1:920.] 



More Wheat. 



335 



of labour. Many farmers, however, in such districts as, 

 for example, Essex, have learnt how to handle such land 

 with success and are still extensive wheat growers. 



Secondly, there is the very large area of indifferent clay land 

 over the Midlands, not nearly so heavy and intractable as 

 the clays of Essex and the eastern counties, but which still 

 has been lost to the plough during the last forty years. Over 

 this area labour is very short, and even where arable farming 

 is still practised the cultivation is indifferent and the soil 

 is habitually worked to a very shallow depth. 



There are, again, the large tracts of lighter lands, as, for 

 €xample, upon the chalk loams themselves, where arable 

 farming has largely given place to dairying. Though this land 

 is eminently suited to the plough, and though it does not carry 

 first-rate grass, it has been laid down because of the better 

 returns that accrued from grass farming and dairying in the 

 years immediately before the War. 



Lastly, there exist many of the lighter lands wnicn, ttiough 

 still ploughed, are regarded as unsuitable to wheat, and did 

 not yield large enough crops to pay at pre-war prices. 



On all these classes of land wheat may be greatly and 

 profitably extended by taking full advantage of the recent 

 developments in mechanical cultivation, the proper use of 

 manures and the planting of reliable seeds. 



Wheat not exacting: as regrards Soil, Climate, etc. — WTiat one has 

 to remember is that so far from it being necessary to reserve 

 only the best soils for wheat, the wheat crop is really one of 

 the least exacting of all as regards climate and soil. Again, 

 it can be made one of the cheapest of all crops to cultivate. 

 We have only to turn to the examples afforded by new countries 

 to see the truth of these statements, for there we hnd wheat 

 not only cultivated under the most diverse conditions, but 

 regularly employed as the first crop wherewith to break in 

 the wilderness. Other and more delicate crops may follow, 

 but in the first years the produce is often confini^d to wheat. 



Furthermore, practically the whole of the operations connected 

 with wheat growing can be performed wholesale by mechanical 

 power, from the preparation of the soil, seeding and manuring 

 on to harvest. The most typical example is afforded by the 

 single-handed AustraHan farmers in their wheat areas ; they 

 regularly plough, sow and harvest 120 acres or more 

 without any assistance, and at the same time cultivate the 

 bare fallow which is to be the preparation for the next year's 



