COUNTRY LIFE

Power Farming It has happened, by a sort •Of accident, that Oxford has become the research centre both fOr'economies and engineering in Agriculture. It follows that Oxford must be regarded as the final authority on the question whether mechanised farMing is or is not econoinie. Does the machinery on, the firm pay dividends ? The the of the &tidies in Power Fartnitig (published by the Oxford University Research Institute at 2s. 6d.) is issued 'simultaneously with an account of the really marvellous success of Mr. Ford on his Essex farms. The Oxford boOk is chiefly concerned with power as applied to corn growing and in relation to extensive husbandry. Mr. Ford's. enterPrise is concerned largely

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with the application of machines to intensive production, and is of peculiar interest because this branch of farming has in the past been associated particularly with human labour. Years ago, almost on the site of one of Mr. Ford's farms another American millionaire tried out with much zeal the French form of intensive vegetable and fruit- !mowing. One at any rate of the causes of his failure was the intensity of human labour that the method involved ; and, indeed, Prince Kropotkin, whose Fields, Factories and Workshop .is a classic (though a half-forgotten classic) on the subject, condemned the system while he lauded its results, because of the long, hard hourS of labour involved. He would have. welcomed Mr. Ford's methods (NVhich owe much to Mr. Hosier,Mr. Watt and their school) as combining the virtues of both systems, intensive production.in which the mechanical apparatus takes the excess of labour off human shoulders. In a Very notable passage in the Oxford book is given the tale of labour on a mechanised farm producing sugar beet, corn and some stock. The tractor drivers are the most numerous.. group and are about seven-tenths of the total workers on the farms. How different from the old must the new farm labourer become !

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A Common Quotation

An historian of rural England has been seeking, hitherto in vain; for theauthorShip of the following Hudibras-like lines :

"The law locks up the man or woman

Who-steals a goose from off the Common-; But leaves the man or woman loose . Who steals the Common from the gaose." . .

I I would be interesting to know the name of the epigrammatist, but historically interest lies chiefly in the date. In wtat year did the lines make their first public appearance ? The

doggerel is as suggestive of public opinion as the couplet quoted in -almost all school histories : " When Adam delved and Eve spari, Who was then the gentleman ?"

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Agricultural Camps Among the agricultural efforts to assist the unemployed, a scheme of particular concern to existing farmers is fathered by the Oxford School of Agriculture ; and it demands and deserves financial support from outside. A group of voluntary workers formed themselves into a group, called the Agri- cultural Camps Committee, and pledged themselves to set up camps for seasonal workers. Many farmers find it very difficult to secure labourers of any value for such work as fruit picking ; and much of it is pleasant enough, if decent accommodation is provided. It is very well fitted for the unemployed in 'urban industry ; and it .would increase widely if sufficient funds were available. Over three thousand pounds were earned in wages in 1934 under this Camps scheme, which operated only in the South of England and in the Spalding neighbourhood, the very Headquarters of intensive cultivation. Any who desire to help with con- tributions or service should communicate with the Hon. Sec., Agricultural Camps Committee, 92 Rochester Row, London, S.W. 1.

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Maternal Orientation

The sense of direction possessed by animals, for example the bird and the dog, is a common subject of wonder and discussion. It appears to be possessed by animals not usually credited with the instinct, for example the cow, if we may

generalise from the following instance. A farmer bought a cow that had recently calved and transferred the animal -- by train for the greater part of the journey--to his farm, which lies about fifteen miles from Barnstaple where the purchase was made. The next morning the cow was missing from the paddock and was reported later to have arrived at the stall in Barnstaple where the calf was left. Maternal, as well as any other sort of love, " laughs at locksmiths " and at distance. Another incident from the same neighbour- hood, a birds-nesting boy—most reprehensibly—finding a nest of young goldfinches well fledged, transferred nest and young to a cage and carried them off to his farmhouse, which was a good two miles distant. All the boy's anticipated troubles in feeding the young were removed, for the next day both parents were busy in bringing food to the cage. Whether the parents followed the marauder on his way home or made calls for the young and so eventually found them is not known.

On this themeH-the recently passed Protection Act i3 being defeated in several ways by confirmed and commercial aviculturists ; they put private rings on the legs of tiny nestlings, take the birds when more fully fledged and there- after point to_ the rings, now irremovable, as proof that the birds were born in captivity. The goldfinch (that at one time seemed almost to be disappearing, but is now fairly common) is perhaps the most popular victim ; and great numbers of linnets' eggs—such is may personal experience are taken for the purpose of being hatched by bird fanciers.

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Saving Devon The country has lately been paying tribute 1.o the patron Saint of England, St. George. In travelling about the country at the time of the celebration it occurred to me that England and her Saint had never been so well honoured as in the generous gifts made at the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The National Trust, whose rapid growth we all desire, received at that date gifts of land that are priceleNs forthe lover of English landscape. One of these is Challaeombe, a salient hill looking down on the splendid Bay and sands of Woolacombe. It was ripe for that dreadful process known as development ; and the generous gift has permanently preserved a scene singularly characteristic of Devon. More than this, such generosity is catching ; and other such gifts arc meditated, partly as a result of this gift, which itself succeeds the preservation of Mortc Point, gorgeous as scenery and famous as a haunt of raven and buzzard. It has a curious similarity to St. David's Head, which is perhaps a yet finer promontory and a more historic ; and, to judge by some of the new buildings opposite White Sands (which resemble Woolacombe Sands), it also will soon be in need of salvation. That coast adds the peregrine and chough to the raven and buzzard.

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Birds and Bugs The always excellent Bird Notes and Niles published by. the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds contains I he most persuasive examples I ever read of the value of birds to the farmer. The rook, as a devourer of wire-worm, is the leading benefactor (and how many used io be poisoned by wheat farmers in the old days) ; but examples are given (by an agricultural inspector) of the benefits conferred by that most unpopular bird, the Jackdaw. A number of them, of which the first visitors were shot on the theory that they were eating fruit, as completely cleared a fruit-farmer's goose- berries of caterpillars as the rooks had cleansed the Leicester- shire oatfield of an infestation of wire-worm. What is perhaps most astonishing in these records, as of others, is the quick action of the intelligence service among birds. Is there :um excess of a particular sort of food (whether seed or insect or even mammal)? There at once, so to say, the eagles are gathered together. In our happy island where birds of many sorts are always numerous, a plague, so-called, of insects is made almost impossible by the quick spread of the news among birds. The news occasionally spreads even to the Continent. It has 'wen proved again and again that an undue multiplication of field voles always brings an invasion of short-eared owls.

W. BEACH THOMAS.