THE POLICY OF GUARANTEED TRICES 73 



In many instances this would have paid us better 

 nationally, for it is better to leave good pasture 

 ground untouched by the plough than to get a 

 crop of docks, thistles, and couch-grass follow- 

 ing wheat ; and this is what happened on many 

 a small farm where the occupier had neither the 

 implements nor the horses for carrying on 

 cultivation after the Government tractor had 

 vanished from the scene. Far better would it 

 have been to have concentrated upon arable 

 farms where there were available tackle and 

 horses, making the land which had produced but 

 3 qrs. to the acre produce 4 or 5 qrs. On certain 

 arable farms, especially in Scotland, which will 

 not yield more than 3 qrs. of wheat to the acre, 

 but will yield 9 qrs. of oats, and 10 tons of 

 potatoes, it was folly to grow wheat instead of 

 oats or potatoes. 



I have known small farmers, on stiff, four- 

 horse land, who had Cultivation Orders served 

 on them when they have been destitute of a 

 single carthorse on their small grass farms. 

 To-day some of these fields are a pathetic 

 sight. The cows have gone because there was 

 no hay for winter fodder, and milk has become 

 a scarcer commodity than ever. It is true 

 that a greater herd of cattle can be kept on 

 ploughed land than on grass, but it requires 

 strength — horse and manual — to carry out a 

 programme of continuous cropping, and where 

 capital and labour are lacking, that admirable 



