Excerpt from The State as Farmer: Or the Future of Agriculture in England The question has not been discussed in the past largely because it is a commonplace commercial matter. We know that we are a nation of shopkeepers, and the instinct of the class is to keep the land for certain individualistic operations. It is a mistaken View, but interests are involved which would be incommoded, if not injured, should the necessary changes be made. The war will, no doubt, cause this simple factor of military risk to be included in all future calculations. The' idea that it would pay us to keep our labourers well fed in view of calls upon their strength, never seems to have entered into the heads of those who were concerned in this industry. I think it has reached that centre of thought now; and when we preach the gospel of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.