122 My Little Farm 



mangolds paid for the manuring of the whole 

 plot. From less than a statute rood of hay and 

 mangolds, I sold twice enough to pay the pur- 

 chase annuity on the whole 32 acres for one year. 

 Yet the political cult of incompetence keeps 

 these people occupied with the purchase annuity 

 of the rood, which is under eleven pence, and 

 ignoring the possible production, which is more 

 than 11. If I sold the whole of my mangold 

 crop in the spring of 1915, it would make more 

 than .60 per statute acre. My cattle are much 

 more profitable than any others in the region, 

 but they have by no means paid the local market 

 prices for the roots and hay consumed during 

 the winter of 1914-15, and this time I mean to 

 vary the programme, wintering no beast but my 

 own breed, and selling the stuff when the prices 

 rise to double the feeding value, which is likely 

 to be the fact in spring, so long as the prices of 

 imports remain so high. I notice that the cost 

 of artificial manures has not risen to anything 

 like the increase in the market price of their 

 produce, and I am always ready to sell when my 

 neighbours are anxious to pay me twice the real 

 value of the commodity. I know how to main- 

 tain the fertility of the soil at a fraction of the 

 profit. 



