370 Notes, Communications and Reviews. 



system had survived, in spite of the large enclosures of Tudor 

 times, during which tillage gave place to pasture to supply the 

 large export trade in wool, because it was sufficient for the 

 needs of the country. But with the growth of a large industrial 

 population, the old methods could no longer cope with the 

 growing demand for food from a people still wholly dependent 

 on a home-grown supply. Thus the pioneers of improved 

 methods were greatly aided by the pressure of economic condi- 

 tions. The one object was to make the land produce more, 

 and to that end all obstacles had to be swept away — tithes 

 were commuted, commons and open fields enclosed to allow of 

 the growth of winter stock-food, long leases and every other 

 incitement to improved methods allowed. 



We are apt to think only of the distress that high prices 

 entailed, but to them we owe the supremacy of English agri- 

 culture. The system of large farms occupied by men of large 

 capital was forced upon the country by sheer necessity, and if 

 ever England must feed herself again she will not get her corn 

 and meat from small holdings. But now conditions are en- 

 tirely changed, the problem is to keep the people on the land, 

 not to make the land keep the people. Mr. Prothero suggests 

 an increase of small ownerships, and with that a return to the 

 old system of commons, as a means to making village life more 

 attractive to the labourer. There is much to be said for it 

 socially, but from the point of view of " Practice with Science," 

 this must be a retrograde step. Small holdings must be only 

 steps to large farms if we are to maintain the supremacy of 

 our flocks and herds. 



W. E. G. A. 



Farming Results during the last Two Decades. — The 

 opening address of the President of the Surveyors' Institution, 

 the Hon. Edward Strutt, delivered in November last, is of 

 more than ordinary interest to the agriculturist, dealing as it 

 does with the results of farming operations on a considerable 

 scale during the past eighteen years. Mr. Strutt is a firm 

 believer in English farming, though not unnaturally he would 

 like to vary the conditions under which agriculture is carried 

 on, in certain directions. Especially does he regret the laying 

 down of land to grass, with the consequent depopulation of 

 rural districts, and some figures which he gives seem to indicate 

 that the well-known preference which prevails amongst farmers 

 for farms with a large proportion of grass rests on no very sure 

 foundation. The farms to which Mr. Strutt's figures relate are 

 situated in Essex, and extend to about 2,000 acres. Careful 

 field accounts have been kept since the year 1894, and whilst 

 the net annual profit on the arable land has l>een no less than 



