16 NOVEMBER 1929, Page 16

Country Life

A FARMERS' QUESTIONNAIRE.

An account is about to be issued from the Oxford agricul- tural economists concerning the many thousand questions that they sent out to agents, farmers and landowners con- cerning the state of fanning and farms. The questionnaire was very well thought out. Some emphasis was laid on the number of farms that had been surrendered and could not be let. In every case the nature of the particular farm, in soil and size, was to be specified. I believe that as many as 3,000 replies have been received and collated. The answers are not wide enough, geographically, to warrant any scientific plan of the state of farming in Britain ; but they warrant certain broad conclusions and, of course, give a deal of particular information of value. The general conclusion will surprise many. It is, I am told, that there is no general farming depression, though there is, of course, deep depression in certain districts and on certain sorts of farms, especially in the moderate sized farm of the old four rotation course.