An Agricultural Enterprise

Abstract

AN interesting and important development is recorded in the report under notice.1 The Qlympia Agricultural Co., Ltd., is a comparatively reirent enterprise which is farming nearly 10,000 acres of land on strictly business principles, one of the first examples of the application of industrial methods to the exploitation of land in this country. The company's land lies in six estates, and, in addition, the Suffolk estate of the chairman of the company, Mr. Joseph Watson, amounting to some 7000 acres, is linked up with the operations of the research department. It is not possible here to discuss the actual operations of the company in equipping its estates, the additions to and reconstructions of the buildings in order to fit them for large-scale farming, the provision of cottages, water-supply, etc., nor, again, the stocking and management of the farms. From this purely commercial side it is evident that an experiment is being made of extraordinary value in handling English land in a wholesale instead of a retail fashion and in providing for agriculture an organisation and an equipment comparable to that appertaining to any other great industry. It has often been thought that in such a way only can intensive production and adequate labour conditions be ensured in agriculture, and tha enterprise therefore becomes one of the utmost importance in our social and national economy.