* sn This evidence from this wise and thoughtful expert
is con- clusive of a new fact which has many illustrations: the open- air "bail" (invented in Wiltshire by Mr. Hosier) when asso- ciated with the milking machine, which enables a man and a boy to milk sixty cows without any appearance of hard work, has conferred all sorts of benefits on the industry. It has cheapened both the process and the capital expenditure, it has eased labour, it has enriched the land and, we may now conclude, improved the health of the stock. This is un- doubted ; and yet within a little distance of the spot where I write and within thirty miles of much the greatest market in the world, lie not fewer than 150 acres, now a foot and a half deep in grass, wholly unfarmed and untenanted. Half of these have been offered for nothing to anyone who will under- take to farm them, and for the other half no tenant can- be found, though his rent would be nominal, probably lower than the tithe. As to Wiltshire; where Mr. Street's father made money, and, what is more, helped to make life worth living for those eager co-operators, his workmen, where Mr. Street himself, in a much more difficult age, is pleased with his dairying, I have walked over interminable acres that were sold some years ago for £5 an acre or less and from which the resident farmer and labourer have - clean vanished. Even their houses are no more.
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