GRASS-LAND AND ARABLE 



It is a remarkable fact that the farmer and the 

 scientist alike have in the past been prone to regard 

 grass and arable farming as two entirely separate 

 branches of the industry; so much so had this become 

 the case that when the war broke out we were faced 

 with the difficult position that an appreciable propor- 

 tion of our farmers were flock-masters pure and simple 

 mere dog-and-stick men men who had long since 

 lost the aptitude of walking behind the plough, and 

 with little or no experience of the fascinating mysteries 

 of tillage. Other farms were run on a chess-board 

 plan, the rules set out at great length in antiquated 

 leases, laying down suitable forfeits to be paid by 

 such as moved the plough over the green or grass- 

 land squares. The great advances in agricultural 

 science during the last decade in this country have, 

 moreover, been connected chiefly with arable crops 

 and the improvement of existing grass-land, but little 

 new work appearing on prepared or artificial grass 

 since the important papers of De Laune, Fream, and 

 Carruthers. 



There were, however, practical agriculturists who 

 were beginning to realize that our chess-board system 

 of farmingwas about played out pre-eminent amongst 

 these was the late Mr. Elliot, who, in his Clifton Park 

 System of Farming, wrote convincingly on the basis 

 of his actual experiments, advocating far greater resort 

 to the temporary ley, and the taking of the plough 



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