148 Agriculture 



belief that soil fertility could be maintained, in successful arable farming, 

 without the use of animal manure. To-day, this view receives litde support. 

 Though the labour problem is still as acute as ever, the tendency definitely 

 is towards systems of balanced farming. Although some farmers may 

 continue to deprecate the disappearance of die arable sheep flock and of 

 the yard fdled with fattening bullocks, it should be remembered that 

 the larger numbers of folded store sheep and fattening pigs are proving 

 a compensating factor in the maintenance of soil fertUity. 



Cambridgeshire as a whole may be regarded as a fertile county, but it 

 includes considerable stretches yielding only a stricdy limited amount of 

 produce, chiefly because of badly drained soils and the lack of hard- 

 bottomed roads. Field drainage, indeed, may be classed as one of the major 

 problems of local agriculture. Blockages in small streams, overgrown 

 ditches, bad outfalls (and, in consequence, blocked field drains) take a 

 heavy toll on the crops over large tracts of land, particularly on the heavier 

 sods. Most of the land in this condition has already been tUe-drained 

 within the last seventy or eighty years. A number of these systems may 

 not be efficient, but there are many instances where the old drains function 

 really well when given the opportunity. It is unfortunate that the greatest 

 need for attention arises in those very districts where, through a variety of 

 circumstances, the landlord or the tenant is not in a position to undertake 

 the necessary work. The use of the mole drainer is helping to some extent, 

 but this is not solving the sometimes greater problem of removing the 

 water from the drained area. 



There are also wide stretches of land (including some of the most 

 fertile), and many farms, set two or three miles from a hard road and 

 served only by a muddy track. Farmers so situated fmd it necessary to 

 limit their production very largely to those commodities that can be carted 

 off the farm during the drier months of the year. It is not unreasonable 

 to suggest that over large areas the value of the crops might be increased 

 by quite 50 per cent if field drainage were adequate and if roads permitted 

 easy access all the year roimd. 



