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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



decision in 1916-17 that large areas of grassland 

 should be ploughed up, by compulsion if necessary. 

 The reasons behind this started with the problems 

 with the 1916 harvest. But the real impetus came 

 with a very poor American harvest and the impact 

 of the renewed and very successful German 

 submarine campaign which seriously affected 

 imports. The campaign was to be spearheaded by 

 new local Agricultural Executive Committees which 

 were given the task of achieving local targets set by 

 central government. They were empowered to 

 compel farmers to plough up grassland and they 

 were able, as a last resort, to take over poorly run 

 farms. Some protection was given to farmers by 

 minimum guaranteed prices for grain. 



In Wiltshire the Executive Committee was 

 established by the War Agricultural Committee in 

 December 1916, although its minutes exist only 

 from 1 January 1918. At that time the membership 

 was: A.R.White (Chairman), R.Butler, E.Coward, 

 R.E.Macan, E.Pritchard. F.R.Rogers, J.W.Spencer, 

 J.B.Stevens, A.Stratton and E.G.Warren. The 

 officers were: W.T.Howes (Executive Officer), 

 E.C.Skurray (District Organiser for Ploughing), 

 W.S.Oram (Machinery Officer) and James Welch 

 (Horse Officer). The committee established its own 

 local sub-committees of local farmers who knew 

 the area and the land well. The original target for 

 Wiltshire was to plough up an additional 85,000 

 acres, approximately half the grassland which had 

 been laid down in the previous 45 years. In 1872 

 Wiltshire had 425,777 acres of arable and this had 

 been reduced to 258,927 acres by 1913. After 

 various protests and representations the Wiltshire 

 target was reduced to 48,000 acres. The aim also 

 was that 65% of the arable should be set to corn. 38 



The committee did not find it easy to work 

 towards the targets it had been set. In many parts 

 of Wiltshire dairy farming was well established and 

 particularly profitable. Farmers were reluctant to 

 lose good pasture land, often of heavy soils, which 

 they maintained would not be suitable for 

 ploughing. A fairly typical reaction came from Mr. 

 Horton at a meeting of the Swindon N.F.U. He 

 said that in 1879 his father had a lot of heavy land 

 and it used to grow pretty well everything that was 

 bad. The land was laid down in 1882 and now it 

 had got into really good turf and his brother was 

 milking 120 or 130 cows on it. This opinion was 

 reflected in the formal resolution of the Swindon 

 N.F.U. in June 1917: 



That this meeting of members of the Swindon Branch 



of the National Farmers Union while realising their 

 responsibility as food producers and willing to meet 

 the views of the Board of Agriculture to the best of 

 their ability, in finding suitable grass land for 

 cultivation, views with concern the Government 

 proposals to order the ploughing up of grass land 

 and is of the opinion that if every effort were made to 

 thoroughly and systematically cultivate the land now 

 under the plough and make satisfactory arrangements 

 for the distribution of all available artificial manures, 

 much more would be done for the national good than 

 by adding to the already appalling amount of foul 

 land and doing away with valuable turf which in view 

 of the predicted shortage of feeding stuffs, would 

 produce hay or grass to maintain the supply of meat 

 and keep up the ever decreasing supply of milk. 39 



A more jaundiced but probably realistic view 

 was reported by theTisbury sub-committee: "Every 

 farmer had great sympathy with the movement - 

 over the hedge! He would tell of thousands of acres 

 which ought to be broken up and gave them the 

 actual history and dates when his neighbour's land 

 was sown down but he generally had some special 

 reason why his own land should not be touched." 

 The Tisbury chairman explained that in his area 

 6,547 acres had been laid down since 1872 and 

 they had identified 3,304 acres to be broken up. In 

 general they had applied the 50% rule to each farm 

 but in some cases they found that land which had 

 previously carried 1 2 sacks of wheat an acre had 

 deteriorated into something inferior to good 

 downland and in these cases the committee had 

 hardened their hearts and scheduled more than 

 50%. They considered they had achieved their task 

 without disturbing one milking cow. 40 



In March 1917 the government proposed 

 minimum prices for grain over the next five years 

 in order to give farmers some security: 



Table 1 Proposed guaranteed prices for grain 



per quarter 



Wheat Oats 



1917 60s. Od. 38s. 6d 



1918-19 55s. Od. 32s. Od 



1920-22 45s. Od. 24s. Od. 



Source: Devizes Gazette 1 March 1917. 



This did not seem a sufficient incentive to 

 encourage many Wiltshire farmers to plough up 



