English Farming Past and Present Book

ENGLISH FARMING PAST AND PRESENT BY THE RIGHT HONBLE. LORD ERNLE P. C., M. V. O., HON. D. C. L. OXON, HON. FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, AND LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULH COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND PRESIDENT OF TI1K BOARD OP AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES, 1916-1919 NEW EDITION EDITED BY SIR A. D. HALL K C. B., M. A., F. R. S., HON. D. SC. OXON., HON. LL D. ABERDEEN AND CAMBRIDGE, DIRECTOR JOHN INNES HORTICULTURAL Institution, LATE CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE Writing and ploughing are two different talents and he that writes - must have spent in his study that time which is necessary to be spent in the fields by him who will be master of the art of cultivating them. JETHBO TTTL. L. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON t NEW YORK TORONTO LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LTD. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E. C. 4 OLD COURT HOUSE STREET, CALCUTTA 53 NICOL ROAD, BOMBAY 36A MOUNT ROAD, MADRAS LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 114 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 221 EAST 20TH STREET, CHICAGO 88 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 215 VICTORIA STREET, TORONTO BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE First Edition - - Oct. 1912 Second Edition - - Feb. 1917 New Impression - - July 1919 Third Edition - - Jan. 1922 Fourth Edition - - April 1927 New Impression - - Nov. 1932 Fifth Edition - - Oct. 1936 Printed in Great Britain All rights reserved PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION WHEN Lord Ernie and Messrs. Longmans did me the honour of asking me to prepare a new edition of English Farming, Past and Present I agreed with some trepidation. I knew that I had neither the desire nor the knowledge to alter what Lord Ernie had written of the past. But what in 1912 he wrote of the present has since taken on a different colour, and the post-war period has witnessed revolutionary changes in the practices of agriculture and in the attitude of the State, of which the student of agriculture might well desire some summary account. Except for an occasional footnote 1 have, therefore, left untouched Lord Ernies text as far as Chapter XVI, but to that chapter I have added a section bringing the history of tithe down to the present time. I have left the earlier part of Chapter XVIII as Lord Ernie wrote it, but have substituted for the latter part a new section dealing with the practice of agriculture in the period from the be ginning of the century to the outbreak of the war in 1914. Lord Ernie had touched upon education and research, but their growth has been so rapid that I have treated both the pre-war and the later period in one new chapter. Lord Ernies account of the War and State Control remains it is his own record of actions for which he bore so large a responsibility. From that point I have taken up the tale with two chapters, one dealing with the more important items of legislation affecting agriculture, and a second discussing the changes in the methods of farming that have seemed to me to be significant in this latter period. As in these chapters I have perforce had to deal with matters of opinion, I can only express beforehand my regrets for such errors of omission or commission as I must have made. I have many people to thank for their assistance in providing information, notably Mr. C. S. Orwin of Oxford and Dr. V. E. Wilkins, and several of my old colleagues in the Ministry. Sequels are notoriously colourless and unsatisfactory and I cannot hope to have provided an exception. But it is necessary that Lord Ernies classic should be furnished with the data concerning the more recent events, and I take pride in being associated with a book from which I and my contemporaries have learned to look upon English agriculture as something continuously growing, whose present status and future development cannot be understood without an appreciation of its roots in the past. A. D. HALL. February 1936. PREFACE English Fanning Past and Present is based on an article which appeared in the Quarterly Review for 1885...Read More