116 CONTINUOUS CROPPING 



and in nice condition by autumn, are turned out to 

 winter on these mountain stretches. In the following 

 spring they are often of less value than in the previous 

 autumn — ^miserable-looking creatures surely, which I 

 have heard described as being so thin that it takes two 

 of them to cast a shadow ! 



Realising the extreme poverty of their mountain 

 pastures, these mountain farmers keep a very inferior 

 class of stock, under the opinion that better-bred stock 

 could not be fed on their farms. 



This opinion is perfectly sound when the farmer is 

 depending on the mountain pasture alone, but it is 

 certainly absolutely wrong when we come to consider 

 how tremendously the feeding capacity of this land 

 can be improved by a suitable system of tillage. 



OLD-FASHIONED TILLAGE IMPOSSIBLE — 



True, tillage of these mountain lands on the old lines 

 is entirely out of the question, at least on anything 

 like an extended scale. Such tillage means an im- 

 possible amount of work in carting crops home and 

 manure back ; means a big rush of work in spring for 

 cultivation and in autumn for harvest, and here we are 

 up against climatic and labour difficulties. These 

 difficulties have proved to be too great even for the 

 lowland farmer, hence the tremendous decrease in the 

 area under the plough in the last generation or so ; 

 but bad as is the climate for tillage on the lowland, it is 

 infinitely worse in the hill districts, due to the heavier 

 rainfall. 



A study of a rainfall chart will show that whilst 

 there may be an annual rainfall of thirty inches on 

 the lowland, on a neighbouring hill, only a few miles 

 distant, the annual rainfall may be sixty inches, or even 

 higher. 



