ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book summarizes the essential considerations governing the part which agriculture should play in the framing of post-war civilization. The greater mechanization of agriculture is adumbrated by the authors, and rightly, for the machine has come to stay, and our farm economy must undergo adaptation accordingly. It was for similar economic reasons that the enclosure of the commons developed inevitably throughout the eighteenth century. In any case the modern ship-destroying capacity of aircraft, air-borne torpedoes and submarines have rendered dangerously vulnerable any island country, which produces less than 50 per cent. The gradual decentralization of urban industry, the widespread availability of electrical energy and the rapidity of modern transport all help to bring townsman and countryman into closer contact and sympathy and facilitating their access to each other’s vocations.
