GRASS BEEF 



33 



giving more employment on these tracts of rich grass-land. 

 The supervision of the young cattle in spring and the hay- 

 making in early summer, would ensure the employment of 

 extra permanent hands, for, as it is now, the number of agri- 

 cultural labourers employed is often negligible. I have known 

 the staff on 350 such acres to consist of one old man, while 

 even the farmer himself, though constantly working on the farm, 

 lived in a neighbouring town. A further advantage of having 

 more hands would be better surface-tillage, more weeds cut, 

 ditching, hedging, and draining improved ; for, during the last 

 25 years, all these have gone back on many holdings and so the 

 land has produced less. An increase in rural population must 

 always be the aim of anyone who wishes to benefit his country 

 through the land. If the adjacent lands of inferior quality and 

 there are nearly always some such were ploughed up, instead 

 of being, as they often are, left with a miserable covering of grass 

 or weeds, the conditions would be easier. 



But to make things as perfect as may be, this splendid founda- 

 tion of an almost ideal agriculture should be combined with 

 some rural industry that would find winter employment. 

 England is a beautiful country and no one could wish that its 

 fine grazing areas should disappear; the authorities therefore 

 should make every effort to preserve their good qualities and 

 to secure improvements in them. Who are more suited to this 

 task than the owners themselves of the broad acres, noble 

 trees and rich pastures which are the finest of their kind in the 

 world ? 



