FARMING IMPROVEMENT

Waipawa Mail, Volume LI, Issue 38, 13 December 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

FARMING IMPROVEMENT

J— S PROGRESS IN BRITAIN. To gain an idea of the improvement which lias taken place in British agriculture during the last hundred years or so, one has only lo be reminded that it was not until the reign of King George 111. (called the Farmer King) that agriculture began to make much headway in Britain. Up to that time there were no farm or holdings ns we know them to-day. Instead, the country was divided into narrow strips of perhaps a chain wide, and these were allotted so that every farmer would get good and bad land equally. A man might have 15 acres made up of 15 or 20 strips, some of which might he miles apart. Under such conditions, improved methods by individual action were almost impossible. The average yield of grain was 2i to times the amount of seed sown; a fat cow weighed 3701 b., sheep 281 b. and a fleece 31b or 4)b. About this period a man named Young put forward the idea of fenced fields and compact holdings; but for a long time his suggestion met with the bitterest Ttieism, for no other reason than that he had failed financially under the conditions then existing. During the next hundred years ; hat and many other improvements were made, until to-day ;ho average wei(Hit of a fat.cow is 80011,., a sheep BoTb., and a fleece 121 b.; while yields of 40 to 00 bushels of .cereals are common.