M.— AGRICULTURE 261 



tested the desire for contracting last year, and had three times as many 

 applications as we could fit into the acreage we could do, while now, and 

 because of the demand our work has created locally, a lorry contractor 

 in the neighbouring village has acquired a tractor, and is fully engaged 

 on contract ploughing. 



I like also the American idea of being boldly eclectic and scheduling 

 particular districts as being eligible for their rehabilitation loans ; indeed, 

 I was foolhardy enough to make a suggestion very much on these lines 

 in my book The Land Now and To-morrow. There are innumerable 

 districts that should be similarly scheduled and similarly helped in this 

 country, but always through financial help cum technical advice terminat- 

 ing in an agreed working plan ; and here again my own experience 

 comes to support my contention, for in those cases where we contracted 

 we only did so when the farmer agreed to follow all our advice as to 

 subsequent operations, manures and seeds, to the letter, and in all cases 

 the farmer has done so, and demonstrably to his own advantage. 



The breaking up of derelict grassland is to be helped forward not only 

 by loans, but by a reorientation of such working capital as the farming 

 community possesses, and also, I think, by a reorientation of the monetary 

 and other arrangements existing between landlord and tenant. 



Ley-farming in my view aifords great scope for such reorientation, for 

 it would make possible, and on a general scale, a variety of methods of 

 share farming. For example, one might conceive of a mechanised wheat 

 grower operating over a large number of neighbouring ley farms on a 

 share basis ; another man on a share basis might be running the poultry, 

 the proprietors themselves being primarily interested in the adequacy of 

 the rotation and farming operations, and possibly in one major product — 

 milk, shall we say ? By this means farmers should achieve a better return 

 on such working capital as is available, and also the nation should achieve 

 a more balanced specialisation between farming qua farming and com- 

 modity production and disposal. Landlords themselves with advantage 

 could often think out methods of sharing-in with their tenants, and ley- 

 farming opens many avenues of approach to such sharing-in, but in any 

 event it behoves the landlords of many districts to be alive to changing 

 times, and to be ready for the day — not, I think, far distant — when 

 better tenants will be found for farms which are going concerns on the 

 ley-farming basis than for those which are nondescript or permanent 

 grass. It may thus prove to be a wise policy to adjust leases, and even 

 financially to assist purposeful tenants towards that system of farming 

 which will accord best with the trend of national and international events. 



Let me insist, in conclusion, that the affairs of agriculture, slowly 

 moving as they necessarily must be, are ill adapted to respond to the 

 dictates of any immediate expediency, for expediency is ever shifting, and 

 at the best ' is the mere shadow of what is right and true.' To be ever 

 prepared for change in a world that is ever changing can be the only 

 possible basis for a sound agricultural policy for this country, since we 

 are so peculiarly liable to be crucially aflFected by happenings beyond 

 our own control, beyond our own jurisdiction and beyond our own 

 borders. 



