XX 

 GENERAL IMPRESSIONS IN 1910 



AT Perthshire our pilgrimage had perforce to be deter- 

 mined ; we had set out to get a rapid survey of the 

 arable farming of the country, but though many im- 

 portant districts yet remained unvisited, our own 

 harvest now claimed attention. The early potato- 

 growing in Ayrshire, the intensive cultivation of Lan- 

 cashire and Cheshire, the mixed farming in Shropshire, 

 the corn-growing of the Midlands, and the market- 

 gardening of Bedfordshire should all have a place in a 

 survey of even the arable farming of Great Britain, but 

 could not be attempted on that occasion. 



Ours had been a rapid survey, so rapid that any 

 writing about it can only be justified by the fact that 

 singly or collectively we possessed a considerable 

 measure of previous acquaintance with most of the 

 districts visited, which gave us some power of arriving 

 at a general impression on seeing county after county 

 in quick succession. 



What, perhaps, we had hardly been prepared for was 

 the great variety presented by British farming and the 

 diversity of the methods that are practised. Great 

 Britain is not a very large country, and the variations 

 of climate and soil which occur within its limits might 

 be considered trifling by men accustomed to continental 



