As more men are being taken from the land, it
is natural that farmers should be asking the Government to restrict the policy of the plough. Members of both Houses met on Tuesday to urge,
on the farmers' behalf, that the ploughing of grassland should lr suspended. We are as firmly convinced as ever of the supreme necessity of tillage, but in these critical days every interest, however vital, must be subordinated to the needs of the Army, which with the Navy stands between us and disaster. Obviously it would be sheer waste of effort to plough up any more grassland at the present time if it is uncertain whether the crops on the land already ploughed can be harvested. The policy of the plough is sound, but it must be applied with discretion. Some Agricultural War Com- mittees, we fear, have thought more of increasing the ploughed area than of increasing the produce of the land, and have turned valuable meadows into worthless amble merely for the sake of swelling the total of acres under the plough.
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