COUNTRY LIFE
Ley-Farming I recently noted the opinion of many farmers that the ploughing- up campaign seemed to be the result of a short-term rather than a long-term policy, and I suggested that ploughing for ploughing's sake was not enough. It is always a satisfying thing to find an opinion shared by an expert. The part played by grass in the agriculture of this country is, and must continue to be, a large one, and Sir George Stapiedon's review of the situation in Ley-Farming (University College of Wales, ts.) is a short piece of expert sense that is worth a ton of the patriotic pulp churned out as " urgent advice to farmers." Sir George has no use for the school which "holds the present situation so serious that we can but meet our present needs by concentrating wholly and always on the next few months ahead." He supports the side " that holds that so serious is the present situation that we tan only hope to meet our present needs by looking forward not merely for nine or twelve months but at least four years." (Italics mine.) He goes on to sat that "it is not right to set out to plough up ley quotas of permanent grass. Our aim must be all the time to substitute good systems of farming for bad systems." And the good systems are, in his expert view, arable proper and ley- farming.
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