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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



Wiltshire still followed its traditional pattern of 

 'chalk and cheese' with large arable farms in the 

 south and east and dairying or mixed farms in the 

 west and north. A return by Petty Sessional 

 Divisions in 1914 showed Marlborough (54%) and 

 Salisbury with Amesbury (52.7%) as the areas with 

 the largest proportion of arable while Trowbridge 

 (5.1%) and Melksham (5.7%) had the least. 1 

 Mechanisation had been slow. Some steam 

 ploughing took place, mainly through a few large 

 contractors, while milking machines, although not 

 unknown, were very rare. Horses still provided the 

 main source of power and in 1 9 1 4 there were 16,501 

 horses used for agricultural purposes in the county. 

 A further 9,500, mainly young and breeding stock, 

 also existed on farms. 2 



The contrasts may be illustrated by two fairly 

 typical farms. At the Common, Broughton Gifford 

 a dairy farm consisted of 1 50 acres of which 50 

 acres were arable. It had 30 milking cows, 20 young 

 stock, 80 pigs and 90 sheep. Before the war it 

 employed four men and a boy. Over to the east of 

 the county at Bulford, a large farmer had 4,000 

 acres of which 1,500 acres were arable. 3 



The county had not been immune from the 

 major trends in the 1880s when cheap imports of 

 grain had resulted in much arable land being put 

 to permanent pasture. In 1872 there were 425,777 

 acres of arable land in the county but this had been 

 reduced to 258,669 acres by 1914. 4 Of the arable 

 crops, wheat accounted for about 20% (52,061 

 acres) followed by oats at 18% (45,628 acres) and 

 barley 10% (25,952 acres). Other major crops were 

 turnips, swedes and mangolds (40,170 acres) and 

 clover, sainfoin and grasses under rotation (52,161 

 acres). A variety of other crops included peas, beans, 

 and potatoes (19,137 acres). Vetches or tares were 

 also an important crop (12,348 acres), and 11,212 

 acres were bare fallow. The livestock consisted of 

 379,133 sheep, 130,412 cattle and 56,689 pigs. 5 



Wiltshire in 19 14 had 717,819 acres under crops 

 or grass which represented 2.9% of the total for 

 England. If all the major aspects of agriculture, 

 whether it is the proportion of arable to permanent 

 grass, amount of wheat, number of sheep, cattle or 

 pigs are examined, Wiltshire's share is in each case 

 between 2.5% and 3% of the total for the country 

 as a whole. Even production was similarly average 

 with the yield per acre over the period 1904-13 

 being, for wheat, 32 bushels per acre (compared 

 with 31.5 for England as a whole) and, for barley, 

 31.9 bushels (compared with 33.1 for England). 

 Hay was similar with 1.12 tons per acre in Wiltshire 



compared with 1.16 for England." 



The pattern of agricultural holdings showed 

 similar characteristics. Of the 6,764 holdings in 

 Wiltshire in 1914, some 61% (4153) were of 50 

 acres or less compared with 66% for England. 

 Holdings of between 50 and 300 acres accounted 

 for 29% (1959) compared with 29.7% in England. 

 The only significant difference lay in the number 

 of large holdings of over 300 acres when Wiltshire 

 had 9.6% (652) compared with 3.8% in the rest 

 of England. Finally, 12% of the Wiltshire holdings 

 were owner-occupied compared with 11.6% for 

 the whole country. The Wiltshire owner-occupied 

 holdings covered 12% (86,120 acres) of the total 

 acreage under cultivation in the county and this 

 was almost exactly average for the country 

 (11%). 7 



MANPOWER 



It is difficult to calculate the total number of men 

 employed in agriculture in 1914 or the number who 

 volunteered during the early part of the war before 

 conscription was introduced in 1916. The best 

 estimate suggests that, nationally, there were over a 

 million persons working on farms of whom 250,000 

 were full-time farmers and 700,000 were full-time 

 hired men. It has also been estimated that the supply 

 of agricultural labour fell by 7% in 1915 and by 

 11% in 1916. By the end of 1916 labour was 

 deficient by about 10% compared with the pre-war 

 level. 8 There is no reason to believe that this trend 

 was anything different in Wiltshire. Certainly there 

 is much anecdotal evidence of volunteers. One 

 example is particularly poignant. Mr. Bridgeman , 

 who farmed 4,000 acres at Collingbourne Ducis, 

 had two sons who both wanted to volunteer but 

 one was needed to help run the farm. The sons 

 tossed with the winner having the 'privilege' of 

 joining the army. He was killed in action within a 

 year. 9 



The shortage of labour was a constant and 

 dominating theme in Wiltshire throughout the war. 

 As early as November 1915 the Swindon and 

 District N.F.U. complained that the vigorous 

 activity of the army recruiting agencies was having 

 a detrimental effect on agricultural labour. They 

 wanted the government to issue specific instructions 

 to exempt special classes of farmers and their 

 workers and that they should be issued with 'exempt 

 armbands' to show they were in important work. If 

 this did not happen, then they considered the 



