RURAL ECONOMICS 1 82 1 



tivation, which will result from the use of the motor plough, or tractor, 

 and alluded finally to economy in the choice of crops. 



The need for accounts was emphasised, as enabling unprofitable crops 

 to be replacd by profitable. Sivedcs e. g. are invariabl}^ grown at a loss at 

 Rothamsted and Dr. Russell believes this would be found not uncommon in 

 the south of England. The survey of the methods of increasing crop pro- 

 duction was Concluded by a reference to the need to raise by educational me- 

 thods, the ordinar^^ farmer to the level of the good one, to the need fo: extend- 

 ing the area of land under cultivation, by the reclamation of wastes, and to 

 the need for the substitution of arable for grass. 



L,astly, there is a factor which operates against increased crop 

 production which Dr. Russell thinks it unreasonable to hope to see entirely 

 abolished, and that is that a farmer has to get his pleasure out of the 

 countryside, as well as find his work in it, so that trees, hedges and 

 copses are left, pheasants bred, foxes and hares preserved and rabbits 

 spared. 



" When we know more about the soil, the animal, the plant, etc, we 

 shall be able to increase our crop-yields ", says Dr Russell, " but we shall lose 

 the best of our work if we put the crop-yield first. Our aim should be to gain 

 knowledge that will form the basis of a true rural education, so that we may 

 train up a race of men and woman who are alive to the beauties and the 

 manifold interests of the countryside, and who can find there the satisfaction 

 of their intellectual as well as their material wants. If we can succeed in 

 that, we shall hear far less of rural depopulation ; instead we may hope for 

 the extension of that type of keen healthy countryman, which has always 

 been found among the squires, farmers, and laborers of this country, and 

 which, we believe was already increasing before the War. With such men and 

 women we can look forward with full confidence to the future. 



1313 - Comparative Results obtained on an Estate in Tuscany where a Farm Work- 

 ed by the Landlord was Afterwards Run on the Metayage System. — brini f., in 



L'Agricoliura Italiana, Year XI^III, pp. 100-104. Pisa, July-Augiist 1916. 



The Magognana farm at Poggibonsi, Tuscany is a holding of 10.87 

 hectares (27 acres) (i) of which 1.27 hectares is occupied by buildings, roads, 

 etc., and 1.2 hectares by vineyards, leaving an area of 8.6 hectares for the 

 arable fields. The holding used to be farmed on the landlord's account and 

 under that management it was worked on a 9-years rotation, but when later 

 the land was transferred to a metayer, a 4-course rotation was adopted at 

 the same time. 



The two rotations and the net returns per hectare under both systems 

 are s:iven below. 



(i) I hectare := 2.47 acres. 



