Tl>e
Dairy
Business
. V Newton Bair
The British Are Coming!
That cry would have struck
terror in the breast of 18th century
Americans during the Revolution.
Of course, there is no reason to
give it second thought today. But
there is a real reason to be con
cerned about our modern
relationship with the British, as
well as other western European
farmers. American farmers are
competitors with all of Western
Europe, especially in selling our
Dairy products.
We have just returned from a
three-week tour of the British
Isles. While this brief visit does not
make me an expert on British
Agriculture, I have made some
important observations that should
be passed along to you. Some of
them are merely informative, but
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others might ring warning bells
about the future. Some will make
you glad that you live in America.
First Impressions Stick With You
Driving through southern
England, the first thing that
strikes you is the lay of the land. It
could be Lancaster County, except
for the rather small fields, all of
which are surrounded with ancient
hedgerows. Closer inspection
reveals a base of stones, cleared
from the fields centuries ago. The
hedges grow out of the tock wall,
making an effective fence for
cattle or sheep. They must be
controlled by annual trimming,
which is now done with special
shearing equipment mounted on a
tractor. Occasionally there are
signs of removing the old
hedgerows to make larger fields,
by Stoltzfus Builders 1
but most of them remain as they
were created centurie»ago by “the
old ones”.
There is little com grown in the
south and west of England. The
environment would favor com
growing, except for generally
cooler summer temperatures.
Special varieties had to be
developed before much com could
be grown, even in the more
moderate eastern valleys of York,
Cambridge and Bedford. There it
is grown extensively for silage.
Silos as we know them, are
conspicuously absent in most of
Britain. Silage is widely used
however, but nearly always in a
trench, bunker, or as the British
call them, a “clamp”. I saw some
round bale silage. Since the
climate is very damp - every cloud
that drifts over is likely to drop
some rain, - hay is difficult to cure,
so most of the excess grass crop is
ensiled. Preservatives are pretty
generally used on the grass silage.
The major grain crops are wheat
and barley. In Wales and Scotland
a large part of the barley crop is
processed into malt, to be used in
the distilleries producing Scotch
Whiskey. One of the distilleries
which we visited was in operation
for four centuries and had a most
fascinating history of smuggling,
political intrigue and fights bet
ween local Lords and Dukes on the
boundaries of which the still was
located. The distillery survived it
all, and still produces a branch of
Scotch that is highly prized in the
British Isles.
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 3,1984 —D 25
A common practice is many
parts of England is to bum the
straw after harvesting the grain. It
is undoubtedly a carryover from
earlier custom, when burning was
the only way to control diseases
perpetuated by repeatedly
growing the same crop. It appears
to be very wasteful of much needed
organic matter.
Big round bales are quite
common in the richer farming
areas of Eastern England and in
Wales. We even saw some of the
large rectangular bales, and quite
a'few conventional small bales.
Storage buildings for bales are
simply a roof supported by four
poles. Large bams are very rare.
On many farms you can still see
the ancient stone “cow byre”, with
a modem milking parlor attached.
Dairy bams closely resemble our
open sided free stall bams.
British dairymen are facing
severe problems of too much milk
and too little profit. Britain is a
member of the European
Economic Community (EEC), and
the farmers are not very hapnv
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Lower your feed costs by feeding your own
ins. Roasting your grains will increase
ity and remove moisture. Flat bitter
turn to sweet pleasant flavors. Feed
Heifers, Dairy Cows and Horses.
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RO 1 RD 2. Box 91 RD 1 Box 5060
Nottingham, Pa. 19362 Enon Valley, PA 16120 Lewisburg, Pa. 17837
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• Wheat
WHOLESALE & RETAIL
about it. All of Europe is ex
•periencing a glut of dairy products,
and many EEC members on the
continent are heavily subsidizing
the dairy industry. But England
has imposed a quota system on the
dairy producers, restricting
production to about 80% of normal.
Naturally, income is also
restricted, and they must compete
against the rest of the world, in
cluding the U.S.A. They are par
ticularly jealous of French and
Germans, who are more highly
organized into Cooperatives for
their own protection.
The British are good promoters.
One of their most prominent
slogans is “Welcome home to
butter”, and the poster shows a
healthy child happily biting into a
well buttered slice of bread.
Restaurants serve butter and
cheese generously, and we could
leam something from them if we
could or would serve up the likes of
their Devonshire Cream! A taste
for that delicacy would account for
many tons of milk sold and con
sumed in the U.S.A.
GIGANTIC
SELECTION
IN
Lancaster
Farming's
CLASSIFIEDS
DON’T WASTE IT ROAST IT
CUSTOM GRAIN ROASTING DONE IN PA AND
SURROUNDING STATES OR OWN YOUR OWN
ROAST-A-MATIC GRAIN ROASTER.
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RD 6, Lebanon, Pa. 17042
PH:7T7-865-6611
PENN OHIO
• Barley
• Alfalfas