COUNTRY LIFE
Migrant Farmers A tendency in farming, to which the Oxford University economists have for some time paid close attention, seems to be still increasing ; or so several examples suggest. The West of Britain is the home and school of the family farmer ; and, on the whole, he is singularly successful—so successful that his ambition grows and he takes the place of the so-called capitalist farmer who has given up the vain struggle. A very ingenious analysis of the migration of such farmers from the flourishing West to the depressed East was written at the end of last year by an Oxford student, and published as a pamphlet : Go East far a Farm (Oxford University Press). The movement continues ; but it is crossed by another which Oxford should investigate. In my experience the mechanizers (sometimes groups of young men from the colleges) take up the tale. One group, at any rate, made a small profit in their first year ; and that is a rare experience. Whether they will do as well as the family farmer is not yet proved—or disproved. Last year, helped by an incomparable season, they did yeoman work in ensuring a condition precedent to successful farming: they at least cleaned the land.
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