Abstract
IN this little book Mr. Hall sets out his views as to the methods to be adopted after the war in order to develop agriculture to the full extent demanded by the national necessities. Mr. Hall insists that more food must be grown at home as an insurance in time of war, to develop our resources and reduce our foreign indebtedness, and to increase the agricultural population as a specially valuable element in the community. This can be attained only by bringing more land under the plough. Farmers will not on their own responsibility plough up grass land: to do so is to destroy a certain, though small, source of profit for the sake of a more risky, but possibly larger, one. Mr. Hall considers that the old laissez-faire policy will no longer meet the case: the State may be driven to adopt some system of bounties or protective duties to make the profits more certain and the inducements more tangible. Five methods are outlined for obtaining a more intensive cultivation of the soil: the establishment of large industrial farms working on a considerable area with all the economic advantages of organisation and scientific management; the establishment under certain conditions of colonies of small holders working under cooperative organisation; the intensification of existing methods; the reclamation and settlement of waste and undeveloped areas; and the establishment of certain subsidiary industries.
Agriculture after the War.
By A. D. Hall. Pp. vii + 137. (London: John Murray, 1916.) Price 3s. 6d. net.
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R., E. Agriculture after the War . Nature 97, 459–460 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097459a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097459a0
