210 My Little Farm 



any time the equivalent of our imports, and 

 certainly at less cost for the present. We must 

 have a large body of urban labour now displaced. 

 Is there no way to organise it for food production ? 

 Agriculture is the one craft in which productive 

 energy from other crafts can most easily be 

 adapted on a large scale : a tailor can be taught 

 to pull weeds more easily than a farm labourer 

 can be taught to make trousers. 



Importation for feeding is mainly to attain 

 what experts call the " albuminoid ratio," but 

 this can be obtained from our own fields, at least 

 in the main. For six months of the year it can 

 be done by a plant now in cultivation with us 

 the common Vetch. Its advantages do not end 

 there. It holds the land only for about three 

 months of the year, and another crop, such as 

 rape, can be produced from the same area in the 

 same season. It leaves the soil richer instead of 

 poorer by its production, and if it cannot all be 

 consumed in the green state, the remainder makes 

 excellent hay. In August of last year, just after 

 the war started, I sowed rape and vetches. The 

 result is the abolition of the food bill since 

 February, and my cattle have never been in better 

 condition. The cultivation for these " catch " 

 crops is nearly all horse work, and so I make the 

 horse feed the cows instead of buying imports 

 at prices so high above their feeding value. Mean- 

 time, rape and vetches cost no more to produce 

 than they did before the war, and when the 

 vetches precede the rape, our manuring will do 



