The True Husbandry •
" The small hamlet forms the link between the farmer and his stock- men and the rest of the population." This wise sentence comes from a letter by Colonel Lort-Phillips (of Pembrokeshire) in The Times of De- cember 8th. Now there is a strong movement dear to our urban planners to put an end to the small village—which is more than a desirable social unit. It is a pillar of our rural economy, for the reason that stock, which; are at least half the produce of a farm, must be tended by adjacent workers : "Great is juxtaposition." The town planners nurse the fallacy that wheat and such are all in all. Or do they hold that mulch cows; pigs and poultry can be mechanised or taught to starve at week-ends ? The letter from which I have quoted should be read by all official planners. It has the root of the matter in it. It is perhaps a pity that the word agriculture has driven out the word husbandry. The one suggests crops; the other has a pleasant savour of humanity. Now farming is, in general, much more human in the West of Britain than in the East ; and in a number of districts scattered homesteads Lake the place of the village; All the reasons adduced for the destruction of the hamlet would apply' with emphasis to the isolated farm. The removal of amenities (which include vicar, blacksmith and schoolmaster) from the small village will condemn herdsmen, shepherds and small farmers with their families to a life apart—victims to the absurd man-hour formula of the economists. Duck Adoption
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