The Oxford Farming Conference

Abstract

AT the Oxford Farming Conference held on January 4–7 a number of interesting questions of fundamental importance were brought up, and the opening paper—the maintenance of fertility and the land fertility scheme—set the stage for discussions of a far-reaching nature. Although soil deterioration due to erosion or exhaustion of virgin land are not serious problems in England, much of the grassland is in a badly impoverished condition. Drainage, liming, application of phosphate and the sowing of wild white clover are the chief remedies, and the Government's Land Fertility Scheme should stimulate the efforts already being made in these directions. Grassland management, and its counterpart, grass conservation, were the subjects of a group of papers in which the different methods of making hay, silage and dried grass were discussed, from both the nutritive and economic aspects. Questions affecting the arable farmer also received attention, and alternate husbandry, on both light and heavy land, was advocated as being valuable for the increase of productivity, profit and employment, and for the control of animal disease and the promotion of national defence. Problems connected with plant disease were represented in a paper on soil conditions and the control of foot-rot in cereals, and the Conference concluded with a discussion on the ever-recurrent question of weed control.