The English Ranch , Another method, also of sheep farming, is
interesting the Oxford agricultural economists. In the latest number of The Farm Economist, the invaluable organ of the Oxford Agricultural Econoniie Research Institute, facts and figures are given of a system of " semi-arable sheep-farming," practised over the last ten years with success in Oxfordshire and on the Cotswolds. It is worth close study. Any system with arable in it has the national advantage of employing more labourers. No one who has visited that desert will f trget the scenes that followed the virtual extinction of the labourer (and his village) on the Downs near Marlborough ; but good grAss farming may need more hands than bad arable fanning. There is as much difference between good grass and bad as between ploughland and meadow. Wex- combe gives a good example ; and Mr. Hosier has, in fact, been willingly compelled to increase his ploughland by the increase of stock on his grass. He needs the produce of the tilth for fodder if not for food.
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