On the subject of the factory farm—the most highly capital-
ized farm in England, and in many of its details the most efficient, belongs to an owner who also possesses a factory associated with the farm. Any lover of England must be grateful for such wholehearted generosity in the cause of intensifying cultivation and testing new methods and new machines ; but there is no single example, so far as I know, of economic success justifying the huge expenditure. I have visited and admired and written admiringly of a number of such farms ; and it is wholly good that the theories of the pioneers should be studied. But there is little likeness between their endeavours and the mechanized farm that Mr. Orwin or Mr. Carrington or, we trust, Dr. Addison, has in view. The starting point of such farms is the cheapness that springs from quick mechanical work operated by a few good—and well-paid—workmen. While farmers in East Anglia clamour for 25s. labourers, the apostles of the new farming are looking out for labourers at 45s. a week and finding them difficult if not impossible to get. It is a fact that many farmers are giving up tractors (though they know them to be better) for heavy horses because of the bills for repairs due almost wholly to bad and careless engineering on the farm.
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