conflict can produce the food
necessary for its existence. It is unlikely that the nations will soon
forget this lesson that they have been taught by the ordeals of this
world war. Agricultural dependence is for any nation a very serious
military weakness.

Nations that cannot feed themselves must first of all use their military
power to make it possible to import the needed food. This, of course, is
a military handicap, for it removes military resources from the
strategic points for defence or attack, that lines of communication with
other nations that are furnishing food may be kept open. The more nearly
nations are able to obtain from their own cultivated land sufficient
food stuff, the more effectively they can use their army and navy in
strategic military service.

It does not seem possible that this great lesson can be forgotten by our
generation. Perhaps this is the largest result that the war will yield
within the field of rural interests. National leaders as never before
will consider every possible method by which farming can be made
profitable, satisfying, and socially appreciated. This policy will be
undertaken not merely for the sake of the farmer, but also as a means of
providing national safety.

The war already has disclosed the tendency of national policy to regard
the uses made of farming land as a matter for social concern. In
England, France, and Germany especially we have had, as a result of war
conditions, public control exercised regarding the uses made of private
land. Certain crops have been outlawed. Others have been stimulated and
encouraged by the action of the government. It has proved wise to
establish this control over the uses made of productive land. Of course,
war has furnished the motive and made possible the success of this
practical public control of land resources. Indeed, before the war, no
one could have imagined that England, for example, could have been led
to so great a public control of the uses of productive land as has
already resulted from the war.

Already we find some people advocating that the government continue
after the war to exercise a degree of such control over the uses made of
private lands and it attempt to conserve national safety by stimulating
the production of staple crops. At least for a time it will be difficult
to win converts to the proposition that the public has no interest in
what people who own productive land may do with their property. By
educ