Abstract
THE speech of the President of the Board of Agriculture at Darlington on October 5 calls for the widest attention as an authoritative pronouncement on the present situation of British agriculture in relation to the need for increased food production. The exigencies of a long war have imposed upon the British farmer the duty, on one hand, of securing a greatly increased production of bread-corn and potatoes, and, on the other, of maintaining the supplies of milk and meat. The ideal placed before him by the Board of Agriculture in the first place is an increase of 3,000,000 acres under grain, potatoes, and roots, to be obtained partly from existing arable land and partly by ploughing up pasture. To secure this end the Government is prepared to help, and Mr. Prothero outlined how much has already been done in the way of guaranteed prices for corn, extension of credit facilities, supply of soldier and women labour, increased supplies and controlled prices of fertilisers, supply of horses, ploughs, and ploughmen, and further of mechanical tractors. Of the last-named 1500 are already at work, and it is hoped that by February next the number will have increased more than fourfold. A timely warning was given, however, that the tractor in its present stage of development must be regarded as the least efficient of ploughing implements, and should be used preferably for the lightest work.
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The Task of British Agriculture. Nature 100, 116–117 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/100116b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/100116b0