Visit to East Anglian Real Property Company by Ralph Whitlock 1947
Ralph Whitlock was a Wiltshire farmer who began writing for his local paper. He went on to write for the Guardian and Daily Telegraph. He had a slot on the BBC’s Children’s hour about Cowleaze Farm to educate children about farming; the series ran from 1945-1962. He was in the vanguard of the conservation and sustainability movement. He wrote numerous books on a wide range of subjects.
“So you’re going to see the Dutchman’s farms in Norfolk” they said. “We’ve heard of them. They’re grubbing up all the hedges and making huge fields and running their farms without livestock. Just one big barn set down in a vast ploughland you know. Terrible!”
What a partial picture hearsay can give!
It is true that internal hedges have been grubbed out and very extensively too, but the resultant huge fields are not unsightly. For one thing the countryside of central Norfolk is slightly undulating so that the whole wide billowing contours of the bare arable land are pleasing to the eye. For another, although many of the hedges have gone, plenty of well grown oaks have been left in boundary hedges to give the countryside a moderately well wooded appearance. I was told too of their interest in forestry. The company hopes to replace, and more than replace in block plantings, any trees that have been lost through hedge grubbing operations.
It is true that the farms are run without the help of the muck-cart but a system of ploughing in all the sugar beet tops and a frequent crop of clover keeps the land supplied with humus. It is true that enormous barns have been built centrally in the farms, but it does not follow that all of the old buildings have been pulled down. On the contrary, at Paston a splendid tithe barn dating from 1501 is in excellent repair and in regular use. As for houses, some of the fine old Norfolk cottages inhabited by the farmworkers are better than many farmhouses I know in less favoured districts.
Even the term “the Dutchman’s farms” is not strictly accurate. It is true that the East Anglian Real Property Company Limited, to give it its full title, was originated by Dutchmen and has Dutch directors. But there are English directors as well. The management, which is given the widest possible powers and the workers, are English. A very fruitful exchange of scientific and practical farming knowledge between the two countries is a great asset of this undertaking.
About the year 1912, the late Mr van Rossum came over from Holland to establish the first sugar beet factory at Cantley between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. When the factory was built the supply of sugar beet which flowed in was not what had been hoped for. This new crop for the district, was viewed with some suspicion by the local farmers, who also lacked experience and the technical knowledge to deal with it. So Mr van Rossum went into farming on his own account, not only to grow sugar beet to keep the factory going but also to encourage East Anglian farmers to try the crop and give some help in technical matters.
From the point of view of establishing the sugar beet industry in England, the venture was, of course, completely successful. The farms flourished. Between 1925 and the outbreak of the war, the Company acquired farm after farm until they owned about 10,000 acres.
These farms are grouped in four well defined areas in Central and Eastern Norfolk. There were the original farms around Cantley; a block at Paston and Southrepps near Cromer; a block a Guestwick, near East Dereham; and a block at Sporle near Swaffham.
For a considerable period, when bullock fattening and dairying were uneconomical hobbies of farming, no livestock at all was kept, except horses. In recent years, however, a dairy herd of about 70 Friesian-type cows has been taken over with a farm and is now thoroughly established. There are also about 40 breeding sows (Essex crossed with large white boars) and about 600 fattening pigs, kept mainly to consume the waste and unsaleable produce of the farms, all live in well equipped pig-houses. An accredited poultry Feeding Station with some 4000 head of pedigree breeding stock, and weekly hatching output of some 10,000 day old chicks which are sold in a large area of Great Britain as well as exported, is run as a separate unit. I saw all of these and was impressed by their efficient management, but they are sidelines on these farms and not the mainstay of fertility as they would be on most.
Sugar beet is the pivot crop. Originally it accounted for one-third of the total arable acreage, and it still occupies one fifth of the ploughland. Wheat and barley are the main cereal crops, only sufficient oats being grown for stock and horses. Other main crops are potatoes, of which about 500 acres are planted yearly, and vegetable peas. In recent years a new quick freeze factory at Yarmouth has provided an expanding market for green peas but Harrison’s Glory is still grown for the dried pea trade and human consumption. Sunflowers are being tried as an experimental crop and about 400 acres are sown to cocksfoot grass for seed.
The heavy farm work is done chiefly by Caterpillar tractors but there are several lighter types as well and a surprising feature, eighty horses. These fine animals, in which the carters take great care, are necessary for hauling sugar beet off the sticky fields, but they manage to do a fair amount of other work as well. Also surprisingly the farms are not fully mechanised, not from choice but from the difficulty of obtaining machinery. For instance the farms between them only have five combine harvesters for the Harvest.
As regards manure, the dressings of the chemical fertilisers are no larger than on most of the mixed farms that I know. The soil, however, is naturally good, consisting chiefly of rich loams, with some lighter patches and heavy clay.
The opinions I had heard of these farms ranged from an enthusiastic hailing of the shape of future farming to an indignant denunciation of vandalism. I share neither extreme.
Aesthetically, there is nothing offensive in the system. The countryside is far less bare and desolate than the Salisbury Plain in which most people can find beauty.
Economically, it is sound enough. After all, it is a commercial proposition and has shown profits over a series of years. The soil evidently responds to the treatment it gets, there is no falling off in yields.
Socially, it fits quite well. Having overcome original prejudices, the farms are on good terms with their neighbours and the workers seem happy. A large firm such as this can, and does, take pains to make the work interesting for its employees. I was especially interested in some excellent hedge-laying, carried out by men who had learnt the job from a film shown entirely for their benefit.
Yet there are two features of the estate which left us somewhat dissatisfied. The first, which is probably only personal prejudice, is the comparative lack of cattle. It is being remedied (if that is the word) anyhow. The second is the curious fact that the estates set no pattern which can now be followed, though that is not their fault.
It would still be possible to carry out the hedge grubbing and field merging operations but a necessary corollary of all this is the great barns, of which there are twelve on the farms. These truly gigantic barns are intended to house everything, from horses to fertilisers and machinery under one roof. They were expensive enough before the war; now their cost would be prohibitive. Whether we look at the buildings or at the farm equipment or at the land itself, much the same applies.
These farms were bought and equipped during the lean years by men of vision who are now reaping their reward and are contributing efficiently to the much-needed home grown foodstuff campaign. To emulate them in 1948, with the presently inflated prices prevailing would be a hazardous undertaking for most farmers. If this is the future, it is a future that is by no means ready for fulfilment yet.
Transcribed from a poor copy by Colin Needham October 2009
Copy obtained from David Patterson —last Farm Manager of the EARPC Southrepps, Paston and Guestwick Farms.