PLOUGHING OF GRASS-LANDS 39 



low prices. In the old days he used to be compensated 

 to some extent for a poor harvest by high prices, but 

 the development of the foreign wheat supply gradually 

 deprived him of that compensation. Bad weather 

 ruins his crops and low prices ruin his pocket at the 

 same time. Between the two his heart is broken. It 

 cannot be repeated too often that unless the farmer 

 is assured that there will be a reasonable stability of 

 prices he will not become mainly an arable farmer. 

 He will remain rather a stock-raiser on grass ; and 

 small blame to him. The policy of " speed the 

 plough " is possible only on definite conditions. 



It is a mistake to suppose that if the land which 

 has ceased to be arable since 1872 — the year when 

 arable farming in England touched its highest point — 

 were reploughed, there would be a set-back to the 

 success of English cattle-raising. The products of 

 arable land can be fed to cattle all the year round 

 with an advantage which has scarcely been suspected 

 by most people in England. A " dairy farm " in the 

 English language has come to mean a grass farm. 

 But an arable farm will support more beasts, and 

 though beasts are naturally associated with meadows, 

 it would be well that magic should cease to be found 

 in the very word " grass," when it means, as it too 

 often does, a large proportion of couch grass or rank 

 and noxious weeds. Rich and old pasture is one 

 thing ; the inferior grass lands are quite another. 

 Of course very bad grass land — the land which is 

 infimus — may not be worth cropping with corn at 

 first, but the middling or " inferior " grass lands 

 should and must be tilled. 



