SALISBURY PLAIN n 



Cross-bred cereals have a bad name among some farmers, 

 because they are supposed to split and vary, but every 

 distinct variety was a cross-bred once, and Mendelian 

 principles have taught us how fixity can be secured. 



From Warminster we ran along the rich shelf of 

 arable land under the edge of the down through 

 Heytesbury, and then turned up the hill along the old 

 Exeter road until we paused by the ancient earthwork of 

 Yarnborough Castle to gaze over the great expanse of 

 Salisbury Plain. This is the chalk country in excelsis, 

 wave after wave of smooth rolling down and soft 

 curving hollows divided into great fields, one hundred 

 acres or more in places, that are only marked off from 

 one another by the changing colours of the crops. 

 The yellow-hammers that sprang up all along the 

 wayside were common to all open country, like the 

 flock of plovers that dipped and wheeled close at hand, 

 but the wheatears that flitted from mound to mound 

 of the earthwork really belonged to the great plain, 

 as, too, the sudden swift flight of a pair of stone- 

 curlews, birds we were not likely to see again until the 

 heaths of Norfolk were reached. We had barely made 

 out the shining lines of tents over at Bulford Camp 

 before a black squall could be seen, travelling across 

 the wide landscape until we also were involved and 

 made the rest of our journey amid rain. 



Our host was one of the best-known ram breeders 

 in the country, and his 4000 -acre farm, which in- 

 stead of a long strip formed a rectangle with the 

 down in the middle, was in the main run to keep 

 the great pedigree flock always moving on to fresh 

 feeding ground. But, despite the precedence of the 

 flock, in any year there would be over a thousand 

 acres of corn on the farm, and both barley and wheat 

 were expected to yield at somewhere near the five- 



