Abstract
I PROPOSE to devote my address entirely to horticulture—to speak of its performance during the war and of its immediate prospects. Although that which intensive cultivators accomplished during the war is small in comparison with the great work performed by British agriculturists, nevertheless it is in itself by no means inconsiderable, and is, moreover, significant, and deserves a brief record. That work may have turned, and probably did turn, the scale between scarcity and sufficiency; for, as I am informed, a difference of 10 per cent, in food supplies is enough to convert plenty into dearth. Seen from this point of view, the war-work accomplished by the professional horticulturist—the nurseryman, the florist, the glasshouse cultivator, the fruit-grower and market gardener—and by the professional and amateur gardener and allotment holder assumes a real importance, albeit the sum total of the acres they cultivated is but a fraction of the land which agriculturists put under the plough. As a set-off against the relative smallness of the acreage brought under intensive cultivation for food purposes during the war, it is to be remembered that the yields per acre obtained by intensive cultivators are remarkably high.
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KEEBLE, F. Intensive Cultivation*. Nature 106, 293–296 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106293a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106293a0