48 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



carrying power of the farm about four times, giving him 

 a good profit and also maintaining the rent of the farm, 

 which was high at his entry, at practically the same 

 amount. His view is that the land would have been ex- 

 hausted by cropping, and the farm would gradually have 

 sunk in value, like other farms in the same neighbour- 

 hood. But by very liberal feeding on the young grass, 

 and never breaking up again, the land became more and 

 more fertile, and after it was " fairly established, I found 

 I had most power over it to improve it. According to 

 my experience I can improve it far more after I have 

 been ten years at it." 



Mr Gibb, a Berwickshire farmer, says about the 

 permanent pasture he laid down that " it was paying 

 the rent all through as well as it could have done 

 as if it had been in ordinary cropping rotation, but 

 before it came to be a distinct advantage it would be 

 ten or twelve years old. It is always necessary to keep 

 under crop a certain proportion of land for wintering 

 cattle and sheep." 



Much of the evidence, and some of the Assistant 

 Commissioner's reports, show a widespread belief that 

 " the eastern side of England will not grow grass like the 

 western." The typical Lincolnshire farmer, " on the 

 Wolds, the Heath, and the Cliff," (reclaimed from waste 

 at the beginning of the century, but now some of the 

 finest arable farms in England), says that grass is no 

 remedy : " if we cannot make our present system pay, 

 the land must go out of cultivation." 



The still lighter lands of Norfolk, broken up from 

 rough sheep walks when corn prices were highest, cannot 

 now, Mr Read says, be got back to their old state. " The 

 soil is so light, and the climate so dry, that the grass will 

 not last, and has to be ploughed up, cropped and laid 

 down to grass again." 



These views as to the lighter soils are possibly just, 

 but the general impression that the clays will not carry 

 grass in Lincolnshire probably arises from want of ex- 

 perience in laying down and subsequent treatment. 

 Thus a large landowner, who has spent £2 an acre on 



