I who have lived most of my time on a farm for many years, in daily
contact with farmer and labourer, do really appreciate what variety and
depth of knowledge is wanted for good farming. It is a lesson to the
armchair reformer to watch a farmer walking across the "home meadow"
whence he can see a good way over his land. One can feel the slow wisdom
working in his head. A halt, a look this way and that, a whistle, the
call of some instruction so vernacular that only a native could
understand; the contemplation of sheep, beasts, sky, crops; always
something being noted, and shrewd deductions made therefrom. It is a
great art, and, like all art, to be learned only with the sweat of the
brow and a long, minute attention to innumerable details. You cannot
play at farming, and you cannot "mug it up." One understands the
contempt of the farmer born and bred for the book-skilled gentleman who
tries to instruct his grandmother in the sucking of eggs. The farmer's
knowledge, acquired through years of dumb wrestling with Nature, in his
own particular corner, is his strength and--his weakness. Vision of the
land at large, of its potentialities, and its needs is almost of
necessity excluded. The practical farmers of our generation might well
be likened unto sailing-ship seamen in an age when it has suddenly
become needful to carry commerce by steam. They are pupils of the stern
taskmaster bankruptcy; the children of the years from 1874-1897, when
the nation had turned its thumb down on British farmers, and left them
to fight, unaided, against extinction. They have been brought up to
carry on against contrary winds and save themselves as best they could.
Well, they have done it; and now they are being asked to reverse their
processes in the interests of a country which left them in the lurch.
Naturally they are not yet persuaded that the country will not leave
them in the lurch again.
Instruction of the British farmer begins with the fortification of his
will by confidence. When you ask him to plough up grass land, to revise
the rotation of his crops, to grow wheat, to use new brands of corn, to
plough with tractors, and to co-operate, you are asking a man deeply and
deservedly cynical about your intentions and your knowledge. He has seen
wheat fail all his life, he has seen grass succeed. Grass has saved him,
and now he is asked to turn his back on it. Little wonder that he curses
you for a meddling fool. "Prove it!" he says--and you cannot. You could
if you had it in your power to show him that your guarantee of a fair
price for wheat was "good as the Bank." Thus, the first item of
instruction to the farmer consists in the definite alteration of public
opinion towards the land by adoption of the _sine quâ non_ that in
future we will feed ourselves. The majority of our farmers do not think
their interests are being served by the present revolution of farming.
Patriotic fear for the country, and dread of D.O.R.A.--not quite the
same thing--are driving them on. Besides, it is the townsmen of Britain,
_not the farmers_, who are in danger of starvation, not merely now, but
henceforth for evermore until we feed ourselves. If starvation really
knocked at our doors, the only houses it would not enter would be the
houses of those who grow food. The farmers in Germany are all right;
they would be all right here. The townsmen of this country were
entirely responsible for our present condition, and the very least they
can do is to support their own salvation. But while with one corner of
their mouths the towns are now shouting: "Grow food! Feed us, please!"
with the other they are still inclined to add: "You pampered industry!"
Alas! we cannot have it both ways.
The second point I want to make about instruction is the importance of
youth. In America, where they contemplate a labour shortage of 2,000,000
men on their farms, they are using boys from sixteen to twenty-one, when
their military age begins. Can we not do the same here? Most of our boys
from fifteen to eighteen are now on other work. But the work they are
doing could surely be done by girls or women. If we could put even a
couple of hundred thousand boys of that age on the land it would be the
solution of our present agricultural labour shortage, and the very best
thing that could happen for the future of farming. The boys would learn
at first hand; they would learn slowly and thoroughly; and many of them
would stay on the land. They might be given specialised schooling in
agriculture, the most important schooling we can give our rising
generation, while all of them would gain physically. By employing women
on the land, where we can employ boys of from fifteen to eighteen, we
are blind-alleying. Women will not stay on the land in any numbers; few
will wish that they should. Boys will, and every one would wish that
they may.
The third point I want to make concerns the model farm. If we are to
have resettlement on any large scale and base our farming on crops in
future, the accessibility of the best practical advice is an absolute
essential.
Till reformed education begins to take effect, the advice and aid of
"model" farmers should be available in every district. Some recognised
diploma might with advantage be given to farmers for outstanding merit
and enterprise. No instruction provided from our advisory agricultural
councils or colleges can have as much prestige and use in any district
as the advice of the leading farmer who had been crowned as a successful
expert. It is ever well in this country to take advantage of the
competitive spirit which lies deep in the bones of our race. To give the
best farmers a position and prestige to which other farmers can aspire
would speed up effort everywhere. We want more competition in actual
husbandry and less competition in matters of purchase and sale. And that
brings us to the vital question of co-operation.
V