OBJECTIONS TO PLOUGHING UP GRASS 87 



management and a due expenditure upon labour would 

 pay the farmer just as well under the plough, while it 

 would yield for the nation more than twice as much food 

 in the shape of meat or milk, or ten times as much in the 

 form of grain. Again, it is often urged that to plough up 

 much of the poor grass land would be to unlock a ruinous 

 heritage of weeds which are best left undisturbed now 

 that they are safely covered. This is in essence a plea 

 that bad farming must continue because the ordinary 

 tenant with limited capital will not face the risk of 

 bringing the land back into good condition. It is, of 

 course, true that the rehabilitation of neglected land 

 is always an unremunerative proceeding for the first 

 year or two ; but the cost of cleaning, like that of 

 setting the drainage in order or reforming the fences, is 

 to be regarded as part of the necessary capital outlay 

 that must precede the attainment of a higher level of 

 cultivation. While the occupier tries to make out that 

 ploughing up old grass is costly, on the other hand the 

 owner maintains that established grass land represents 

 a certain amount of capital in the shape of accumulated 

 fertility, of which he will be deprived for the benefit of 

 the tenant if the land is put under the plough. As the 

 old adage runs : "To make a pasture breaks a man ; 

 to break a pasture makes a man." This proposition 

 is perhaps more generally true than the preceding one. 

 In most cases the man who ploughs up old grass brings 

 into use plant food that has been slowly accreting year 

 by year while the land was in pasture and can convert it 

 into saleable crops ; he can take his profit therefrom 

 and leave the land foul and robbed of this fertility. 

 This assumes, however, a temporary tenant who has 

 no intention of continuing to farm the land in question ; 



