MILK PRODUCTION 417 



the farm, though he did not think they earned their 

 wages. But he considered that the flat rates of wages 

 that prevail act most prejudicially on the quality of 

 agricultural labour. Few of the labourers, we were 

 told, showed any disposition to take up small holdings, 

 which were mostly being sought by men from the 

 towns or small tradesmen with some other occupation 

 that could be worked in with their farming. In the 

 past purely agricultural small holdings had proved 

 a failure ; one of our host's big fields had once been 

 given up to that purpose, and had been passed on 

 to him rent free for a year because of the bad condition 

 into which it had been reduced. 



We next moved a little farther south into the 

 purely grassland of high Leicestershire, the extensive, 

 undulating pastures which form the cream of the 

 English hunting country. The soil is heavy, largely 

 derived from the Lias clays even when that formation 

 is covered by deep glacial drifts, and it grows sound 

 grass of excellent feeding quality, and vigorous thorn 

 hedges, by no means so well cared for as they were 

 a generation ago. We saw one or two farms in the 

 neighbourhood of Melton ; as a rule they do not run 

 large, from 130 to 200 acres, rented at 2os. to 305. 

 an acre, and they are nearly all in permanent grass, 

 only from 10 to 20 acres on each farm being given up to 

 roots and oats for winter feeding. Milk is the chief 

 source of income ; some of it is put on rail for the 

 large towns, the rest is sold to the cheese makers, 

 this being a centre of the Stilton industry. Shorthorns 

 only are to be seen; on one farm of 150 acres we 

 visited we found the tenant keeping a valuable bull 

 and selling his bull calves for stock purposes. He 

 also had been greatly troubled by abortion, which 

 was rife in the district and took away much of the 



