Country Life and Sport

£2,000 A .Mosatt.

The accounts have been shown me of a farm that must be the most intensive in England, and I should think, one of the most intensive in Europe. I investigated it carefully last spring, but much as I admired the methods and, indeed, performances at that date the actual records, as certified to-day, are on a scale that astonishes me. The accounts have been passed by an expert accountant, who has especially concerned himself with farm accounts. The relation of receipts to expenditure cannot be given, and it is doubtless less satisfactory ; but of the accuracy of the monthly takings since the farm got into its stride, there is no question. These are some of them :— 1924—October ..

1925—January ..

—April „ —August .

„ —November ..

1926—January ..

„ —February ..

„ —March ..

„ —April ..

• • • • • • •

• • • • • • •

•

• • • • • • •

£ s.

331 19 718 14 1,822 17

1,536 14 2,085 0 2,012 3 1,772 16 2,263.12 2,119 4

d.

3 6 8

10 0 2 7 11 7

To .these accounts have to be added certain returns from a retail shop in the county town, which took £719 6s. 8d. in April last. Some part of this, however, is credited to the farm account. The total area-of the farin is now under 400 acres, but exceeded this at one time. The takings have been extraordinarily various. They include all sorts of poultry and dairy prOduce. The pigs were profitable, partly thanks to a slaughter-house and sausage factory on the farm, which has also its own bakery. .Flowers and vegetables are also sold. It need hardly be said that such a rate of production. could only be - secured. by a very heavy capital expenditure, but whatever may be the dividends paid by such an establishment the demonstration of output is so remarkable as to be worth the close attention of all who concern themselves with the advancement of agriculture in England. The author of the faith is Brigadier-General Sir Charles Delme Radcliffe, who has transplanted many of the ideas he had acquired in a singularly wide and yet particular experience of the Continent. As a public-spirited endeavour to test the value of intensive cultivation in this country, his farm at Headoorn, in Kent, has no parallel.