4 i6 AGRICULTURE 



Holdings Act with its compulsory powers, followed by the Finance Act of 1910, created 

 a feeling of distrust among owners of land, which with the rising values due to the 

 returning prosperity of agriculture, prompted an unprecedented number of estate sales. 

 During 1910 and 1911 the sales both of large and small estates went on in increasing 

 volume, and many tenants found themselves in the difficult position of having either to 

 give up their farms, which they had worked up into a profitable condition from their 

 previous depressed state, or to find the capital for their purchase. Many : cases of hard- 

 ship occurred, until there was a call for legislation, and a Departmental Committee 

 which reported in 1912 was appointed to consider the advisability of state assistance 

 towards enabling sitting tenants to purchase their holdings. 



During the period of depression the British farmer may be said to have emancipated 

 himself from the covenants as to the course of cropping that proved so characteristic a 

 c i feature of the old agreements, whether for a lease or for a yearly tenancy. 



Freedom of cropping and sale has been rendered possible by the introduc- 

 tion of artificial manures and imported feeding stuffs, which enable the farmer to restore 

 to the farm the elements of fertility which are being sold away in the crops. Under 

 the old four course rotation all that was lost to the land was the nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash contained in the corn and meat sold, and the losses of the first named 

 element were replaced by the nitrogen of the atmosphere brought into combination 

 during the growth of the clover crop; the roots, the hay and the straw, which make the 

 chief demands upon the soil, were all returned, and under such a conservative system of 

 farming the fertility of the land could be maintained almost indefinitely, though the 

 level of production attained was not high. The sale of the so-called recuperative or 

 green crops, or even the introduction of additional corn crops into the rotation, dis- 

 turbed this equilibrium, and the losses had to be repaired by imported fertility as 

 manure or food. Still it can hardly be said that the British farmer was emancipated 

 from his old restrictions because of any increased appreciation of the scientific issues 

 involved ; in the bad times he became able to make what bargain he pleased and could 

 force his landlord to accept any scheme of cropping that would yield a profit. 



The old fashioned farming on which the covenants were based assumed that the crops 

 were taken out of the soil; modern intensive farming only uses the soil as a medium to 

 transform certain raw materials, manures and feeding stuffs, into saleable 

 'farming* produce. Big crops do not in practice prove exhausting to the land, be- 

 cause they can only be attained by getting the soil into high condition and 

 supplying an overplus of manure. The last decade having been a period of advancing 

 prices has encouraged British farmers to raise the fertility of their land and aim at 

 systems of cropping that would ensure larger returns per acre. It cannot be said that 

 any new rotations have been introduced, for the underlying principles are of course not 

 subject to change, but such systems as permit of more than two years corn in four, or 

 the introduction of a paying crop like potatoes, or the reduction of the labour bill, have 

 resulted in widespread modifications. For instance the five course shift roots, barley, 

 seeds, wheat, barley or oats nowadays more characteristic of Norfolk than the rotation 

 called " the Norfolk," has become very general, or even a six course, like wheat, oats, 

 roots, oats, wheat, seeds, found in the maritime plain of West Sussex, is now regularly 

 followed because thereby the land yields two saleable crops in three years. As examples 

 of cropping dictated by the potato crop we may instance a characteristic East Lothian 

 rotation potatoes, wheat, seeds, potatoes, turnips, barley, or a Lincolnshire one 

 potatoes, oats, wheat, with seeds every seventh year. On the other hand we find in 

 Scotland a tendency to increase the duration of the grass in the rotation; as prices fell 

 and labour grew more costly it became common to leave the seeds down for two or three 

 years, the five or six shift. Indeed the longer system has been forced upon many farmers 

 by the increasing trouble with " finger and toe " in the turnips, which, however, becomes 

 greatly reduced during the comparatively long rest from cruciferous plants the land ob- 

 tains when laid down to grass. Near large cities, where market gardening prevails or 

 where there is a demand for hay and straw, and root crops and green meat for the town 



