Battle training demands wide spaces and not seldom what may be good arable land, land that has been long cropped and nurtured in rotation, producing much food stuffs. To what extent this will happen in the North and North-East is not stated. Individual farmers affected know. Land so diverted, obviously, will not always be readily restored to cultivation. Nor is it a sure thing that it will all be restored again in our own time. Commitments of international responsibility are yet to be determined, if this Greater War is to be the last war.

Farmers have been given until December 15 to disperse their live stock, dispose of their grain, and uplift roots, so far as that may be possible within the date fixed. Wise will they be who make their clearance timeously. Any amelioration as to the date of ‘moving out’ may be but an idle dream. In other parts of the country many thousands of people have been evacuated overnight and farm stock moved off in less than two rounds of the clock. Live stock dispersal may be overcome by parcelling out the stock to more distant farms. The major difficulty will be with pedigreed herds, if there are such, that must be shifted. Sympathy with the evicted there will be, but the hardship of it all will be much relieved where the measure of ‘good neighbourliness’ reaches its highest heights.