November 8, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
tlie time of preparing this report, three out of four report 
successes, while most of the faihires were due to lack of ex- 
perience in this (to many) novel form of cultivation. This is 
most encouraging, and should give the necessary stimulus to' 
other farmers who hesitate to take risks. The only limit to 
breaking more pasture up to, say, two million acres, should be 
the amount of labour, and the number of horses and imple- 
ments available. 
Certain sections of the Press have for months endeavoured 
to the best of their ability to vilify the farmer, and to induce 
a spirit of hostility among consumers towards the producers. 
It is an absurd pohcy for either the Press or the official world 
to advocate at anytime, and especiallj' so now that agriculture 
, is the key of the position, because the British farmer is a very 
difficult team to drive. He may be reasoned with, but he wilt 
not be forced. No known power can make a man farm in 
what some official may consider the best way if that way be 
against the farmer's ideas. He may be compelled " to carry 
on " like other controlled industries, but it is the personal 
equation, more in farming than in any other industry, that 
makes all the difference between success and failure, and if 
the good will of the cultivator be not called into play the land 
may be farmed, but the result will be wretched. 
Continued newspaper attacks, numerous Orders, wise and 
unwise, and threats of worse to come, crowned by the absurd 
Beef Prices Order of the Ministry of Food, had created a 
very dangerous spirit which augured badly for the harvest of 
1918. The statesmanlike speech) by Mr. Prothero at Darling- 
ton, backed by Mr. Lloyd George's address to farmers on 
October gth, and the revision of the Beef Prices Order, has, 
however, brouglit about an entirely different feeling. To- 
day signs are numerous that farmers are doing their best to 
respond to the appeal made to them by these two Ministers. 
A healthy atmosphere has been introduced, and if sane de- 
partmental action be continued, agriculturists will continue 
to respond to tlie best of their ability. 
Farming is a business, not a philanthropic amusement. It 
has to be even more of a business in the future than it has 
been in many cases in the past Some control may always 
be necessary in order to eliminate the bad farmer or the tad 
landlord ; some control is certainly necessary during the con- 
tinuance of the war, and this is fully recognised by farmers 
themselves ; but too much interference, or too direct attempts 
to compel will always result in disappointment. 
Two things should be remembered by those who advocate 
nationalisation of the land and its management by a Govern- 
ment department, as well as by others who believe in Govern- 
mental control. You cannot force the personal equation in 
farming, you can only encourage it ; and land cannot be 
managed from London 01 by any other centralised authority. 
I 
The Tide of Battle 
By Centurion * 
" The Tide of Battle " is a story of the first battle of Ypres, 
and it is based on actual incidents. 
THE aromatic mist of a late autumn morning wrapped 
the wood in a woolly shroud, and there was an un- 
mistakctble nip in *he air. From every twig of 
beech and pine and chestnut hung beads of mois- 
ture which, when they caught the sun as it pierced the mists, 
sparkled like crystals. Little drops of moisture hung also on 
the grass of some newly^turned sods of earth close by the turf 
emplacements, and as the mist cleared one could see that these 
sods formed a mound some six feet by two. It was the grave 
of the battery sergeant-major. Some eight hours earlier it had 
been dug by the gun detachment, in the darkness of the night, 
while the owls hooted in the wood ; and the captain commanding 
the battery had recited so much of the Burial Service as he coulcf 
remember, throwing in a fewhandfuls of earth upon the still 
form under the blanket when he reached the solemn words of 
committal. He looked at tlie grave as lie walked to the 
telephone dug-out, and wondered what further casualties 
the day had in store for him. 
At that moment an orderly came up and handed him a note. 
He opened it. It was written on a " Messages and Signals " 
form, in blue pencil. 
" A new target," he said to •the subaltern. " Miller, I 
want you to go forward and observe. We're to take on 
Z church. The Gemiafis must have been using it as an 
O.P. since they drove back the 7th Cavalry Brigade yester- 
dav- We haven't got it registered." 
He took his map and ivory scale, and worked out the angle 
of sight from the range and tlie lieight of the new target. 
The gun detachments were already at their stations. The 
direction was put on the dial-sight. Two men then threw 
the trail over with the aid of handspikes. As he shouted 
out the range and angle of sight. No. 1 of each gun repeated 
his words like a litany ; there was a pause as the layer moved 
the handle of the clinometer-sight till he shouted " set." 
" Lyddite," said the Captain. The loader thrust a shell 
into tire breach and closed the wedge. 
The captain took out a cigarette, lit it, and waited. 
About ten minutes later the telephonist, who had been 
waiting with his ear at the receiver, spoke. 
" Mr. Miller has arrived at the O.P., sir." 
" No. I gun ready ?" 
" Ready, sir," said the sergeant. 
"Fire." 
The loader pulled the lanyard. Tlicrc was a loud report 
and a sheet of orange flame. 
' ' One degree more right, sir," said the telephonist, with the 
receiver still at his ear. The section commander repeated 
it. 
The layer readjusted the dial sight, and the gun was fired 
again. There was a pause. 
" Ten minutes more left, sir " called the telephonist. 
" Ten minutes rnore left," chanted the Section Commander 
and Number One in succession. 
• Stories by Centurioo appear exclu«ively in " Land & Water ' 
There was another pause. " Hit, sir," said the telephon- 
ist. The Captain, having given the order " repeat," mounteC 
a ladder by a haystack and turned his glasses to the south- 
east. What he saw apparently satisfied him, and he de- 
scended the haystack. ^ 
The air fluttered, there was a loud thud, a crashing of tim- 
ber some fifty yards to the left, and out of the living trees 
rose the mirage-like silhouette of a dead tree outlined in a 
crayon of coal black smoke above the wood which drifted into 
nothingness against the sky. No one took any notice. At 
such times the russet-brown leaves of the beeches overhead 
trembled violently, and for some minutes afterwards floated 
down upon the men below till they came to rest on their 
heads and tunics and there remained. F"rom the direction of 
the morning sun there came a loud and continuous crackle of 
musketry, the monotonous tap-tap of machine guns, and 
occasionally there was a sound like the crack of a whip over 
the heads of the gunners. 
■' What d'you make of it, Bovington?" said the Battery 
Commander. 
" It sounds nearer, sir," said the subaltern. 
" So I think," said the other pensively. " I don't like it. 
I'm afraid we're being driven back. The 2nd Welsh and the 
Queen's are up there. And the German heavies are busy. 
God ! I wish Ordnance rationed us half as liberally." 
" Yes, I thouglit so," he added, as he read another H.Q. 
message, brouglit up by an orderly. " We've got to shorten 
the lange again. Give them shrapnel over an arc of ninety. 
Hullo, wait a minute, sergeant. The wagon limber's on fire. 
Get some earth and that tarpaulin ! Quick ! " 
They ran to the limber, and the sergeant snatched the 
loose sods from the newly-covered grass and threw them on 
'the limber, while the gunners plastered it with spadefuls of 
damp earth. There was a loud pop, then another. Then 
silence. The Captain inspected the limber-wagon cautiously. 
" It's all right " he- said to the subaltern with a sigh of 
relief. " There are only two or three cartridges gone off. 
If the back of the limber hadn't been forced outwards, the 
wiiole box of tricks would have exploded. And we haven't 
any to spare. I hope the teams are all right. We've already 
lost a leader and a wheeler of No. i gun." 
Meanwhile the gun had been swung round again to its 
former position facing East. The gunners thre\v off their 
tunics and rolled up their shirt-sleeves. The gun-layer having 
moved tlie sight-elevating gear to adjust th.e shortened range, 
gave a twist to the gun-elev:iting gear till seeing the insect- 
like crawl of the bubble, he stojiped. This done, they com- 
menced to spray the German lines with a hail of shrapnel. 
The sun rose higher in the heavens, and the mists cleared. 
The captain advanced to the edge of the wood some ten yards 
in front of the guns, keeping well away to the left to avoid 
the blast of his guns, and with his glasses swept the long 
road marked by a line of tall fluttering poplars still in leaf. 
He saw an irregular procession of figures drifting up the 
road ; he noted that all of them limped painfully. Every 
now and then spurts of brilliant flame woukl suddenly appear 
from nowhere in the sky, a white ball of smoke would unfold 
itself into a scroll shaped like a sculptured doluhin, and one or 
