Slit,—I wish to point out a very big inaccuracy in
Mrs. V. E. Poole's letter in your issue of August 22nd, as no one else appears to have done so; whether an error of arithmetic or composing I do not know. She states that the 436,800 cwts of farm butter produced in 1935-6 was the equivalent of 4,310,40o gallons of milk; whereas the actual equivalent is approximately 122,000,000 gallons, nearly thirty times as much. The correct figure seems to strengthen her argument if it be true that under present conditions this large amount goes to the calves, who are thus living on the fat of the land at the expense of us human beings, whose clothes are much more roomy than they used to be. Indeed, the above-mentioned figure, incredible as it may seem, is almost enough to provide all the children of this country with of a pint per day extra throughout the year.
I agree with Mrs. Poole that the authorities have shown more zeal than judgement in breaking up land, apparently imagining that if they sent tractors roaring about here, there and everywhere, they were really doing something, making "the desert blossom as the rose," ensuring that we should have to "pull down our barns and build greater" and many other fine things besides. I saw some of this tractor-ploughing in the spring—belated, hurried, almost scandalously bad. Now, at the end of an unkind summer, in a district uncon- genial to corn, I see some of the results. There are crops that will scarcely yield the seed sown, and they are an offence to the eye. I would have some of the superior bureaucrats of the Ministry photo- graphed standing in the middle of them. I assure you they would not be hidden. "By their fruits ye shall know them! "—Yours
faithfully, PENDRIL BENTALL.
543 Crookesmoor Road, Sheffield, 10.
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