24 DECEMBER 1927, Page 13

AGENTS IN RECLAMATION.

The prime value of this Wiltshire experiment—or perhaps demonstration is a better word—is that it provides what every reformer has been seeking, a recipe for the worst lands. The best lands are still well farmed, and likely to be, even to-day, when capital has been frightened away from the farming industry by excess of proselytizing gloom. What the country needs is a formula for the poor soils, both those overlying chalk as in Wiltshire, or clay in Huntingdonshire, or, perhaps, gravel in Hertfordshire. The Wexcombe dairy cows have done more than return a profit amounting to £19 per head. They have been agents in reclamation. Land that once grew heather now grows gra.-,s almost good enough to feed a cow to the acre.