When fully operational the farms will have about 2,500 dairy cattle and two 1,000 head beef herds.

the manure wil l be returned to the land and the fertiliser bil l wil l be reduced considerably. Since all water is abstracted within their own territory, they have a vested interest in not polluting rivers. The farms use a great deal of water: the dairy units wil l require 3,000 gallons a day.

The farms are highly mechanised, with at least 25 tractors, including three large Fiat crawlers. A neighbour still ploughs with horses and John Roantree is sad at the thought that soon non-mechanised farming wil l disappear completely.

The pigs are reared intensively, although the conditions for some 2,000 animals are better than on many "factory farms".

So far there is little to see. There are sheep eating the surplus grass at Longwood and there is a pedigree herd of Friesians, the woods are being brought into good order and planning applications are filed as quickly as John Mills can get the drawings off his new, expensive board. Everything is new—the offices, the furniture, the electric typewriters. Al l are the best that money can buy and the executive secretaries are there to use it . Soon, though, the estates wil l begin to live again and there wil l be a level of activity that has not been seen for many years.

Perhaps Longwood is lucky, i n that its managers care for the welfare of their workers, and for the land. Certainly the ownership of such a large area by one person is not a trend to be encouraged. Yet i t is interesting that some of the shrewdest brains and hardest heads in the business have concluded that intensive farming is relatively uneconomic.

But perhaps, after all, Ronald Lyons is displaying the sagacity which brought him his fortune, by preparing for a return to feudalism?

The pigs are reared intensively, but in general John Roantree does not favour intensive indoor livestock rearing. This is the farrowing house. Below. John Mills is fully employed preparing plans and submitting applications

I "7"

Michael Allaby Photographs: Tim Clarke