3 MAY 1930, Page 15

PRAIRIE FARMS

• The" Baylis barley farms have been peculiarly interesting because almost alongside them lie farms much more extensive, that is, much less intensive ; and on these there is almost nothing but grass, if the mongrel growth on the surface may be so described. Mr. Baylis did away with stock. His neighbour did away with plough, having acquired land that in some districts had fallen to a value of 15 or less an acre. Cottages, homesteads, farm buildings, hedgerows, and in one place a whole village, church and all, vanished. The scene is pitiable ; and yet it has to be confessed that the land which had ceased to pay was made to pay. Must we really accept this sort of solution for agricultural depression ? What do the smallholders of Lamboume, which lies in the Baylis country" say? However the question may be answered, this account of the eareerand methods of the doyen of farmers, in whom courage, imagination and practical ,good sense are wonderfully combined, deserves the closest attention from all who would help to cure the worst malady in our state. Mr. Baylis's fifty years of farming are heroic. The pamphlet of twenty-four pages is the third of a remarkable series. It is called " A Specialist in Amble Farming" and is published at is. 6d. by the Clarendon Press, Oxford.