1920.] Increasing Basic Slag Supplies. 243 



efforts, less than 2,000,000 extra acres were in fact ploughed up, 

 it was freely alleged that the Uve stock interests of the country 

 were being jeopardised to provide wheat and oats. Clearly, 

 if one believed all this war-time evidence, the pastures of 

 England were a national heritage of great value. But let us 

 test the position in another way. Is it possible that anything 

 like one- third of our pastures can be up to the level of the 

 " one-fat-bullock-per-acre " standard ? What are the results 

 of the grazing industry ? The total number of grass- fattened 

 cattle marketed in the United Kingdom does not exceed 

 1,000,000 per annum, and it is common knowledge that a large 

 percentage of this number is fattened with the help of oilcakes. 

 Personally, therefore, I should be surprised to hnd that there 

 are, in fact, 500,000 acres of grass land in this country which, 

 without the help of concentrated feeding stuffs, fatten one 

 bullock per acre on the average of a series of years. 



Now what about the other end of the scale ? What yield 

 may be expected from our poorest cultivated pastures — I 

 do not refer to our 15,000,000 acres of hill grazings, which 

 probably produce less than 5 lb. lean meat per acre per annum, 

 but to our so-called cultivated land. My own estimate is that 

 land of this type— poor clay soil pasturage very common in 

 the North of England — yields from 15 to 20 lb. of lean meat 

 per acre in the course of a year. Other experimental pastures 

 in Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire wliich I have had 

 an opportunity of studying produced from 20 to 25 lb. of lean 

 meat in an average season, and from the opportunities I have 

 had of inspecting poor pastures in many parts of the country, 

 I have come to the conclusion that there are very many 

 thousands of acres of grass land in the United Kingdom from 

 which the nation obtains no more than 25 lb. of lean meat in 

 the course of a season. 



^^'ith the information at present available, it is not possible 

 to make any close estimate of the average production of meat 

 on the pastures of the United Kingdom. In the lirst place, we 

 do not know the total production. In the 5 years before the 

 War it was estimated at 1,150,000 tons of beef and mutton, 

 but with the more accurate information at the disposal of the 

 .Ministry of Food, it was found that in 19 19 we produced some 

 875,000 tons only. There has been a considerable reduction 

 in the number of sheep, especially of the larger sheep fed in 

 the South of England, but the number of cattle is practically 

 the same as in 1914. i^^eeding stuffs were scarce, and cattle 

 were smaller than before the War. But when full allowance 



