“COUNTRYSIDE DYING”

Grey River Argus, 23 January 1943, Page 2

“COUNTRYSIDE DYING”

“Peace Desolating the Land’’ BRITAIN’S AGRICULTURAL ROT STOPPED. A notable broadcast was delivered by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson)! in London of Britain s agricultural achievements since the outbreak of war. In order to drive . home their magnitude. Mr. Hudson contrasted the lamentable state of farming in Britain prior to 1939. The neglect, at that time, he declared, was worse than any one dreamt possible Once fertile land that grew crops and employed men had become desolated. Farm buildings were m ruins . Grass which should be the best in the world was often not pioducing more than half of what it should; in many cases not one-Ditn or even a tenth. Much of the countiyside way dying. Peace was desolating the land faster than war. ■ Britain was not alone in. this. mi. Hudson said. Farm lands all over the world were dying. In the United States wheat had been sold below the cost of production since 1929. In a desperate race to overtake falling prices, many new countries were exhausting their soil because they coula not afford to. put anything back into lt- In 1938 Canadian prairie farmers had debts amounting to about 000,000 and assets of £25,000,000 In Australia the average price of wheat over nine, years to 1938 was 25 per cent., less than the cost of production. At one time it is said in New Zealand, , -that a whole sheep was only worth I half a chicken. Our customers were . being ruined. , ~ . I Then came the war and the encies of war. We had to grow more food at home, not only to escape starvation, but to release shxps to carry men and munitions. Beiote the war we were producing less than two tons of food out of every five- we were eating. We have had to gh°w crops on commons never cultivated in the memory of man. In two years and a-half we have cut thousands ot miles of hedges, cleaned out thousands of miles of ditches, and drained about 3,000.000 acres. These changes said the Minister, had been wrought with fewer skilled workers, but he paid a warm tribute to farmer and the land army and all voluntary workers, and continued. “What of the result? The average yield of wheat in America is less than 15 bushels to the acre. Our pre-war average was 33 bushels. T his the ordinary British farmer is getting 40, a very large number over ou, and some of our champion farmers 80 bushels. Some power has wrought a miracle in the English harvest fields this summer. For in this, our year Of greatest need, the land has given us bread in greater abundance than we have ever known before, we hope, but hardly reasonably expect, eo see yields of this nature two years running. We are preparing for stni greater arable acreages next year. 1 expect to see both next year, and the year after appreciable increases in oiir total production.” Nearly all of what had been done, said Mr' Hudson, would be of permanent benefit when peace returned. “ With the knowledge we now possess,” he concluded, “we know to-day it is possible to banish want from the world, that the earth can produce enough for all her children. .ui country, and. to some exitent the world, will be exactly what we make it If we go forward with iaitn, ‘cleaving unto the things that aie good,’ we shal acheive our ., ain ?. . rv do not let us forget that the his y of every great nation has shown tl at it survives only so long as its roois strech deep down into’ the sou