WINTER BEEF 39 



the dealer in fat stock; during my lectures in the winters of 

 1907-08-09 I was constantly heckled on this point. But this 

 plea is about 50 years behind the times. It held good when 

 we had to rely solely upon farmyard manure to enrich our lands 

 under corn, but not since we have begun to understand the 

 subject of fertility better. We want farmyard manure to im- 

 prove texture, and the humus it contains is often useful in 

 furthering the growth of beneficial micro-organisms in the soil ; 

 we want it, of course, to help prepare the land for the sow T ing 

 of the seed, or, in other words, to improve tilth ; the plant-food 

 it contains is also useful, but it is in no sense indispensable 

 when a supply of concentrated fertilizers is available. From 

 the farmer's point of view it is foolish in the extreme to put 

 plant-food into the land through the cake-bill when it can be 

 obtained much cheaper direct from the manure-merchant. The 

 intelligent and industrious farmer has in the past aimed at 

 getting the largest possible amount of humus and plant-food 

 into the soil at the least cost. The extravagant feeder of prime 

 bullocks, on the other hand, simply aimed at getting both these 

 by means of *his beasts regardless of cost. When the corn land 

 was very good, some personal profit was eventually secured 

 through heavy yields of grain ; when the soil was only of medium 

 or poor quality, the practice had to be discontinued or the man 

 working for a living went to the Bankruptcy Court. The only 

 exceptions were those who could afford to spend money on 

 farming, among whom there were, most unhappily for the 

 industry, many landed proprietors. It has been heart-breaking 

 during the last 20 years to see the bad example set in this 

 respect on the home-farms of very many to whom one might 

 have looked for improvement. 



In the article quoted above the cost of hay was taken at 3 

 per ton, yet in my hearing the agent of a prominent landlord in 

 the Eastern counties boasted before a company of farmers that 

 although he could sell his hay at 7 a ton, his fat bullocks were 

 bound to have all they could eat, at whatever cost. In the third 

 year of the war I heard the agent of another landlord in the 

 West country boast on the market that he had been feeding 

 500 Ib. of best cake a day to fifty 80 stone Devons while grazing 



