1 42 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



beginning of the War, not less than 200 acres 

 were recovered by grubbing up the hedges and 

 filling up the ditches. 



When it comes to the use made of machinery, 

 the advantages in favour of the large farm 

 are overwhelming. Consider how little an 

 expensive machine like a self-binder, or a 

 mowing machine is used on an ordinary mixed 

 holding. It might be worked for a week or 

 two, and then put aside probably to rust until 

 harvest comes round again. The advantage is 

 still greater when you come to compare the use 

 which can be made of machinery on thousands 

 of acres under collective control and the in- 

 dividual use of a machine on an ordinary farm 

 of only 300 acres. Climatically, of course, the 

 seasons are the same for both, but on the farm 

 extending over a thousand acres the period of 

 use would be greater, beginning with an early 

 cut of " seeds," extending to harvesting clover 

 for seed, or hay growing in fields on a northern 

 slope, late to mature, or to the reaping of spring- 

 sown corn left to ripen until the hunter's moon 

 is riding to the full. 



The large farm, too, has the enormous 

 advantage over the small farm in the effective 

 organisation of labour, and in finding a greater 

 scope for winter employment. The large farm 

 equipped with great barns and sheds, in which 

 an engine can be worked for grinding corn into 

 meal, for cutting chaff, for pulping roots, for 



