i6 
LAND & WATER 
July 27, 1916 
evidently being that a man is only fit for the work after 
a long period <jf training. 
English farmers may be somewhat incredulous, there- 
fore, when I say that, in times of labour shortage in 
California, I have not infrequently taken green Mexicans 
and set them to ])loughing out unbrokin half-cleared 
sidehills at the end of three or four days practice with an 
experienced man. All Mexicans, it is true, have a knack 
with horses, but the work I have alluded to is at least a 
hundred per cent, more difficult than ordinary ploughing 
on a level. Moreover, I have a seen a girl whose only 
experience with horses had been in the saddle or tooling 
a four-in-hand at a horse-show, turn o\er eight acres in 
her first dav on a three-disc riding plough. In both of 
these instances the ploughing was " ragged " -and 
" skips " not infrequent, but the crops of oats raised 
on the land was probably not a fraction of one per cent, 
less than if the work had l)een dune by skilled hands. 
Waste of Man-power 
To return to the waste of " man-power " on the English 
farm. I saw many instances of able-bodied men and boys 
leading horses which the man trudging beiiind the im- 
plement they were drawing could just as well have driven. 
I recall in particular seeing, one morning in Warwick- 
shire, each of the two horses hitched to a roller being led 
by a boy of seventeen or eighteen, either of whom on 
afarm in Canada or the States, would have been driving 
his " four " or " six " It was in Lancashire, between 
Liverpool and Manchester, that I saw three men in one 
field, each driving a single horse hitched to a single 
section of harrow. A few minutes work would have 
hitched the horses together in one team, connected the 
three sections of harrow, and one man, looking after the 
lot, would have released the other two. 
In a country where it had always been necessary to 
conserve manual effort, that field would have been 
worked down by a man or a boy driving six or eight 
horses, with a string of as- many sections of harrow. In 
California, where we have to break up the clods quickly 
to conserve the moisture below, we often hitch the harrows 
behind the ploughs. Extra horses are added to the 
plough team to do the extra work, but one driver manages 
the whole " outfit." 
There is, of course, no chance for using to advantage 
on the comparatively small farms of England the great 
tractor and horse outfits of the Canadian and American 
West, in which one sees the three operations of ploughing, 
drilling and harrowing carried out at the same operation. 
I am, however, convinced that one of the simplest and 
most efficacious ways of " saving men " on the land in 
this country will be by " adding horses." Four and six 
horse-teams, handled (with whatever implement they 
are attached to) by one man, can do more and better 
work than the same number of animals handled by two 
or three men. 
If may be urged that teams of this size cannot be 
handled readily in many of the narrow and irregularly- 
shaped areas between the hedgerows. In this connec- 
tion I would say that, in working out the tops of mesas 
(tablelands) and canyon bottoms on the mountainous 
portion of my California ranch, I have repeatedly had 
to cultivate odd-shaped pieces, often of not more than 
three or four acres in size, and that neither on these, nor 
on hillsides steeper than any I have seen farmed in Eng- 
land, ha\'e I found it good economy to use fewer than 
four hordes in any team. 
Certain small-holders may point out that they have 
not enough land to warrant their keeping six or eight 
horses. These may find a useful hint in certain simple 
co-operative arrangements I found in operation between 
some of mv Mexican tenants, men who were farming 
from thirty to fifty acres of land apiece, usually with 
three or four horses. Supposing A and B had three 
horses each, and B wanted to spend a fortnight chopping 
wood, but without holding up his farmwork. He turns 
his four horses o\er to A, who hitches them up with liis 
own four to make an eight, adds two more gangs 
to his adjustable two-gang plough (a " gang " is 
Western American for ploughshare) and gets on twice as 
fast with his own work as he was before. Finishing his 
own work, he starts in on that of B, keeping it up until 
the latter is ready ^j resume himself. Each charges the 
other a dollar a day ]x^n horse for the time his stock is 
used on the other's land, and two dollars a day for his 
own time. The plough usually does not figure, as each 
borrows implements from the other all through the year 
as need arises. . The conaequcnce^of this primitive sys- 
tem of co-operation is that the stock is kept working all 
the lime that it is needed, and the time of one .man is 
saved through practically all of the working year, no 
small item in a country where the lowest wage paid a 
farm hand is eight shillings a day. 
The English system of handling hay loose and keeping, 
it in ricks is cumbersome and expensive in labour, but 
I presume the moist climate do^s not permit it to be 
dried out sutficiently to be baled without risk of " sweat- 
ing " and moulding. I might mention, however, that 
careful figures which I kept over a number of years showed 
that there was a saving of from 15 to 20 per cent, in hav- 
ing my barley, alfalfa and oat hay baled when fed on 
the ranch, and of from 20 to 30 per cent, when hauled 
away. On English farms,' however, especially the small 
ones, f doubt if the saving in handling would be sufficient 
to warrant the expense of baling. 
The education, of the prospective English farmer and 
the instruction of the present one will be important 
questions of the very near future, and 1 am inclined to- 
believe that the new British spirit of progressi\eness, 
the new enthusiasm for organisation, will demand that 
this be done upon the same broad lines that have been 
followed in systematising the war industries of the country. 
When this time comes, it is going to be worth England's 
while to make a careful study of, the American agricul- 
tural college, with its facilities not only for giving 
practical and scientific training to the young man who 
wants to be a farmer, but for giving constant help and 
guidance as well to the man actually on the land. 
I Another American institution, the " County Farm 
Adviser," who is to the man on the land about what his 
doctor and lawyer combined are to the man on the 
street, may also be worth transplanting. 
Union Jack Club Fund 
The following is the fifth list of subscribers 
Extension I-'und. It is up to Friday, July 21st 
Previously acknowledged .. 
Mrs. Lewin 
" M.G.W.G." 
Sir William Corrv. Bart. 
Mr. and Mrs. T. \V. Shaw 
Mrs. Ernest Debenham 
F. Scarf, Esq. 
E. W. Garrett, Esq 
" A Friend " . . 
Mr. and Mrs. Everard Hcsketh 
B. A. Charlesworth, Esq. . . 
". H.M.S." 
" Anonymous, Dundee " 
E. Harry D.ivies, E-q. 
Miss Houldsworth 
Miss I'lorcnce Houldsworth . . 
Major W. R. Dawson, K.A.M.C 
C. G. Soligman, Esq. . . 
W. S. Davy, Esq 
Mr. and Mrs. John Hargrcaves 
Miss Dunnell . . . . . . . . . . • 
Col. G. V. Francis 
" E.M.G." . . . . 
Lt.-Col. J. Watkins Yardley 
Lieut. Spenser Ovington 
Miss Cokagne.. .. .. .» 
•• H.S.G. " • 
CzambcU 
to the U.J. 
C. 
£ 
s. 
d. 
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3 

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2 
2 

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(To be continued) 
AU 
to 
contributions should he foni'arded 
The Editor, " LAND & WATER," 
Empire House, Kingsway, 
London, W.C. 
Envelopes should be marked " U.J.C. Fund." and 
all the cheaues should be crossed "Coutts Bank" 
