WET HARVEST
By FRANK SYKES
CORN harvest is over—if the past six-week period is worthy of such a name. On the chalk hills where I farm we have been comparatively fortunate. We missed the devastating thunder- storms which flattened many crops in July ; but even here nearly nine inches of rain fell between August 8th and September 8th, which is the period during which corn is most vulnerable to bad weather, added to which we were swept by three gales of unusual force which blew barley heads off the straw. One field of mine, in an exposed position, yielded 28 cwt. per acre harvested before two of these gales, and 12 cwt. per acre after the weather cleared ; the balance was on the ground and irrecoverable. Fields of oats left standing were threshed by the wind, one period of three days incessant rain set wheat growing in stook, and, in sheltered fields, where it had not even been cut. It is difficult to assess the loss. In a normal harvest we expect to lose some corn from bad weather, but this year farmers assess it between fifteen and thirty per cent. of the total drop. Scotland and Northern England may have done better than the South, but it seems as if, taking the country as a whole, only seventy-five pet:cent. of the crop has been saved. In this estimate, loss of quality is not taken into account. Guaranteed minimum prices form a cushion and maintain some return to the farmer, but the financial loss must be proportionately higher than the loss of the crops themselves. Crops other than corn have been a worse failure. I know of no farmer who has harvested a crop of dried peas for canning in a condition in which they can be put to their proper use. Most crops of grass and clover seeds lie rotting on the ground long past salvage.
A bad season reveals our weakness and we must learn lessons front it. In this country we are able to bring crops to harvest as cheaply as our competitors overseas. Our costs per acre may not be so low, but our yield is nearly double when we can harvest it. It is in the harvesting of corn that we are at a disadvantage. In Jur uncertain climate speed of harvesting saves losses. Most farmers who rely on the binder and the harvest-wagon need about 20 harvest days to rick their corn. This is due partly to the increased acreage grown by farmers to maintain cereal production and partly to the fact that most farms are mechanised only to the extent of the pre- paration of the land and the sowing of the crops. For them harvest is the bottleneck, and many take undue risks on that account. To be reasonably safe and in this area, harvest must be through in fifteen days of good weather and it were better to be organised to finish in twelve such days. When ploughing was carried out by horses the team of men who walked behind the ploughs was available at harvest-time to rick the corn. So large a team cannot be maintained throughout the year at present wage rates, so the only alternative is to mechanise the harvest. There can be no doubt that the combine harvester has proved its Worth this season. The owners of these machines will have suffered least from the bad weather. Owing to the speed at which they work some farmers were half-way through harvest before the very bad weather set in. Corn left standing dries out quicker than when cut with the binder and left in stook. Even after the corn had stood such a hammering one of my fields yielded a ton of fair barley to the acre when harvested in the middle of September. Had I been forced to rely on hand htbour and the binder, a high proportion would have shed out on the ground before it reached the rick.
Though the large mechanised arable fanner will have come off lightly and his profits may be no worse than below average, for the smaller fanner, forced to hire prisoner-labour, the case is very different. He will bear the brunt of the losses, and most of the extra oust of harvesting has fallen on his shoulders. He is the man who would have reduced his corn acreage but for the nation's need of cereals. In some instances he knew that he was taking an un- warranted risk in growing more corn than he could harvest in a bad season. He was held to the gamble by patriotism or the threat of an order from his War Agricultural Committee. It is clear now that the risk of corn-growing on the smaller holding is too great except possibly in the eastern counties, unless the price of corn in this country is to be kept substantially above the world price, unless a cheap mechanical harvester suitable for small acreage, is developed, or unless there is some organisation whereby contractors or War Agricultural Committees are in the position to harvest mechanically the greater part of the corn on such holdings. The need for cereal production over the next year or two will make. it necessary for many of those who produce corn to accept risks which may again prove as disastrous as they have proved this season. With the war over, neither the consumer nor the Government has the right to force these men to maintain their arable acreage without underwriting the risk by allowing a generous price for the corn they produce.
After our recent experience the Government should make com- bine harvesters a first priority. One firm which has been experi- menting in the manufacture of these machines in this country for some years has not yet progressed further than the pilot-model stage. One hopes that this company will be in the position to supply large numbers of reliable machines before next harvest. A copy of an American model was turned out in numb& by another firm, in ti ii for the 1946 harvest, but these machines revealed a number of mechanical weaknesses, to the extent that most of them stood idle for the lack of spare parts. A few of the larger combine-harvesters were imported from America and Canada. It is probable that they saved their value in one season in corn which would otherwise have been lost to the farmer and to the nation. The dollar loan agreement was not signed in time to make more cash available for the purchase of such machinery, which could have been shipped in time for use in 1946. Agricultural machinery is in short supply in America as well as in this country, but if our corn acreage is to be maintained for another year or more, and a large proportion of the German prisoners at present working on the farms are to be repatriated shortly, the efforts should be made to import more American and Canadian combine harvesters in time for next season.
British agriculture has had a reverse from which it will take at least a season to recover. Nor are the repercussions confined to the arable farmer. At a local sheep-fair held on one of the few fine days in early September, prices of store sheep were down by Jos. per head on last year, and this in spite of a recent rise in the guaranteed price for mutton. Farmers from the eastern counties who were in the habit of buying lambs here to feed out on their sugar-beet tops were noticeable by their absence. A suggested explanation was that they were short of cash. Vale farmers, who were in the habit of buying a few sheep to clean up their pastures after the summer grazing, said their land was too wet to stand stocking. Already there has been a reversal in the trend of prices for farms. Agents find customers less willing to bid reserve prices and they anticipate more farms being offered for sale than was the case over the last 12 months. Although there can be no unemploy- ment in an industry which employs so high a proportion of prisoner labour, the labour market is noticeably easier. Farmers who retained a larger staff than was strictly necessary owing to high taxation on profits are releasing men. Others who have suffered most must cut expenses over the coming year, whether they like it or not.
This will be long remembered as a bad farming year, but it is as well to count our blessings. The bad season will have a steadying influence on the industry and make farmers study costs more closely. Many will be hard hit, but there can be few who will be unable to recover. Statistics show that the farming year of 1879 was even wetter than this year. On that occasion, I am told, there was little corn in the straw ; this year, but for the weather, we should have reaped a record harvest. After such a season, one hears more of the sug- gestion thatsour climate is unsuited to corn-growing. Our disastrous years come at long intervals, and when they come, they fill the head- lines. Droughts and plagues of grasshopper hit the corn-growing areas overseas more often than we realise. However serious locally, they seldom earn even a short paragraph in our papers. At least our bad season has coincided with a fine year in America and Canada, and we are saved from what might have been a disaster to our fo6d supplies. Crops or livestock, at home or abroad, farming was ever more of a gamble than industry ; soon the plough will hide the traces of past disasters. New crops will spring up, and with them fresh hopes of the earth's bounty.
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