248 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



(b) adopt a rotation which involves the use of the one-year ley only. 



The arable farmer as thus defined is never a grazier. When the one- 

 year ley is employed this is for the primary purpose of producing hay for 

 horses or stall-fed animals, and contributing to the muck heap, while 

 the clover sod as such contributes to the fertility of the farm. The major 

 function of the ley is here the maintenance of soil fertility. The chief 

 concern of the arable farmer is the production of cash crops. His system is 

 capable of extreme flexibility within the sphere of crop husbandry, it is 

 capable of employing much labour — market gardening, and relatively little 

 labour — ^mechanised wheat growing. It is a system which from the point 

 of view of soil fertility is easily abused, and which in some of its forms, 

 e.g. market gardening, makes excessive claims on farm and stable manure 

 (when obtainable) from sources outside the boundaries of the farm. 

 The robbing of ' Peter ' (' Peter ' in this case being the hay and straw 

 producing fields of other, and often remote, farms) to pay ' Paul ' (the 

 truck crop fields) is an aspect of large-scale market gardening which has 

 from the national point of view, I think, never been fully appreciated.^ 



It is likely that the market gardener in his own interest will be driven 

 increasingly to adopt a system of alternate husbandry as presently to be 

 defined — town stable manure being a rapidly waning commodity. 



Alternate Husbandry, or, as I prefer to call this system, Ley-Farming.— 

 A couple or so fields of permanent grass can be conceded to the ley as 

 to the arable farmer, but for the rest the ley-farmer takes the plough 

 in ordered sequence around the whole farm. Ley-farming is of two main 

 types, but always the majority of the leys employed will be of two or more 

 years' duration, and always in any particular year the area of the farm in 

 leys (and therefore in grass) will be not less than one-third of the plough- 

 able acreage ; will frequently be over three-quarters of that acreage, and 

 in extreme cases, and at unusual periods, the whole of the farm may be 

 in leys. The main points to be emphasised are these. The ley-farmer 

 is of necessity, and essentially, a grazier and a crop husbandryman ; he 

 may also be a feeder. He must, therefore, be equipped for crop and 

 animal husbandry, and, as I have already said, to be successful he must 

 be proficient in both arts of farming. His system, his mental stock-in- 

 trade, and his equipment on the farm all bear the same hall-mark, and 

 the hall-mark above all others of value to the nation, to wit, flexibility. 



The ley to the ley-farmer has two equally important functions to 

 perform : the sward, or animal ration function, and the sod, or soil 

 fertility function ; of this duality, which to my mind is at the root of 

 successful farming in all the moderate to high rainfall areas of the 

 temperate regions of the world, I shall in a jnoment have much more to 

 say. 



The two main types of ley-farming I will define as follows : 



The Arable-Grass Rotation. — In the arable-grass rotation most usually 

 the leys are of two or three years' duration. The area in grass at any 

 time will not exceed 50 per cent, of the farm, and may be somewhat less; 



^ A good many acres near London once devoted almost entirely to the produc- 

 tion of hay for the City horse, and therefore also of manure for the market 

 gardener, still show the mal-influence of that type of monoculture. 



