23 THE ERRORS OF THE PAST 



and manure into it, and to effect a further reduction 

 in their labour bill by reducing the area of the farm 

 under the plough — and consequently increasing the 

 area of grass. Many thousands of acres were not 

 only not properly laid down to grass, but actually 

 allowed to fall down to that strange mixture of 

 herbage which is still called " grass." Over large 

 tracts the fertility of the soil was seriously let down, 

 and the expenditure on cultivating the soil reduced 

 to such an extent that the lessened return in many 

 cases did not even pay for the minimum expenditure. 



A certain measure of economy would have been 

 highly desirable, even if there had been no depres- 

 sion, for there is no doubt that in the " good old 

 days " English farming methods were extravagant 

 and wasteful. When the depression in agriculture 

 came wise economy became imperative, but un- 

 fortunately the economies effected were not wise. 

 The landowner, like the farmer, did the obvious, 

 but the obvious was the wrong thing to do. He 

 thought that his share in helping the farming 

 industry to withstand the wave of depression was 

 to reduce his rent, but unfortunately low rents 

 are not conducive to good farming. There were 

 indeed some farmers who all through the period 

 of depression maintained their business. They were 

 those who refused to do the obvious : they did 

 not scrap part of their machinery or let it go to 

 rack and ruin, but improved it in such a way as to 

 produce a proportionately greater output at a 

 greatly diminished expenditure. 



These men were forerunners of Sir Horace 

 Plunkett, who has summed up the situation in his 

 motto : " Better business, better farming, better 

 living." But unhappily their number was too 



