A more promising line of advance would be to set up local Committees, who would be charged with the duty of deciding which farms in their district can profitably use, we will say, sulphate of ammonia and basic slag, and in what quantity; and the farmers affected would have to obtain supplies. Or the Government could take over the whole out put of these substances, and let farmers have supplies at such a price as would cover the cost, with a reasonable allowance for interest, till the crop or stock was marketed and the debt liquidated. ternatively, farmers affected by a decision of the local Committee might be given the right to apply for a Government loan, the security being the crop or stock. Al Then, as regards the breaking up of grass land, a similar course might be pursued. The Government decides, we will say, that the area under arable cultivation in the United Kingdom must be increased by four million acres, about 25 per cent, with a corresponding reduction in the area under grass. The local Committees, being informed how much must be found in their respective districts, would proceed to schedule the most suitable fields. But most farmers, when they knew what was expected of them, would make their own decision in regard to which field or fields they would break up, and a wide discretion might be allowed so long as the land was found. Objections can, no doubt, be urged against this, or, for that matter, against any other scheme. It may be said, for instance, that if the State dictates how a man shall farm, the State must indemnify him against any loss that may result. It does not seem that it would be consistent with full individual effort that the State should relieve farmers of their financial responsibility, but it should certainly give them some measure of protection. The State does not hesitate to impose stringent conditions on the public in the interests of public health, and surely national safety is at least of equal importance. A builder may not erect dwellings according to his own will and pleasure, but has to conform to local bye-laws, the observance of whose conditions increases costs and reduces profits. dairy farmer must, in the interests of the community, provide a certain cubio space for his cows; he may have to incur expenditure on a water supply, he must periodically whitewash the walls of his cowhouses, he must get rid of animals that the officer of the Local Authority condemns, and he must see that the milk he sells is up to a certain standard. The observance of these conditions necessarily means outlay, and must reduce profits, but it is not therefore suggested that the State should indemnify the farmer against loss. Or, take events that are every day happening in our midst. Men are being taken for the Army with the certain knowledge that their business or profession will be non-existent on their return, with ordinary farms, are a and although great hardship hindrance rather than a help. and loss are recognised, the national necessities of the country are deemed to override all private interests. It is no answer to say that what is right in war may be wrong in peace. To make preparations in time of peace for the supply of food in time of war involves no more inconsistency than does the maintenance of an army after peace has been signed. But, of course, the production of the maximum of food from British land is not primarily a war measure at all. It is an economic necessity whose advantages would scarcely be lessened if the armies of the world were disbanded to-morrow. Did space permit, there are other aspects of the subject of increased food production that might be discussed. Some look for a solution of the problem in the creation of small holdings. Personally, I am not impressed by the small holding as an agency in increasing the national food supply. The subdivision of land to a limited extent brings certain obvious advantages: it increases the opportunities at the disposal of the labourer for rising to a more independent position; it is a means to increase rural population; and it stimulates the production of minor products such as flowers, honey, eggs, vegetables, and the like. But in regard to the production of the major part of the people's food- wheat, oats, potatoes, meat, and milksmall holdings, as compared To sum up: there are these three main lines of approach to the goal that we all desire to reach. First, we may depend on education, in the widest sense of the term, to improve the farmers' practice. This would cover academic instruction, research, local lectures, advisory committees, expert advice, leaflets, field demonstrations, co-operation, Government aid in the supply of pure-bred live stock, technical literature, patriotism, &c. That is the line we have followed in the past, and it has synchronised with a constant shrinkage of our tillage area. There is, second, the stimulus of improved profits by means of import duties, 8 minimum price, or a bonus on the conversion of grass to tillage. Countries which give fiscal protection (e.g., Germany and the United States) are also quite as active as free-trade countries in respect to the supply of education. Our experience seems to prove that education alone, even in its widest sense, will not give us the increase of food that we require. We have had no recent experience of the action of direct financial help and fiscal protection, but there is no doubt that the first and second agencies combined will effect a great deal more than the first alone. It goes without saying that if the State guarantee of price, or a system of bounties, goes far enough, and if farmers have an assurance that such a policy will be persistently followed, selfinterest will see to it that the goods are delivered. But will the country grant such aid to agriculture, and even in this event, will the conditions that follow the war vouchsafe the time necessary for it to effect its purpose? If not, then some measure of compulsion seems inevitable, and its justification must be sought in the magnitude of the issues at stake. Farmers are no more selfish than other sections of the industrial community, but some of them want reminding that the land which they handle is the prime agent of production, and, as such, their control over it carries great national responsibilities. It is to be doubted if many farmers have, in the past, thought much about this aspect of their business, though there has been healthy personal rivalry in regard to crops and stock. As a farmer myself, I quote with some diffidence a passage from Professor Daubeny's Lectures on Roman Husbandry: "Agriculture, Cato begins by remarking, is preferable to merchandise, as being less hazardous, and to usury as being a more honourable occupation. Whilst our ancestors regarded a usurer as more degraded even than a robber, they considered it the highest honour that could be paid to a citizen to call him a good farmer, and indeed the best soldiers and the bravest citizens have ever been taken. from the cultivators of the soil." This is a character that British farmers should be encouraged to merit. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE, TALES OF A GASPIPE OFFICER. BY THE AUTHOR OF ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER.' Military cyclists are popularly known as the Gaspipe Cavalry.-Daily Paper. PART II. WITH THE IRISH DIVISION (continued). IV. BACK AGAIN. You may have read1 how, for many soul destroying months, the Irish Cyclists prepared; how at last the Channel was crossed in a lively gale; how after certain adventures they detrained one wet night ten miles from the nearest Boche; and how, struggling to the top of a rise against a testy head-wind and a flurry of rain, they saw the lights of the Line and heard the guns. Away from the hissing flares, the banging of the trucks, the long-winded shrieks of the French engines, the weary shouted orders, the mixed smell of horses and stale food and wet coal; from all the cheerful but hurried uproar of the station, it was dark on the road and lonely. They did not know whether the guns were near or far. Sentries, their shoulders covered with shining capes or waterproof sheets, stepped out from nowhere and challenged mysteriously. Their guide, too, hesitated, and once turned back, saying the road was dangerous. The tired men thought that this black night they might be I. led along perilous tracks fringed with sniper-ridden trees. The youngest officer dared not strike a match for fear some Hun should take a more careful aim. It was the Front. If the Gaspipe had realised how they felt and had seen fit for the moment to stop explaining to the guide the character and ultimate abode of guides, he might have pointed out that even in the bad old days Fritz had never penetrated ten miles behind our lines. But the Gaspipe was longing for billets and the day. The guide, a sergeant in that stubborn corps the military police, had murmured at the station how exceedingly lucky it was that he and not an interpreter was to lead. He knew the country like a book, day or night, wet or fine. "We don't want to see all the country," it was urged; "not all of it-only just that little bit on either side of the most direct road to our billets." But the guide was an errant humourist. He led them along nightmare and roundabout 1 In the March number of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' 1916. roads, protesting that he used to cycle a bit as a boy himself, and that all other roads were dangerous. Finally, when he trotted gallantly into a village suspiciously like a village they had ridden through half an hour or so before, he remarked with a horrid laugh that the longest way round was the shortest way home. At four in the morning a feeble and dispersed column of soaked and weary cyclists, led by a maddened officer and a subdued guide, halted outside a mean and filthy little village. An apologetic interpreter came to meet them with the news that billets had been carefully arranged for a third of their company. The remaining billets were occupied. The Gaspipe looked at the sticky mud on the uneven cobbles and at the shabby farms. He smelt the smell, then discovering the truth from the interpreter, said joyously "This is indeed France. Where is the estaminet?" Some sort of shelter was found for all the men. The officers crowded into an estaminet, where a weary little dark woman, without a word of complaint, bustled round and made them steaming hot coffee, cut them bread-and-butter, and showed them where they could sleep. . . . They rose late, ashamed of the night's fears and eager for bold adventures; but the village at first chilled them. Surrounded by fields of black mud, the dirty little houses, for the most part almost farms, irregularly fringed a narrow street of pavé, slippery with evil grease. The rickety barns were filled with the effluvia of drying clothes, ordure, tinned tinned stuff, stuff, stale cooked food, and rifle oil. The dripping midden - heaps, subdued by the slow, persistent rain, thickened and poisoned the air. From the kitchens escaped the faint blue smoke and everlasting odour of frying fat. The dingy estaminets were like empty glasses of bad beer into which worse coffee had been poured. All the roads from the village were streaming and polluted and covered with a smear of viscous mud. December in the country behind the Loos salient is never pleasant, and Houchin is the dismallest village that ever was. But the Irishmen were singing and laughing with the excitement they could not suppress; and when the General walked in to tell them that his car was stuck a mile away, the cheeriest party set out to dig under it and drag it out with ropes. Then word came that they were to move up nearer to the Line, in order to repair some old trenches. There were shouts of joy. Nearer the Line was nearer the Line to them, even if to the initiated work on third or fourth line trenches does not appear to hold the elements of hilarious or romantic fighting. So the next morning they started off, and halting to verify the road, watched pass a battalion of infantry from |