The Farmer 



pay to grow wheat, but that it does pay to 

 raise and fatten beasts. 



Let us deal first with the case of wheat. 

 Many persons will doubtless say off-hand that 

 if the practical men, making their living from the 

 soil, declare that wheat-growing does not pay 

 their opinion must be correct. I should be quite 

 willing to accept their statement myself if I knew 

 that it was based upon well-kept accounts which 

 would show even roughly which departments of 

 the farm pay and which do not. As it is, I 

 prefer to accept the opinion of practical men 

 who back it with carefully worked out figures. 

 For instance, Mr. Hall of Rothamsted has held 

 for years that there is more money to be made 

 in corn growing than in rearing live stock. (Of 

 course the rise in the price of beef during the 

 past few months will, while it lasts, affect the 

 case as far as beasts are concerned). 



I will now give a short account of Mr. Prout's 

 farm near Sawbridgeworth, which has been a 

 wheat farm for forty years. For a more de- 

 tailed account I must refer the reader to Vol. 66, 

 page 35 of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society (1905): *' The world-famed experiments 

 of Lawes and Gilbert, carried out continuously 

 from 1843, had thrown much light on the re- 

 quirements of corn crops, and had shewn that 

 if regard be had to these requirements their 

 growth year after year on the same land, and 



