HILL FARMING
By WALTER SCOTT-ELLIOT, M.P.
THE greater part of our home-grown mutton and beef comes from the hill farms of Scotland, Northern England and Wales. Ex- cept in the Scottish Highlands hardy breeds of sheep. like Blackf ace, Cheviot, Swaledale and Welsh Mountain live on the hills all the year round. In summer there is abundant hill grass which often becomes too rough for the sheep, whose numbers are limited by what the hill grazings will support during the winter. Hardy types of beef cattle like Galloways, Highland and their crosses can get all the food they want on the hills during the summer, and, by keeping down the rough grass, improve the grazing fcrr sheep. Cows of these hardy breeds give but little milk, only sufficient to feed their calves which run with them on the hills. They do not, therefore, have to be milked. The whole -herd moves about together ; indeed, in the Borders we regard their movements as a good weather forecast. When it is going to be fine the cattle move high up the hill ; when it is going to be stormy they come down to the edge of the enclosed land. Hill cattle have to be brought down to the lower ground in the autumn in order to leave sufficient grass for the sheep. In the Scottish Lowlands they are generally wintered under cover. In the Highlands they often get shelter in the woods.
Only those with a knowledge of the subject will realise how limited are the resources of the average hill farm and how serious is the problem of ensuring that the ewes are sufficiently nourished to pro- vide enough milk for their lambs in the spring. In a hard winter it is not uncommon for a hill ewe, when she comes to lamb, to have lost more than one-quarter of what she weighed the previous Novem- ber. In order to give the ewes a chance to gain in condition before winter sets in, hill farmers have to sell their lambs as stores in August or early September. This means they hive to take the best price that the low-ground farmers are willing to bid, since store lambs make much less than fat lambs, the difference being often reckoned at Li per head. The majority of hill farmers are glad to " summer " young cattle on the hill, but far too few maintain a herd of breeding cows. This is primarily due to lack of winter keep, though it must be admitted there is a long-standing prejudice against cattle on the part of some shepherds. Even those farmers' who keep hill cattle can seldom winter all their calves, which have therefore to be sold as stores to the low-ground farms. Here the difference in price is even more marked ; a suckled calf may make £15, whereas a fat bullock will sell for L60. The breeding cows are fed during the winter on hay, straw, silage, broken potatoes or anything that is available. Galloway cows, in particular, will eat and do reasonably well on hay that would be quite unsuitable for less hardy breeds. For some years before the war the hill-farming industry was in the depths of depression. The real reason for this was to be found in the steady deterioration which had been taking place in the con- dition of hill farms for more than fifty years. By 193o the fertility co: hill grazings was so depleted that the average farm could no longer make ends meet. As a result, few new tenants were rorth- coming, and landlords were forced either to take over farms becoming vacant or to sell them to the Forestry Commission. What was even more serious, skilled workers were drifting away, and the shepherd's son, instead of following his father's occupation, began to seek em-
ployment in some more premising field. With the coming of the war things did not improve greatly. The hill farmer still had to sell his lambs as stores and the requirements of the low-ground buyers were reduced by the need to plough an increased acreage. With rising wages there was need for greater production. Owing to the extreme poverty of hill grazings the possibility of achieving this was less than was the case on the low ground. On top of all this came the very severe winter of 194o-41, when hill farms suffered heavy losses in their stocks of breeding ewes.
In order to keep the industry in existence the Government intro- duced a scheme under which a subsidy was paid in respect of each genuine hill ewe. This subsidy, which it has been necessary to
continue, has enabled the industry to carry on, but has done nothing
to remedy the long-term position. For those interested in the sub- ject this is fully described in the reports of the two committees on
hill sheep farming in Scotland and England* respectively which were set up during the war. The Hill Farming Act of 1946 was based on the recommendations of these committees, and provides for the re- habilitation of hill farms by means of a 5o per cent. grant in respect of comprehensive schemes approved by the appropriate Minister. Apart from the obvious need to recondition farm buildings, cottages and fences, improve roads, drain the hills, cut bracken and plant shelter belts, nothing is more important than to improve the quality of hill-grazing. This can be done by putting lime or lime and phosphate on existing hill grass. A more ambitious method is to
enclose and re-seed a limited area of the hill. First the land is ploughed and harrowed to eradicate the old grass ; then there is sown
a good mixture of grass seeds, including a little wild white clover, which is exceptionally valuable for grazing purposes. The breaking up of hill-land is not an easy job, and normally requires a cater- pillar tractor and prairie buster plough which cuts an exceptionally wide furrow. These can be hired from the Agricultural Executive Committees, which also provide a man to do the work.
There is much land in Scotland which used to be cultivated long ago and which today has gone back to rough grazing. The improve- ment that can at times be brought about by re-seeding such land is little short of amazing. As a result, it is possible to graze more sheep on the ground and many more cattle. The additional cattle are nearly sure to improve the grazing still further, as a result of which there will be not only more sheep but, what is even more important, better sheep. The average hill ewe living on the hill grass seldom has more than one lamb ; indeed when a hill ewe has twins she is generally brought down into the fields wherever this is possible in order that she may be better nourished. Ewes eating good-quality grass will tend to have more twins, and in any case their lambs will be healthier and therefore heavier. I have seen land at one time cultivated by crofters and subsequently allowed to deteriorate which was capable, after being re-seeded, of carrying eight to ten times the stock it was formerly capable of carrying. I do not; of course, claim that im- provements of this kind can be carried out everywhere ; indeed I recognise the hazards of attempting to re-seed land that is poorly drained, since it is quite capable of growing a heavy crop of rushes such as it never grew previously. With the help of grants provided under the Hill Farming Act much can, however, be done with lasting benefit to improve the quality of the sheep and increase the number of cattle which can be maintained on the hill. It more cattle are to be wintered hill farmers will have to accustom them- selves to buying straw and other feeding-stuffs like maize, when these are once again obtainable at a reasonable price. They will also have to adapt their farm buildings where this is possible for the wintering of cattle under cover.
To sum up, it should be possible considerably to increase the supply of home-produced mutton and lamb by improving our hill-grazings and breeding better sheep, which in turn will have more lambs. It should be possible to increase our supplies of home-produced beef to an even greater extent once the hill farmers recognise that the future of their industry depends upon keeping very many more hill cattle than they have done in the past.
* Report of the Committee on Hill Sheep Farming in Scotland, Cmd, 6494.
Report of the Committee on Hill She Farming in England and Wales, Cmd. 6498.
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