FARMERS AND THE WHEAT QUOTA .sx In approaching the question of the government scheme for dealing with home-grown wheat from the farmers' point of view , there are two main considerations to be borne in mind .sx The first of these is that the object of the scheme - in accordance with the recommendations of every responsible body of expert agriculturalists and economists which has dealt with the subject in recent years - is to extend the acreage under wheat and at the same time to help the farmer by making it profitable , and therefore worth his while , to grow on suitable land what is the pivotal crop of the arable rotation .sx The second is that this scheme for the farmers' benefit is to involve no expenditure of public money .sx That is now clearly understood to be the fixed determination of the Government .sx Instead of trying to aid the industry by any kind of direct subsidy they intend to encourage the growing of wheat by means of the quota system , which will ensure for the grower a price well above the world price for the whole of his crop that is of millable quality .sx The several parties concerned in the initiation and working out of the system will be the Minister of Agriculture , the National Board which he will establish for its control - eventually to pass into the hands of the growers themselves - the growers , the merchants , the millers , and the Customs .sx The kernel of the system is the fixed rule that of all the flour used in the country , whether it is made from wheat ground by British millers or is imported , a certain proportion or quota - the amount of which will be prescribed by the Minister and may vary from time to time - must be home grown .sx For the purposes of the system every grower , every corn merchant , and every miller who desires to deal in quota wheat must be registered with the National Board .sx For this wheat there is to be a maximum selling price which the grower may receive from the corn merchant , and a maximum buying price to be paid to the merchant by the miller .sx At these prices any farmer can sell to any merchant , and any merchant to any miller .sx The merchant , or agent , having first deducted his agreed commission , will then hand over to the Board the difference between the two prices , the second of which is necessarily the higher of the two , and out of the money so provided the Board will be expected to meet all its expenses .sx But , as it is not the object of the Board to make money , it is to be presumed that any surplus that may remain after its requirements have been satisfied will be divided at the end of the cereal year between the various growers proportionately to the amount of wheat that they have sold , as shown by their certificates , the issue of which , like the sale of quota wheat , will be controlled by the Board , are a cardinal factor in the whole organization .sx When the merchant sells to the miller the wheat bought from the farmer he must issue with it a quota certificate specifying the amount of the consignment and guaranteeing that it is British .sx There is no compulsion on flour millers or importers to buy British wheat .sx But no individual miller will be able to draw any foreign wheat from the Customs unless he is able to produce one or more certificates - either received from the corn merchant with parcels of wheat or bought from other millers who have surplus certificates - showing that he has directly or indirectly paid for a quantity of British wheat representing the prescribed percentage of the total amount of his output of flour .sx The quota scheme has no interest in the amount or source of the wheat that the individual miller actually uses .sx But it is concerned - and it will be the business of the Board to ensure - that the aggregate certificates issued to the millers and lodged with the Customs should show that the amount of British wheat that they have bought from the merchants is not less than the specified proportion of the total amount of wheat of milling quality used throughout the country .sx At present the whole scheme is necessarily tentative and is liable to amendment and development as the result of further consideration by the Cabinet and Parliament and the various interests concerned .sx In the House of Commons , where the interesting announcement by MR. THOMAS that the Government are prepared to extend the quota system to wheat imported from the Dominions was received last week with general satisfaction , exception has already been taken to some of its provisions .sx It is urged , for instance , by Labour members that the Board to be appointed by the Minister and eventually entrusted with the working of the system ought to be made fully representative of merchants , millers , and consumers , as well as of the wheat growers , instead of passing , as seems now to be proposed , into the hands of only one section of the industry .sx But for the moment the answer to this and other criticisms passed upon the scheme is that nothing is yet definitely settled except that a quota system is to be brought into being , and that it is not to be supported by the Exchequer .sx Even the actual figure of the quota of British wheat is still to be announced , though it is generally anticipated that it is likely to be fixed at 15 per cent .sx The full details of the scheme will not be published , and cannot be fairly judged , until after the further examination to be given to it by the Cabinet during the recess with a view to the preparation of the legislation to be laid before Parliament .sx Meanwhile it may be hoped that the National Association of British and Irish Millers will see fit on reflection to modify their declared hostility to the scheme and to do their best to cooperate with the Government and the other sections of the industry in making it a success .sx With their loyal support it bids fair to be of real assistance to the farmer , at an estimated extra cost to the consumer of about one-eighth of a penny for the two-pound loaf .sx Due consideration will no doubt be given - if it has not already been done - to the alternative scheme which the millers are understood to have prepared .sx But in the last resort it is for the Government , and for the Government alone , to decide what is best for the relief of the farmers and for the good of the country as a whole .sx A Lewis Carroll Exhibition .sx For Lovers of Alice .sx An invitation from two Carrollians to support an exhibition of Carrolliana .sx From two Carrollians .sx An invitation for lovers of Alice - The invitation ( which we are scrupulous to announce here in proper form ) appears in another column ; and , like Alice at her own dinner-party , MR. S. H. WILLIAMS and MR. FALCONER MADAN will no doubt be glad if every one who can will accept without waiting to be asked , or asked more particularly , so that no one shall be able to say , like the Red Queen , that they have seen exhibitions compared with which this would be an empty room .sx The bibliographers and collectors will have much to contribute that will appeal to the public ; and it is as well to ask at once and very loud and clear , to go and shout it in his ear ( the ear , probably , of DR. R. W. CHAPMAN in this instance ) , that the Oxford University Press must absolutely lend their Carroll treasures , including the first edition and the ledger which were shown at the exhibition at MESSRS .sx BUMPUS'S last year .sx But that kind of detail may leave many sound Carrollians uninterested .sx The exhibits suggested in the appeal offer light in another field where it has got as dark as it can , and darker , and the monstrous crow shows little sign of flapping away .sx Lovers of Alice are millions .sx Good Carrollians are very many .sx But how many are Dodgsonians ?sx And would it not be very right and proper that an exhibition held to commemorate him a hundred years after his birth should arouse in us , and partly satisfy , a pious curiosity about one of the most original humorists in English literature ?sx He made up nonsense to amuse some little girls ; and although MR. WALTER DE LA MARE has enchantingly proved Alice to be a thorough little mid-Victorian , the two books about her are so timeless , and are so well known to the modern young , that one must think twice to realize the original Alice as now an elderly lady .sx He made up nonsense ; and we have all heard nonsense compared with which his would be as sensible , not as a dictionary but as SHAKESPEARE himself .sx Because he never tried to be allegorical , and because ( if our imaginary portrait of him is not altogether unworthy of Hiawatha ) he was very wise , there is a quotation from him that will fit , and illuminate , every person , situation , and event of every day .sx " The Hunting of the Snark " is not , as many believed , a political or philosophical allegory ; but it insists ( as if independently of its authors intention ) on playing at being an allegory of the whole of life .sx The Alice books are not concealed criticism , nor lessons in English ; yet in Humpty Dumpty he made once and for all a hard and gemlike cameo of one sort of bad writer ; and scarcely another character in either book but owes some of his fun to a sharpness about the precise meaning of words and phrases .sx Even the tenderness which peeps out here and there is subdued to the design to amuse and not to embarrass his little friends ( there are things in " Sylvie and Bruno " which prove by contrast how bracing their influence once ) ; and so the fun in him , laden with wisdom though it may be , rides gaily on the shoreless , timeless ocean of nonsense .sx And it was all his own invention .sx Therefore , when at the proposed exhibition the public metaphorically welcomes Alice with ninety-times-nine , it need not think that it is mixing sand with the cider or wool with the wine if it spares a respectful thought or two to CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON .sx The Pruning of Wayside Trees .sx Once upon a time a gardener took one of his friends around his garden .sx " What a shame to cut your roses back to nothing , like that !sx " said his friend .sx The next day the same gardener took another friend round his garden .sx " When are you going to prune your roses ?sx " said his friend .sx Every now and then the two points of view revealed in that little true story crop up in letters addressed to this journal about the pruning of trees in London streets .sx One correspondent will complain that certain trees have been ruthlessly tortured , murdered , mutilated , and so forth ; another will demand what the public authorities are about that they allow the trees to endanger the lives of motorists , and all that sort of thing .sx It is well to recognize that there are people who would have all trees removed from anywhere near all roads , and people who cry " vandalism " if any tree is ever cut down or even pruned .sx Both sets of extremists are in truth no better friends to trees than is a third sort , which , when no one is looking , says to itself .sx " Here is a tree !sx Let us damage it .sx " But people in general like trees when they are good trees and in the proper place ; and the more observant among them may have suspected that pruning is necessary , and that what makes trees unsightly is either no pruning or bad pruning .sx The Automobile Association and the Roads Beautifying Association have been working together on this for some time .sx Last year the two bodies put out a pamphlet on the care of roadside trees in the interests of safety and beauty .sx The Roads Beautifying Association has just followed that pamphlet with another :sx " Advice on the Pruning of Roadside and Street Trees .sx "