The Farmer 



lowing interesting statement : — 



" The whole arable land in England comes to 

 10,600,000 acres : under a strict 4-year rotation 

 one-fourth should be in wheat, on some land it 

 might be one-third, on other only one-sixth, 

 etc., but in my opinion it could average one 

 fourth over the whole area. This would give in 

 a single year 2,600,000 acres growing wheat 

 instead of the 1,600,000 odd actually devoted 

 to wheat last year. Now I believe that if wheat 

 was at a respectable price each acre could 

 easily be got to yield an average of 4^ quarters, 

 i.e., with wheat at 35s. to 40s. per quarter. 



" We could afford to use more nitrate and give 

 our dung more to wheat than to roots ; we could 

 hand-hoe wheat, etc. As a conclusion we 

 arrive at — 



.•. 2,600,000 



X 4-5 

 = 11,700,000 quarters 



to be grown in England. 



" This, instead of being one-fifth of the 

 32,000,000 quarters wanted, is nearly two-fifths. 

 As we now get over 500,000 quarters grown 

 in the rest of the United Kingdom, this gives 

 12,200,000 quarters produced at home. 



" My point is that instead of growing, as we 

 now do, less than one-fifth of the wheat we 

 require, we ought to grow nearly one-half, and 

 that without breaking up any grass land.'' 



83 



