successes far outnumber the failures, but that the latter are to some extent preventable."
The Government's 1918 tillage programme for England and Wales was to increase (as compared with 1916), (1) the area under corn by 2,600,000 acres, (2) the area under potatoes and mangolds by 400,000 acres, (3) the arable land by 2,000,000 acres. I have it on the best authority that the Government hopes to better this in the forth-coming harvest. That shows what our farmers can do with their backs to the wall. It sometimes happens in this world that we act virtuously without in any way believing that virtue is its own reward. Most of our farmers are hoeing their rows in this crisis in the full belief that they are serving the country to the hurt of their own interests; they will not, I imagine, realise that they are laying the foundations of a future prosperity beyond their happiest dreams until the crisis is long past. All the more credit to them for a great effort. They by no means grasp at present the fact that with every acre they add to arable, with each additional acre of wheat, they increase their own importance and stability, and set the snowball of permanent prosperity in their industry rolling anew. Pasture was a policy adopted by men who felt defeat in their bones, saw bankruptcy round every corner. Those who best know seem agreed that after the war the price of wheat will not come down with a run. The world shortage of food and shipping will be very great, and the "new world's" surplus will be small. Let our farmers take their courage in their hands, play a bold game, and back their own horse for the next four or five seasons, and they will, if supported by the country, be in a position once more to defy competition. Let them have faith and go for the gloves and they will end by living without fear of the new worlds. "There is a tide in the affairs of men." This is the British farmer's tide, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. But only if the British farmer intends that Britain shall feed herself; only if he farms the land of Britain so that acre by acre it yields the maximum of food. A hundred acres under potatoes feeds 420 persons; a hundred acres under wheat feeds 200 persons; a hundred acres of grass feeds fifteen persons. It requires no expert to see that the last is the losing horse; for increase of arable means also increase of winter food, and in the long run increase, not decrease, of live stock. In Denmark (1912) arable was to permanent grass as about 4 to 5; in the United Kingdom it was only as about 5 to 7. Yet in Denmark there were five cattle to every eight acres of grass, and in the United Kingdom only four cattle to every nine acres.