From the technical point of view there is no obstacle whatever for such an organisation being started to-morrow with full success. The obstacles against it are not in the imperfection of the agricultural art, or in the infertility of the soil, or in climate. They are entirely in our institutions, in our inheritances and survivals from the past--in the “Ghosts” which oppress us. But to some extent they lie also--taking society as a whole--in our phenomenal ignorance. We, civilised men and women, know everything, we have settled opinions upon everything, we take an interest in everything. We only know nothing about whence the bread comes which we eat--even though we pretend to know something about that subject as well--we do not know how it is grown, what pains it costs to those who grow it, what is being done to reduce their pains, what sort of men those feeders of our grand selves are ... we are more ignorant than savages in this respect, and we prevent our children from obtaining this sort of knowledge--even those of our children who would prefer it to the heaps of useless stuff with which they are crammed at school. FOOTNOTES: [98] Charles Whitehead, _Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming_, London (J. Murray), 1890. _The Gardener’s Chronicle_, 20th April, 1895. [99] Charles Baltet, _L’Horticulture dans les cinq Parties du Monde. Ouvrage couronné par la Société Nationale d’Horticulture._ Paris (Hachette), 1895. [100] Charles Baltet, _loc. cit._ [101] Ardouin Dumazet, _Voyage en France_, vol. v., p. 10. [102] Ardouin Dumazet, _Voyage en France_, vol. v., p. 200. [103] Baudrillart, _Les Populations agricoles de la France: Anjou_, pp. 70, 71. [104] The total production of dessert fruit as well as dried or preserved fruit in France was estimated, in 1876, at 84,000 tons, and its value was taken at about 3,000,000,000 fr. (£120,000,000)--more than one-half of the war contribution levied by Germany. It must have largely increased since 1876. [105] Ardouin Dumazet, i., 204. [106] Ardouin Dumazet, vol. vii., pp. 124, 125. [107] M. Augé-Laribé, _L’évolution de la France agricole_, Paris (Armand Colin), 1912, p. 74. Professor Fontgalland estimates that the total exports of flowers, living plants, fruit and vegetables, both in season and out of season (_primeurs_), from the Alpes Maritimes, reach the enormous sum of £1,188,000, the gross income from an acre reaching as much as £200. [108] Charles Baltet, _L’Horticulture_, etc. [109] Charles Baltet, _L’Horticulture_, etc. [110] “Twenty-one oz.” and even “fifteen oz.” glass is used in the cheaper greenhouses. [111] It is reckoned by measuring the height of the front and back walls and the length of the two slopes of the roof. [112] _Rural England_, i., p. 103.