104 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



average yield would provide energy for the following 

 number of persons : — 



Under potatoes .... 400 

 Under wheat .... 200 



Under oats . . . . .15° 



Under mangolds converted into meat . 40 

 Under meadow hay . . . 12 to 14 



" If, further, we assume a farm to be worked on a 

 six-course rotation, wheat, potatoes, oats, roots, barley, 

 clover- it may be shown that per 100 acres energy 

 for about 150 persons could be produced ; on grass 

 land of average quality, half producing meat and half 

 milk, the corresponding figure would lie somewhere 

 between fifteen and twenty. 



" The changes in our system of farming in the past 

 fifty years have had one result which I believe that few 

 of us have realized. It is that, in spite of the great 

 advance made by British farmers between the close of the 

 Napoleonic wars and the depression of the seventies, 

 the population we were feeding from our own soil in 

 the period 1909-13 was little greater than it was a century 

 ago, and substantially less than it was seventy-five years 

 ago. In the period 1801-10 the soil of the United 

 Kingdom fed i6| millions. In the period 1831-40 about 

 24I millions, while in 1909-13 the number was about 

 lyl millions." 



These are the figures that deserve careful study from 

 the national point of view. As a result of this study 

 only one conclusion can be arrived at, and that is that a 

 larger proportion of our land should be under the plough 

 than is at present the case. This does not mean that all 

 our grass land should be ploughed up, or that our very 

 best grass land, which justifies its existence, should be 



