248 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



Another well-known period was the latter half of the eighteenth century 

 when large sheep farms were being established in the Highlands. The 

 Black-face sheep were able to utilise many of the higher grazings which 

 previously had never given any considerable return ; but they required for 

 wintering the lower slopes and the land which up to then had been culti- 

 vated. The establishment of sheep farms therefore involved the removal 

 of the Highland cattle and of the population which depended so largely 

 on them. The feeling of the time is well and moderately put by Dr. John 

 Smith in the View of the Agriculture of Argyll (1805) : ' That our moun- 

 tains are better adapted for sheep than for black cattle cannot admit of 

 a doubt. Under the sheep system they make a much better return both 

 to the farmer and to the landlord ; and furnish in the wool of the sheep 

 a large fund for manufacture and commerce. But all these advantages are 

 more than balanced by the effect which sheep have produced upon popu- 

 lation. When one man occupies space which would suffice for twenty 

 families, his private gain will by no means compensate for public 

 loss.' 



Possibly, in time to come, the present period may be regarded as com- 

 parable with those I have just mentioned. In many counties the situation 

 is obscured by the fact that, along with the laying of land to grass and a 

 great increase in the number of grass sheep, there has simultaneously 

 been a great reduction in arable sheep. In some counties this complica- 

 tion does not exist, the most striking areas being North Wales and the 

 arable counties of the east of Scotland. I had hoped to be able to 

 correlate the changes in the former, but, unfortunately, the detailed results 

 of the 1 93 1 census will not be published for some time, so that I can 

 only say that a remarkable increase in the number of sheep has obviously 

 been accompanied by a very marked decline in employment and in the 

 general life of the countryside. 



We must, however, be fair to the sheep, and those who wish to impute 

 blame must take care that they put it on the right shoulders. But for the 

 development of the sheep industry, the farmers of many areas would 

 indeed be in a parlous condition by now. We know how unsatisfactory 

 are the returns from ordinary arable farming, and there are many districts 

 unsuited for dairying or intensive cultivation. 



Grass sheep farming based on fat lamb production has enabled many 

 farmers, not only in North Wales but all over Great Britain, to hold 

 their own when, without it, they would have gone under. It is no use 

 abusing the farmer because of the undoubted evils which have accom- 

 panied the adoption of this type of farming. As in the Middle Ages, 

 the cure for the ills can only come through the improvement in the 

 returns from what most of us will regard as more desirable systems of 

 agriculture. 



Efficiency of the Sheep. — We may apply another test in considering the 

 desirability of a large sheep population. How do they compare with other 

 farm animals as a converter of crops or raw feeding stuffs into meat for 

 human consumption .' The following table is taken from a report drawn 

 up by a committee of the Royal Society in 1917 — Food Supply of the 

 United Kingdom : 



