Abstract
HOW many of us, after a walk with a competent farmer pound his crops and stock, have later endeavoured to recapture the essentials of his system and his particular approach to the tricky problems that farming, of all occupations, provides? These efforts to record other people‘s experience are only partially successful because, in the course of ordinary conversation, it is not possible to enter another man‘s mind or obtain a sufficiently exact picture of his operations. The only real way is for the farmer to make the record himself, and for various good reasons practically no farmer will do it. Journalists turned farmer may do so, technically minded individuals with a ‘system' will do so, but not, as a rule, plain farmers. Mr. John Laity is an exception. His book is a straightforward account of the style of farming that he has developed and found successful in the course of many years on his farm near Mount‘s Bay in Cornwall. The basis is good grass to support a sound livestock husbandry and to provide, when ploughed up, a reserve of fertility for arable cropping. Great importance is attached to the seeds mixture, which closely follows the Clifton Park prescription of drought-resisting species and excludes rye grass. Although Mr. Laity has obviously studied the technical side of farming—"one of my hobbies in life," he says, "has been the reading of old and new writings on agriculture"—he obviously has an independent and critical mind, and some practices, which in his hands are claimed to give good results, may appear to conflict with accepted doctrine.
Profitable Ley Farming
By John Laity. (Agricultural and Horticultural Series.) Second edition, revised. Pp. xiv + 271 + 26 plates. (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, Ltd., 1948.) 15s. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Profitable Ley Farming. Nature 163, 46 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163046a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163046a0