CROPS ON DAIRY FARMS. 63 



can be made to produce more food for stock when it is 

 frequently under the plough than when it is under perma- 

 nent grass. The one constant crop of grass cannot be made 

 to equal in weight or value a variety of white crops, green 

 crops, roots, rotation grasses, and so on. But it is question- 

 able if the cost of growing the latter does not more than balance 

 the extra value of them, save on the most friable and suitable 

 soils. 



The Dutch people are, to say the least, as plodding, and 

 neat, and shrewd as those of any other country, the French and 

 the Danes not excepted, and their dairy farming is to a great 

 extent on permanent grass land. Arable dairy farming is for 

 the most part a speciality of the Danes and the French, and the 

 Dutch have not at present seen reason to copy it to any great 

 extent. On heavy soils, indeed, it is hardly practicable, and 

 wet climates are unfavourable to it ; on the light, friable loams 

 of France and Denmark the conditions are tolerably favour- 

 able, no doubt, and the French climate is more suitable than 

 ours for continual arable cultivation. 



Grand Old Pastures. 



In a climate in which fine weather is almost comically uncer- 

 tain, the difficulty of cultivating stiff and retentive arable soils is 

 well known to farmers who have had it to contend with; 

 and unless such land can be kept clear of weeds it is better 

 laid down to permanent grass. But on the loose and friable 

 soils that are naturally dry the sandy, chalky, or limestone 

 soils the cost and difficulty alike of cultivation are very much 

 less, and it is on these soils, if on any at all, that we may expect 

 arable dairy farming to extend in this country. 



The contraction of foreign competition chiefly American 

 which we may reasonably expect to occur before this century 

 closes, will give to arable cultivation in these islands an 

 impetus which has long been wanting. In this event, arable 

 dairy farming will no doubt become much less singular than 

 it is at present. For the time being, however, the cost of 



