“Despite his friendship with Adam Smith, he believed in government intervention in agriculture, as it was too important to be left to market forces and chance: ‘The husbandman maintains the nation in all its ease, its affluence and its splendour,’ he wrote. But farmers too had a responsibility for the public good. Rotation of crops, ensuring equal acreages of different crops at any given time, would help keep prices stable.”

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 10, “Assemblies of good fellows” (p. 95)

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Stephen Baxter 55
author 1957

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