4 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



the business. I do not suggest that an extension of permanent 

 or temporary pastures in every part of the United Kingdom 

 will confer the highest social and economic benefits. The 

 adoption of this course is recommended solely as a means 

 of enabling many farmers to manage their holdings with a 

 reduced capital, and to cut down a labour bill that is now 

 too heavy for them. 



The successful farmer of the future will be the man who 

 is willing to take advantage of every invention that will help 

 to render him independent of manual labour. Enormous 

 strides have already been made in this direction. Threshing- 

 machines, steam-ploughs, and self-binders have revolutionised 

 the conditions of agriculture. Indeed, it must be patent 

 that in the absence of such labour-saving machinery British 

 husbandry could not be carried on by the present body of 

 farm labourers. And finality in labour-saving is no more 

 attained in husbandry than it is in manufacturing industries. 

 As yet the electrical engineer has rendered little assistance 

 to the farmer, but I am sanguine that in the near future 

 discoveries will be made which will eclipse all that the steam 

 engine has achieved in the service of agriculture. 



The laying down of land to grass appears to be quite as 

 much a question for landowners as for tenants. The former 

 have a direct interest in promoting the movement, as a means 

 of avoiding the deterioration of their land, and of attracting 

 tenants to their farms. 



I freely admit that there are large tracts of land in this 

 country which are unsuited for the economic formation of 

 permanent pastures, because the finer grasses die out, and the 

 soil gradually becomes filled with moss, twitch, and worthless 

 indigenous grasses. Much of the prejudice existing against 

 the making of pastures has been caused by fruitless attempts to 

 coerce Nature. But, gi-anting that the formation of permanent 

 pastures cannot be universally advocated, there is no farm land 

 with which I am acquainted that will not profitably respond to 



