ENGLAND'S FOOD CROPS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 278, 25 May 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

ENGLAND'S FOOD CROPS.

The German attempt to starve Kuglaiid is turning over to public use millions of acres of great parks heretofore held for hunting preserves, deer forests and family parks. Two thousand American tractor ploughs are being utilised in preparing, these lands for food crops. The herd of doer owned by Lord Berkeley lias been ordered to be sold for food, and the 3000-ac:e park is to be ploughed. In Scotland cue noble landlord is turning over nearly 1,300,000 acres to public use. Twelve hundred landlords own an aver. age of 10,000 acres each in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Such of these as are arable are to go under the plough. England :s intending to harvest enough food crops this season to livo for a year, whether or not a singlo shipload of food reaches the island from the outside world. If this result is achieved it may have influence in continuing the practice of keeping tne idle land at work. From 1870 to IS9O more than one million acres of land in Britain were withdrawn from cultivation and utilised as game preserves and private parks. Tens cf thousands of tenant farmers, during the reign of Queen Victoria, were dispossessed of their holdings and crowded into the slums of the large cities. The British Isles will be much better off with the lands under cultivation than in private parks. Agriculture will furnish healthful and lucrative occupation to tens of thousands of Britons and relievo the congestion and some of the. poverty of the cities. Also, it will give the island people a food supply independent of the harvests of the world. The German "blockade," far from starving the English people, may he the means of imposing a great bonefaction. Incidentally it may make it necessary for the overseas Dominions to seek a wider market for some of their produce.