Upon this reformed education, as a basis, the rural economy must be built. It must, if my view be accepted, ensure, first and foremost, the combination of farmers for business purposes in such a manner as will enable them to control their own marketing and make use of the many advantages which a command of capital gives. In all European countries--with the exception of the British Isles--statesmen have recognised the national necessity for the good business organisation of the farmer. In some cases, for example France, even Government officials expound the coöperative principle. In Denmark, the most predominantly rural country in Europe, the education both in the common and in the high school has long been so admirably related to the working lives of the agricultural classes that the people adopt spontaneously the methods of organisation which the commercial instinct they have acquired through education tells them to be suitable to the conditions. The rural reformer knows that this is the better way; but our problem is not merely the education of a rising, but the development of a grown-up generation. We cannot wait for the slow process of education to produce its effect upon the mind of the rural youth, even if there were any way of ensuring their proper training for a progressive rural life without first giving to their parents such education as they can assimilate. Direct action is called for; we have to work with adult farmers and induce them to reorganise their business upon the lines which I have attempted to define. Moreover, this is essential to the future success of the work done in the schools, in order that the trained mind of youth may not afterwards find itself baulked by the ignorant apathy or lazy conservatism of its elders. I hold, then, that the new economy will mean a more scientific mastery of the technical side of farming, for farmers will make a much larger use of the advice, instruction and help which the Nation and the States offer them through the Department of Agriculture and the Colleges. It is equally certain that there will arise a more human social life in the rural districts, based upon the greater share of the products of the farmer's industry, which the new business organisation will enable him to retain; stimulated by the closer business relations with his fellows which that organisation will bring about, and fostered by the closer neighbourhood which is implied in a more intensive cultivation. The development of a more intensive cultivation must carry with it a much more careful consideration of the labour problem. The difficulty of getting and keeping labour on the farm is a commonplace. I think farmers have not faced the fact that this difficulty is due in the main to their own way of doing their business. Competent men will not stay at farm labour unless it offers them continuous employment as part of a well-ordered business concern; and this is not possible unless with a greatly improved husbandry.