ENGLISH FARMING.

Auckland Star, Volume 23, Issue 23, 28 January 1926, Page 6

ENGLISH FARMING.

Several items of intere-t relating to I English farming axe to hand, and they may be read with xhe contention made liy a deputation to the Secretary for the Dominions, that land settlement in tin* Homeland should ho combined with migration to other parts (if the Empire. The number of agricultural workers in Britain (which in this context presumably means England and "Wales) is given as 50.,000, a decrease of 31_o ou the preceding year. : Statistics of this kind have to be u-p.l very/ carefully, ami it may be. pointed out that the decline in the number of employees of recent years may be partly due to increased use %t machinery. It may also lie due, however, to an increase in the proportion of pastoral as ' opposed to arable fanning. One item of news tcr be noted is that there is an increase of a million in the number of sheep and lambs in Britain. An increase in sheep breeding has been noticeable during the last few years, and sheep- . farming requires fewer bunds than cropfarming. English farming is not nearly : .-o depressed as some accounts might lead colonials to suppose, but there is an abundance of figures tliat show how great is the need for a, baek-to-the-land movement. The population of Great Britain engaged iv agriculture is only 7 j per cent; in Belgium it is 10 per cent; j in Denmark, 33 per cent; in Germany, 3(1 per cent; and in France. 40 per cent. In the light of these and other figures, it is impossible to consider rural England as being anywhere near the saturation point of population. When the Prince of Wales says that Britain is over- , populated he has the towns in mind. A bright spot iv the agricultural landscape is the success of beet-growing for sugar production. In 1922 tho acreage of this crop, the growing of which is encouraged by a subsidy, was only 8400; to-day it is .jo.000; and Britain may eventually build tip an industry equal to that in some j Continental countries.