APPENDIX III 



ARABLE DAIRY FARMING 



A paper read by Mr. James C. Broivn at the Farmers' Club, 



December, 1920 



HISTORY 



STOCK-RAISING on arable land is a practice probably 

 as ancient as agriculture itself, and methods of manage- 

 ment early engaged the attention of writers on farming 

 matters. 



Much interest was shown in the subject in England in the 

 eighteenth century, but during the nineteenth century it is 

 but little written about. The records of the methods practised 

 show that no logical system was ever established, the cropping 

 being haphazard, except in the case of the arable land sheep- 

 farming of the South of England. With the general applica- 

 tion of the four-course system during the last hundred years 

 the special cropping of arable land for the maintenance of 

 cattle seems almost to have died out in this country. There 

 docs not appear to have been worked out a system of keeping 

 cattle entirely on arable land throughout the whole year ; 

 even in Denmark a proportion of grass is retained. In England 

 arable stock-farming has been confined to arable sheep farm- 

 ing, and the occasional production of arable crops for feeding 

 cattle to supplement the produce of grassland, which is prac- 

 tised to a limited extent in isolated cases in many districts. 

 It must, however, be borne in mind that in the four-course 

 system of farming the winter keep of all kinds ot stock is 

 drawn largely from the arable land. 



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