AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE
THE-Report of the Development Commissioners for the year ending March 31st, 1925, has recently been issued. This Commission is curiously named, for its work is not concerned, as one might think, with general schemes of " national development." Nine-tenths of its activities are directed to two objects : first, scientific research into the problems of agriculture, and secondly the application, by propaganda and education, of the practical- results of these researches.
Last year the Development ComthiSsionerS spent just over £400,000 on agrieultural education and research. They point out that, including grants from the other authorities which- deal with the matter, three-quarters of a million was spent on this work. This sum; we are told, repreients about one.4uarter of one per cent. of the annual Value. of the country's agricultural output. That certainly does not seem to be, as the Commissioners put it, an ekeessiv.e " insurance premium " against stagnation in the induStry. They point out that progress is bOund to be slower than that which is posSible hi one or other of the great • mechanical industries, for agriculture deals with living organisms which we do not know how to control as we control machines. " Within the lives of individuals there can, for example, be - no such improve- ments in agriculture as the perfecting of the internal combnstion engine has made possible in transport. • In an industry governed by the seasons other standards of time must be chosen, and tests of progress must apply to long periods."
The Commissioners go on to Suggest that money invested in the development of agriculture may well prove our salvation in the future. They suggest that the whole balance of our national economy is changing :- " For many years past the trade of this country resulted in a large export surplus, and during the past half century agricul- turists have gradually adapted their -industry. to the requirements of a rich exporting nation. But our trade balance has fallen rapidly since the War. There is now no large surplus of exports, and if this position continues, changes in our agriculture will again be required to meet the altered, circumstances. If we exclude the War years, the agricultural changes of the period 1875-1925 have in the main taken the form of restricting output ; output, that is, as measured in terms of quantity of food ; and the process has been carried out by laying the least productive land down to grass. There are now indications that several of the country's other great industries are approaching a period like that into which agriculture entered fifty years ago, and if unfortunately economic causes force on these other industries a remedy of the kind adopted on the land, and in our mines, workshops and ship- building yards there occur changes similar in their effect upon output and employment .to the changes which have taken place on our farms, it can hardly be doubted that within the next fifty years agriculturists will be called upon to reverse the movement of 1875-1925, and, with this object, to discover and apply new methods."
The balance between industrial and agricultural produce is recognized as a fundamental problem of our economics. The Commissioners really suggest that a given quantity of foodstuffs will in the future be exchanged- for a .larger quantity than formerly of mechanically made articles. This would mean that in the past the opening up of the vast new lands of the New World and of the -Antipodes had increased agricultural production so rapidly as more than to offset the gigantic increase in industrial production due to .scientific _invention. Therefore, _ as the Commis- sioners say, since 1875 the- economic balance has been tilted against the agriculturist; who has-had to exchange a comparatively large amount of- his product for a com- paratively small amount of machine-made goods. But now that there are few new cornlands to develop it seems • probable that mechanical produetion, which is still increasing with great rapidity, will outstrip the production of foodstuffs .and will, therefore, cause a comparative scarcity of them, and will- so stimulate aariculthre to renewed activity: - The Commissioners have, perhaps necessarily, looked at this problem from a somewhat narrowly national standpoint. It is essentially, however, a problem Of World trade and world production. Their conclusion that British agriculture amongst others may very likely find itself called on, somewhat suddenly, to increase its pro- duction is, of course, very important. If their prediction comes true every penny which we spend on agricultural research and education will have been well spent.
Unfortunately we have little space to speak of the actual activities of the Development Commission. They do not pretend that these activities have as yet greatly raised the general level of cultivation throughout the country, but they retort neatly on the carping poli- tician :—" Just as the framing of an agricultural policy satisfactory to the nation as a whole is such a difficult matter that it has overtaxed the resources of our public men, so the translation of new knowledge into successful agricultural practice presents, to those faced with it, a very complex problem." They hope rather to work by the method of encouraging a new race of " Agricultural Improvers." They remind us how the great " Improvers " of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, men like Townshend (a mediocre statesman, but a genius in the turnip field), Bakewell, Coke and Lawes raised the whole level of our agriculture. So to-day the Commis- sioners hope that the Research Institutes, Experimental Stations, County Organizers and Lectures, &c., will get in touch with the potential " Improver." The farmer of enterprise and initiative will first apply the modern scientific method to his own fields and, by his successful example, will raise the standard of cultivation in his whole district.
One practical suggestion which the Commissioners make should be specially noted. They suggest that landowners, other circumstances being equal, should give preference to applicants for holdings " who have endeavoured to fit themselves for work on the land by taking a college training." We heartily commend this Report, published by the Stationery Office at 3s. 6d., to everyone who is interested in the agricultural problem. It shows how much unpretentious good work is being done throughout the country.
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