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By "The Inspector."
THOSE OF US who, from 10 to 20 years ago, chose, to chance the luck of our careers by early becoming associated with the infant motor-vehicle industry, little dreamed of the ultimate ramifications of the business as-we know it to-day. We., perhaps, had airy ideas of a great future in which, if we were fortunate or cunning enough, we might share, but such possibilities were, I imagine, as a rule confined to the more extended use of the motor vehicle itself. We, certainly, little dreamed that we were linking our fortunes with an industry which was, in a decade or so, to prove the key to the use of the internal-combustion motor on seta'in the air, and on the land. Still less did it occur to any of us that that same industry might one day prove to be the salvation of the country, during the greatest war of all time, by providing ready to hand the nucleus organizations for colossal _shell and other munition manufacture, for the carrying out of vast new aircraft, motor boat, submarine and Tank programmes and, last but not least, that its spread to America should play so great a part in enabling -us to combat the submarine menace by furnishing us with the means for high-capacity land cultivation.
This last-mentioned development is certainly not the least remarkable. And it seems probable that it will have a Unique effect upon the habits and mode of living of Many of those Who thought their association with the motor vehicle was not likely to breed in theni a desire to go back to the land, to have to do with the land and all that therein grows. Yet, it is a remarkable circumstance that a very considerable number of those whose most considerable interest, either in business or recreational capacity, has been that of the Motor vehicle have been attracted to the possibilities of farming in an extraordinary mariner by the fact that the motor has been shown—disguised as an agriMotor, it is true—to be one considerable means of iseeuring more effective cultivation than hitherto. The agrimotor, considered equally with the lorry and runabout as a farmer's aid for supervision and market Purposes, has certainly engendered the idea. in not a. few fertile and active brains that there was opportunity for new enterprise and methods where the agriculturist has hitherto reigned unchallenged in his conservatism.
Mr. S. F. Edge presents, of course, the best known example of this attack on old agricultural problems by new and untried or previously. deprecated .means. But, There are few of us who cannot point to several of our motor-interested friends who have "bought a little place in the country with a bit of land" or even decided "there's going to be a lot more in farming-in future," and that they'll try their hands at it and give the industry a rest. Some of us are going to do it ourselves, and, whether we do or not, we are all certainly a lot more learned in matters of cultivating, of subsoils, crop-rotation, deep ploughing and what not than we were before the agrimotor had to be taken seriously. And all of those who are about to try their hands at whatappears to be a more healthful if not less anxious life are going to bring the motor up to and on to the land on every occasion that offers.
I am not much of a. farmer myself, and I do not anticipate that I shall ever succeed in making two blades of grass grow where one grew before ; slugs and blights and wireworrns are enemies with whom I have no longing to fight. But I am, nevertheless, keenly interested in the new wave of enthusiasm amongst my business friends for a form of occupation which, at first sight, seems so entirely foreign to their previous pursuits. It is not quite easy to understand why a man who has hitherto thought in millimetres and talked in " thous " should suddenly feel that he "has a call" to .convert them into poles and acres. It is, in any case, a certainty that he is not going to farm as did the man he has taken the property from.
He is going to look at things from an entirely dif ferent angle. He is not going to feel, for instance, that one of the chief objections to the agrimotor is that it yields him. no manure, and I think he is not going to leave his valuable agricultural machinery uncovered and unoiled month in and month out weed covered against the hedgerow. He is not going to be content with three miles an hour if fourwill bring no further disadvantage than greater wear and tear. He is not going to be frightened by the bogey of accumulated experience, to be the last to try a new thing, the last to forsake the old. I gather that nothing will be sacred to the memory of previous practice if experiment and trial and error can show the way to more intensive results. He has got the farmer's aims, but not the farmer's Mind, and although he, like all pioneers, will make a number of considerable failures, his example is going to put some hustle into the ways of his longer established competitors.
The motor industry as a whole, and I include those who are associated with its multitudinous branches; not forgetting the thousands and thousands of M.T., A.S.C. men—aye and women1—Who will some day be again out of uniform, is going to provide large numbers of settlers on the land both here at home and away Overseas in our Colonies. All of which means that the future of the motor vehicle and tractor in association with the land is extremely likely to continue to expand on a very considerable scale, and, although. not all those who have dabbled in food pro . duction and .. tractor suspension and such-like " national " tasks. will find permanent occupation therein, the agricultural side of the industry is one that should promise great things in future more Nueful days. I have often said that most Of the tractor plant which the war has sponsored was very poor stuff indeed, and quite recent events have proved me to be correct. But there are survivors, and better types will certainly arrive. Cultivation of the land by mechanical power allied with improved agricultural transport of all kinds is certain to continue as an increasingly valuable branch of the industry in which many of us have spent So many years. There is no reason whatever why, in the years to come, Britain should not develop its own big tractor industry. The Fordeon, for instance, is not by any means tha last word. Those new farmer recruits from the industry itself are going to be no small factors in the future development. Not every,farmer appreciates the difference between a Titan—shall I say `—and a Steel Mule, but you may bet the man who has moved from Long Acre to Little Middleton for his livelihood will.