Additional Crops for Cows and Sheep. 141 



is obvious that altogether more food is required now, and the 

 relative areas for obtaining this are : roots and other such fodder 

 crops in 1911 equal 2,124,000 acres against 2,559,000 in 1878, 

 or a decrease of 435,000 acres ; whilst vetches, lucerne, and 

 other crops which may be regarded as the source of additional 

 food in summer (as opposed to roots for winter) were 420,000 

 acres in 1878 against 1(33,000 in 1911, or a loss of 257,000 acres. 

 It is not altogether surprising that in June, at which time 

 the crop census is taken, such a falling off should be shown 

 in this class of cropping, because the additional land gone to 

 pasture would find food then ; but when one considers the 

 extra quantity of food required by the increased demand 

 of the animals that now have to be wintered (the increase 

 of cattle, if less in numbers than the decrease .in sheep, 

 calls for more food), one cannot but be impressed by the fact 

 that the food is found in spite of a greatly diminished root 

 area, and also with a vastly smaller straw area. It is true there 

 is the produce from the bigger area gone to grass, but this is to 

 some extent nullified by the loss of the straw and pulse haulm 

 from the further two million acres which were available in 

 1878. 



The Agricultural Returns form the only basis on which one 

 can estimate cropping possibilities, and when, as in this article, 

 one considers the additional crops available as food supply to 

 cows and sheep, one is obliged to use them for the purpose. 

 They, however, doubtless fail to indicate what food is raised 

 from the catch crops sown after June and consumed before 

 the corresponding date in the following year. There is no 

 doubt that the rigid rotations insisted upon in 1878 over a 

 large portion of the country have since then been in the main 

 set aside, and that as a consequence catch cropping has con- 

 siderably increased. A catch crop census would be difficult to 

 carry out satisfactorily because much autumn-sown catch 

 cropping is consumed in autumn, and some catch cropping is 

 sown in spring and fed off before June. For practical purposes, 

 however, an eai'ly November census would supply most of the 

 necessary information. It is, however, quite certain that the 

 Returns do not indicate at all fully the changes which have 

 taken place since so many restrictions in respect to cropping 

 have l)een removed. Vetches or tares have for generations l)een 

 very much a sheet anchor in catch cropping, and the Returns 

 show that they have greatly decreased, which is surely mislead- 

 ing as to the extent to which catch cropping is carried out ; 

 though the Return of the area under main-crop tares is probably 

 correct, because the greater area of land under grass supplies 

 an increased quantity of food at the time when this crop 

 becomes availal)le. The catch cropping carried out is evidently 



