Land Problems and National Welfare 



made to serve a useful purpose ; but it would 

 be essential that these demonstration farms 

 should be financially successful — and many 

 people think, and possibly quite correctly, that 

 no County Council holding would ever pay! 



Still, demonstration farms in other countries 

 are successful — all depends on the man who 

 runs them. The right man ought to be found 

 and then be given a free hand. It is most im- 

 portant that small holders should be shown, for 

 instance, the highest number of cows that could 

 be maintained on an arable holding of a given 

 size. I have already referred to the Dane who 

 keeps 50 cows on 50 acres ; few in this country 

 realize that such a thing is possible. Of course 

 the said Dane buys in cake and concentrated 

 food. Another demonstration was made by one 

 of the American colleges, where the question was 

 asked how many cows is it possible to keep en- 

 tirely on 20 acres of arable land without buying 

 any foodstuff? Only two crops were grown on 

 the 20 acres, maize and lucerne ; the maize was 

 made into silage, the lucerne into hay. The 

 silage provided the moist food, the hay the dry. 



At the beginning of the experiment, some 

 years ago, 6 cows were kept, but latterly 16 

 cows have been kept on the 20 acres. 



All this work is so important that it should be 

 done, somehow. If we are afraid to see County 

 Councils create demonstration farms we might 



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