SUCCESSFUL FARMING
[To' the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The papers are full now of the dreadful state of agri- culture (they take it as a whole). What is entirely forgotten or ignored is that there are two distinct classes of farming arable farming and dairy farming.
The former, everybody knows, is in a very bad way—faced with all sorts of difficulties, and no doubt wants all the help it can get. Dairy farming (take the area where Cheshire cheese is made, not necessarily only in Cheshire) is quite prosperous—prices for cheese good, and though, of course, the farmer will never own that he is not losing. money, he has nothing really to complain about. . •
If a dairy farm of under two hundred acres is to be let, the applications for it simply pour in. Does this look as if a man was going to take a farm to lose money on it ? Let us go back forty years and compare what a faim had to yield to keep a family in those days, and what is expected of it to-day.
Then, the farmer and his wife attended one market each
week, at the nearest:towndn a shandry drawn by an animal•which worked on, the farm, for the rest _of ..the week. -.The•farther's wife was simply dressed in Shawl and bonnet, which
did duty for many years.
What do we see now ? Many farmers attending three and four markets each week—leaving their men to work as they please—or don't please ! He makes these journeys in a smart car, attended by his wife in a fur coat and silk stockings and everything else up to date. The children attend a High School and all have bicycles and smart clothes. All this has to come off_ the farm before a man begins to reckon what there is for the " stocking." Of course there are cases where the wife is too lazy or too incapable to make cheese at all, and the milk is sent to the nearest town. This, of course, prohibits the keeping of pigs—which live chiefly on the skimmed milk, and if no pigs, then poorer manure for the land, and a great loss when pigs are selling well.
If a man sticks to his farm, works hard, and makes good cheese, there is still money to be made, as the run on vacant farms shows quite clearly.—I am, Sir, &c., COUNTRYWOMAN.
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