WHITEHALL FARMERS

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1940, Page 3

WHITEHALL FARMERS

PASTURE IMPROVEMENT London, July 6. Whitehall has taken to farming. Instead of merely telling farmers what to do, Britain's Ministry of Agriculture is to'try its own hand. It has just acquired two farms near Stratford-on-Avon. They cover six hundred acres and are a miserable sight. The watercourses are out of order. the hedges overgrown, the drainage blocked up and rabbits are everywhere. Rats abound in the dejected farm buildings. They are called grass farms, but there are only 47 acres of tolerably good grassland on the whole property. Weeds, brambles and bushes clutter up the uncropped land, and wild onion, most dreaded of farm weeds, is widespread over the property. The Ministry has acquired this wilderness with its eyes open. It is typical of thousands and thousands of acres which have been neglected. The Ministry is going to try to restore the heavy olay land and has called in Sir George Stapleton, the world's most famous expert on grassland, to direct this national experiment. It will be called the Grassland Improvement Station and it is hoped to make it a centre of knowledge for all grassland farmers who want' to improve their pasture.