In the northern counties generally may be seen some of the best arable farming in Eng land; a four-course rotation is generally fol lowed, the foundation of the whole system be ing a good crop of Swede turnips, part of which are fed on the land to sheep, part carted off for fattening stock in the yards. Barley is the money-making crop in the rotation, oats being the other cereal usually grown. The typ ical cattle of all this district are Shorthorns; in Cumberland, which is more of a grazing coun try, they are of the milking type, the beef strains predominating in the eastern side. The sheep are the Cheviot breed for the hill past ures, and the Border Leicester, which was origi nally produced by crossing the Cheviots with Bakewell's Leicester breed.
Scotland and Crossing the border in the Lothians of Scotland will be found the most highly-farmed general-purpose arable land in the British Isles. Here the management of the land, the utilization of labor-saving ma chinery, and the application of skill to inten sive cultivation, reach a higher pitch than anywhere else in the world. The cropping is much the same as that of the other northern counties, but potatoes form the most remunera tive crop; in the famous Dunbar district they are often sold standing in the field for $150 (DO) per acre.
The southwest of Scotland is pre-eminently a grazing district; it is the home of two of the most distinct breeds of cattle, the Ayrshire, a typical dairy cow, yielding milk particularly suited for cheesemaking, and the Galloway, a polled black animal, characterized by its great hardiness and the fine quality of its beef. For i generations the Galloways, either pure, or in the well-known oblue-gray" cross, have been ex ported to be fattened in the Midlands and east of England. The more northern counties of Scotland, naturally, in the main consist of graz ing land. They have their typical race of Highland cattle and also carry the Scotch black faced sheep, both slow-maturing hardy breeds, producing meat of high quality. The eastern counties, particularly Aberdeen, show some highly-farmed arable land, noted for the magni tude and high quality of its turnip crops, on which the cattle are stall-fed through the win ter. For this purpose another race of cattle, now of cosmopolitan distribution, has been evolved, the polled black Aberdeen-Angus, mas sive animals noted for their rapid growth, sym metry, and quality of flesh.
Irish agriculture is of two classes; on the one hand there exists, especially in the west, a great number of small holdings, worked en tirely by the single family, producing potatoes for home consumption and a little oats for sale, in addition to the milk or butter from a few cows on the rough grazing attached to the hold ing. The farming of these peasant proprietors
is naturally of a primitive character, but the efforts of the Irish Co-operative Organization Society and later of the Irish Board of Agri culture have, during the last 20 years, done much to ameliorate the conditions under which they are working, particularly by the introduc tion of co-operative creameries. The Irish peasant farmer has quickly learnt to work on co-operative principles, so that the movement toward co-operation, headed by Sir Horace Plunkett, has enormously improved the char acter of Irish butter, a staple article in the Eng lish market, and must have nearly doubled the returns to the producer. On the other hand, Ireland possesses large farms of the richest grazing land on which are bred great numbers of store cattle of the Shorthorn breed for the English market, as well as light horses of the best strain, wholly or nearly thoroughbred. The high quality of the pastures give these animals a foundation of bone and vigor of con stitution which makes them respond freely to richer conditions in later life.
Science and Any survey of British farming for the last century would be incomplete if it did not take some account of the scientific and intellectual resources which have been at the service of the British farmer. Of these the Rothamsted Experiments form the main, practically the only British contribution to the world's stock of agricultural science. The foundation of these field experiments dates back to 1843, in which year J. B. Lawes, a Hertfordshire landowner, obtained the co operation of J. H. Gilbert to carry out experi ments upon field crops upon his own estate. This partnership in investigation lasted for nearly 60 years, the continuity of the work being secured by a Trust founded and endowed by Lawes. The main feature of the Rothamsted investigations has been field experiments with the various farm crops, conducted on a large scale and over a great period of time, and to them the farming community owes its knowledge of the principles of the nutri tion of our domesticated plants. In 1906 the °James Mason' laboratory for agricultural bacteriology was added. Rothamsted was the forerunner of the many agricultural experi mental stations which have been created in other countries; the first German Station at Wickern dates from 1852, the first American Station at Middletown, Conn., having been founded in 1875. It is noteworthy that though agricultural research has in every country become the busi ness the State, Rothamsted remains the only institution of its kind in the British Islands and receives an annual grant from the Development Fund of f2,850 ($14,250).