METHODS OF PRODUCTION 101 



than towards arable farming ; and we have seen in our 

 brief historical survey how, through all ages, the Govern- 

 ment has attempted to modify this inclination. 



It is a natural inclination ; large numbers of our 

 farmers who are not particularly well-trained or educated, 

 and who are content with their lot, only wish to make a 

 bare living — and this they can do off anything from 50- 

 to 200-acre farms where grass dominates, in the west and 

 south-west of England. 



Grass farming does not require the mental and physical 

 effort necessary for successful arable farming ; and so 

 we see a large number of farmers of this type who drift 

 along on their grass farms, generally with a neat little 

 house and just sufficient to sustain life, and there is 

 an end of it. The grass land is not properly handled, 

 and it is carrying live stock of no very high order. Such 

 land is not being put to the full economic use from the 

 national point of view, and the usefulness of such farmers 

 as citizens is open to question. 



(5) A new factor has come into the problem within 

 the last few years and that is the question of labour — 

 not so much from the point of view of the wage as the 

 amount of work each man puts in during the working 

 hours. If the prices for arable crops are properly 

 adjusted the farmer can pay a good wage ; but no farmer 

 can farm against a general slacking off of effort on the 

 part of the men who work for him —this is an increasingly 

 serious point. If it is true that there is a general decrease 

 in " effort output " per man, this will become the 

 determining factor in the retention of land under the 

 plough or in its being laid down to grass. 



Having stated the chief causes of the predominance 

 of grass in the United Kingdom, let us now consider 

 whether this predominance is to the benefit of the nation 



