The Farmers' Handicaps 



countries, where from ^15 to ^20 per 

 acre is the average working capital. 

 The farmers are largely to blame for 

 this state of things, because in general 

 terms they are inclined to take farms 

 too big for their available capital. If 

 farmers thoroughly understood the 

 potential productivity of the soil they 

 would not do this. They would realize 

 that not only from the national point of 

 view, but in their own interest, it is far 

 better to take, say, a two-hundred-acre 

 farm for which they would have a high 

 rate of working capital per acre, rather 

 than a four-hundred-acre farm which, 

 from a financial point of view, they are 

 not properly equipped to deal with. 

 (3) The third reason is practically a corol- 

 lary of the second, and that is the 

 dependence of the English farmer upon 

 permanent grass. In no other country 

 of Europe is the proportion of grass 

 land to arable land so high. In no 

 other country does the farmer trust so 

 entirely to grass. In England if a dairy 

 farm is mentioned, it is at once assumed 

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