A HEALTHY AGRICULTURE
Sta,—The article in your issue of October 27th, " A Healthy Agriculture," by H. D. Walston, is too much like the curate's egg. The three crops— milk, fruit and vegetables—which your contributor says must be the basis of a healthy agriculture may represent a large part of the cash turnover in agriculture, but only can play a very small part, judged by an acreage standard. No matter what one sees in print pertaining to farming, it always appears to have been composed by a South Country or small farmer pen. What of the rolling Wolds of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, of what use can these three crops be to them—the farms of between 60o and 1,600 acres, the fields of 3o to too acres? The open wind- swept root fields folded with their hundreds of fattening sheep. Are these grand stretches of England, where men are real farmers and not glorified market gardeners, where the best type of labourer still retains his pride in a job well done, where Brock the Badger still flourishes, are these to be in the scheme or are they to revert to the rabbit warrens of Arthur Young's time;!. Is there to be no English mutton and English barley in this healthy agriculture. Again, what of the medium-sized strong land farmer with his about 25o to 40o acres of heavy land, the land now producing the wheat the country so bady needs ; dairying will not carry the rest of his liabilities.
As to additional credit facilities, no greater disservice could be done to a farmer than to make borrowing any easier. He can obtain all the credit his business can carry from his landlord, his banker or his merchant, end much of this is interest free. Given the long-term policy which your contributor rightly stresses (and four years is nothing like long enough) capital will flow into farming alright.—Yours faithfully, •
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