Agriculture 149 



(C) REGIONAL TYPES OF FARMING 



By R. McG. Carslaw, m.a., ph.d. 



Within the County boundaries there are marked contrasts both in the 

 organisation and in the productivity of the fanning. These contrasts are due 

 primarily to differences in the nature of the surface soils, of which there is a 

 remarkable variety.' Four major districts, comprising three-quarters of the 

 land area of the County are to be discerned: (i) the chalks in the south and 

 south-east, (2) the clays in the south-west, (3) and (4) the peats and silts 

 in the middle and north (see Fig. 29). A brief comparative description of 

 farm organisation in these districts, based on surveys during the 1931-36 

 period, wiU provide some indication of the principal types of farming in 

 the County at tliis time. 



(i) The Chalk Soils. In this area, farms and fields are large, many of the 

 latter extending to more than 100 acres. The working capital here required^ 

 for stock, crops, and equipment (excluding value of land and buildings) 

 approximates -^12 per acre; gross income amounts to ^10-^11 per acre; 

 and employment is at the rate of three workers per 100 acres. Of the gross 

 income approximately half is derived from crops. Rents average roughly 

 215. per acre. Little more than 10 per cent of the farmed land is under 

 permanent grass, and a common rotation for the arable land is (i) sugar 

 beet, (2) barley, (3) barley, (4) seeds, (5) wheat. Barley is the principal 

 cash crop, and excellent malting quahties are grown. Wheat and sugar 

 beet are both important sources of income, while clovers and sainfoin 

 are the principal short ley crops. 



Sheep are the type of hve stock traditionally associated with this district, 

 and, formerly, large flocks of the heavier breeds (e.g. Suffolk) were kept 

 for manuring and consolidating the arable fields. But the liigh labour 

 costs entailed by close-folding, the decline in sheep prices, and the rela- 

 tively more favourable returns offered by growing sugar beet in place of 

 "sheep keep", have contributed towards reducing this practice. Indeed, 

 on some farms sheep as an aid to soil fertiHty have been entirely superseded 

 by artificial fertiUsers and green manuring with rape or mustard. A rela- 

 tively large number of pigs is kept to consume tail barley, and to convert 

 straw into dung. Some cattle are yard fed during the winter months, 

 going out fresh or fat in the spring, but in recent years low prices have 

 kept many "yards" empty. Dairying is confined almost entirely to farms 

 situated near villages, where an opportunity for retailing occurs. 



Mechanisation in crop cultivation has here proceeded comparatively 



' See Chapter ii. 



' Cambridge University Farm Economics Branch, Report 24 (1937). 



