80 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



counties. One cause for the widespread (and unfounded) 

 belief that grass land carries more stock than arable is 

 that oiu' agricultural returns of live stock are taken in 

 the summer, when grass is carrying its maximum amount 

 of stock and arable land its minimum. Were the returns 

 made in mid-winter the results would be all in favour of 

 the arable farms, which are then winter feeding their full 

 head of stock. 



Hitherto our comparison in production has been 

 between England and Germany ; we shall now briefly 

 survey production in some of the other continental 

 countries, not for the sake of making odious comparisons 

 but because it is interesting to see what principles are 

 at work in other countries. 



Everywhere we find this in common : the continental 

 farmers rely upon arable land as their mainstay, and 

 consider that they could not afford to have any large area 

 under grass. Grass is not regarded, as with us, as 

 something almost sacrosanct, but just as a crop like any 

 other crop ; and it is a crop, and its yield and feeding 

 merits should be considered in relation to other crops. 



DENMARK 



Denmark has very little grass land ; yet it is certainly 

 the premier dairy country of the world both in regard 

 to the number of cows kept per loo acres, and in regard 

 to the yield per cow. Taking everything into considera- 

 tion, there is no doubt that this is the most interesting 

 country for the Englishman to study agriculturally. 

 The people closely resemble us in temperament ; there 

 is the same individualism and independence ; yet this 

 has not prevented them from bringing co-operation and 



