RATIONAL FARMING
Snt—Mr. Walston is doing good service by tackling the difficult problem of the too-acre farm in post-war conditions, but some of his advice seems to me disastrous. I am farming 188 acres, half ploughable and half rough grazing, and so the matter touches me very clostly. I have a small T.T. attested herd, an accredited flock of breeding poultry, and about 120 breeding ewes ; and this year I have fifteen acres of potatoes and twenty acres of oats, both potatoes and oats being grown to be sold as certified seed. My farming is well mixed to satisfy war-time needs. If I follow Mr. Walston's advice I must abandon all my lines except one. The most regularly paying line has been the poultry. Probably Mr. Walston would therefore tell me to concentrate on them. What is likely to happen if I do? At present an outbreak of disease among the poultry would be a difficulty to be dealt with, not the fatal disastes it is to the poultry specialist. • Mr. Walston is lhockingly light-hearted, about the danger of disease to a specialist Again, my present success with poultry depends largely on my grass. Good grass for poultry has to be grazed by cattle and sheep as well.
Alternatively, suppose I choose what Mr. Walston calls a "specialised arable farm" and produce seed potatoes and seed oats, where is the fertility to come from? Does Mr. Walston want me to rely on artificials year after year, lose my humus, and have my soil blown away? On page 24 Mr. Walston says that the only way the problem facing agriculture can be solved is by increasing the P,M.H., the output per man-hour. On page 222 of the same issue Sir William Beach Thomas points out that with forcing artificial manures (giving good P.M.H.) the soil would degenerate. He adds, "What essentially matters is not the produce per man but the produce per acre." Who is right, Mr. Walston or Sir William Beach Thomas? To settle our farming policy we must choose between them. I am reminded of a story told somewhere by Mr. George Henderson, of Farming Ladder fame. An M.P. walked round his eighty- acre mixed farm, and remarked, "After the war you fellows will each have- to choose his line and specialise. We can't go on in this haphazard way." [Mr. Walston's phrase was "Jack of all Trades."] Mr. Henderson replied, "If I have to specialise I shall specialise in mixed farming even if I
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