LOST ACRES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1941, Page 8

LOST ACRES

DISSIPATING BRITAIN'S SUBSTANCE. “The average inhabitant of this island knows less about soil, on which he depends for his existence, than about wireless-telephony.” ‘-Britain’s pre-war imports of food used to run to over £400,000,000 a year, our home production of food was valued (wholesale) at about £250,000,000 a year. There were still many who had insufficient to eat.” “The mean rate of soilformation is estimated at one inch in 10,000 years,” yet “the Missouri basin has lost an average of seven inches of topsoil in 24 years, the biggest new Californian desert has advanced in places 40 miles in one year, destroying '2500 farms. Australia is probably going faster than America Since the last war we have lost 500,000 acres, much of it the best farming land, to house schemes and roads . . . gone for ever.” Another farmer is speaking, writes Mr H. E. Bates in the “Spectator.” He is trying to tell his fellow-men, in terms of plain fact and plain common-sense, that the fundamental source of their existence is in danger from ignorance, cynical exploitation, selfish interests, lack of policy, plain stupidity and slackness, of heart. He is Mr G. Goddard Watts, and his pamphlet, “An Agricultural Policy for Britain,” ought, if it did not happen to be a damning reflection on much official policy for the ' past 20 years, to be an official pamphlet.