[From Land of Britain, part 44, 1941]

IV. THE RURAL ECONOMY OF THE ISLE OF MAN

IN the Isle of Man we are concerned with a small extent of land almost the whole of which is included within the three land use categories arable, permanent grass and rough hill pasture, and where, moreover, the distributions of these several land utilisations are compact and sharply marked off from each other. This definiteness and separation of the utilisation distributions makes it easy to distinguish the major land use regions and it is evident that within the island there are two main types of land use, namely that utilising the rough hill grazings of the mountain pastures and that based on the economy of the arable lowlands which everywhere fringe and abut against the mountains. A sub-division of the island into smaller land use regions presents a more difficult problem because within the area covered by the arable and permanent grass on the one hand and the hill pasture on the other, there is throughout the island a high degree of uniformity of conditions and methods. The regional differences which do exist and are the differences recognised by the Manx farmers are due to only small differences in emphasis and relative importance of the elements which go to make up an economy that is fundamentally the same in all parts of the island.

With over half the total area of the island under crops and permanent grass and the remainder under rough pasture the island is very largely an agricultural country and farming is pre-eminently the chief industry. In order to understand the use made of the land in the Isle of Man it is necessary to look further than the geographical background and to appreciate the working of certain important economic factors in the island's life. Before the nineteenth century the island was entirely an agricultural region but the farming was subsistence farming with fishing as an important accessory. With the Industrial Revolution in England and the growth of an industrial population, the Isle of Man came gradually to be one of the popular playgrounds for the industrial workers of the mainland. The improvement of transport made possible the growth of tourist traffic and gradually the island devoted itself more and more to catering for the tourist traffic until to-day that has become the dominant influence in the economic life of the island. During the tourist season which extends from May to September about half a million people visit the island. This visiting population represents the island's chief means of livelihood and it is upon the expanded and immediate market which this temporary increase in population represents that the agriculture of the island is very largely dependent for its prosperity. Agriculture is still the mainstay of the inhabitants but it is an agriculture intimately related to the tourist industry and intended for production for intra-insular sale and consumption during the visiting season. This is therefore the really important factor which has shaped Manx agriculture and the whole scheme of the agricultural economy has been made as far as possible completely subservient to the demands of the tourist industry.

The physical environment of the island, while offering certain advantages to agriculture has meant that the agricultural possibilities in some directions are strictly limited and one of the very interesting things about Manx farming is the way in which the limitations of a not too favourable environment have been recognised and the potentialities of the soil have been utilised to the best economic advantage, that is with reference to the visiting consuming market.

The climate imposes limitations on the crops it is possible to grow successfully. Neither wheat nor barley are well suited to the island, neither are important crops and both show a marked concentration in their distribution, being found only on the lands most favourable to them, in the northern plain and the basin of Malew. Oats is easily the most important cereal crop being specially suited to the moist atmospheric conditions and the low and equable range of summer temperatures. Although oats grow well and are grown in every distict they have in recent years been grown at a loss and always with grain crops there is the danger that the high winds which are so frequent in the island will flatten and spoil the crop before harvesting. An agricultural system based on grain growing would not only be limited to growing a few grains but would also be a precarious economy.

Root crops provide a much more certain return from the soil. With the exception of the southern part, the island is not particularly fertile. The extremely stony appearance of much of the soil on the east and west coasts and in the central valley would lead one to expect a very low fertility but in fact the land produces better root crops, especially of turnips and potatoes, than its appearance would suggest. Its disadvantage is that like the sandy glacial soils of the north and south it loses moisture rapidly and suffers in a dry season. The climatic and soil conditions which obtain in the island are very favourable indeed to the growth of grass ; the moist mild equable conditions and usually well-drained soil allow grass to be grown much more easily and certainly than either wheat or barley ; this has encouraged farmers to have grass occupying a high proportion of the arable land by an extension of the rotation to give two or three years ley. Until one realises that about half the area shown as arable is under temporary rotation grasses the proportion of arable land to permanent grass in the island may seem surprisingly high. That grass can be grown so successfully in all parts of the island has led to its adoption as the most important crop on the farms and the Manx farming economy is largely based on the use of the temporary pastures. In a region so suited to the growth of fodder crops such as oats and turnips and good grass pastures, the rearing of livestock would seem to be the obviously best way of utilising the potentialities of the soil ; the great suitability of the climate for a livestock industry together with the presence of the large visiting population during five months of the year, a population which needs milk, meat and vegetables, has encouraged the Manx farmer to concentrate on the satisfaction of some of the wants of this immediate market. He uses the land most economically by making the raising of cattle and sheep his prime concern and indeed the production of livestock is the backbone of all Manx farming.

The system of rotation in use in the island and the crop items in that rotation have been worked out in a carefully balanced scheme so as to give maximum help to the production of cattle and sheep. Systems of cropping vary hardly at all in the island's arable areas and the rotation is usually on a six years' basis. In the first year the ley is ploughed and oats grown. This is followed in the second year by a green crop usually of potatoes, Swedes and marigold wurzels although small quantities of rape and kale are also grown. In the third year another corn crop is taken from the land and this is almost everywhere a crop of oats ; a little wheat is grown in the northern plain and barley may he grown on suitable land in the south of the island from Ballasalla to Port Erin but barley is not so much grown now as formerly because it does not approach the exacting standard set by the maltster whereas foreign barley offers a uniformly high quality. For barley medium to light soils are best ; barley does not tolerate an acid soil and in this connection its present-day concentration in the limestone district in the south is significant.

In the third year of the rotation grass seeds are sown at the same time as the corn, the oats in the normal practice being made use of as a nurse-crop during the sowing down to grass. In the fourth year the grass is cut once and the after-grass is grazed but sometimes the benefit of the young grass in spring is given to the lowland ewes and early lambs. For the fifth and sixth years the grass is grazed by sheep and cattle. Care is taken to prevent excessive grazing because if in the three-year ley used in the Isle of Man the young seedlings are excessively grazed in the first year they do not recover and although early grazing is desirable for fattening, continuous early grazing has a very deteriorating effect on the pasture.

This rotation is general with few exceptions throughout the island and it means that one- half of the holding is under the plough each year. The extent of arable land shown on the Land Utilisation map including as it does rotation grasses is to be understood only by remembering that it is associated with a particular system of farming and the value of the grass pastures in the farming scheme has resulted in some land being cultivated when it would otherwise be un- profitable.

A modification is usually made for an upland rotation. The crops are similar but a larger acreage is under rape, for on the upland fields rape is sown extensively as a first-year crop out of the ley, thus reducing the rotation crop of oats to one year. This modification is a reflection of the fact that the price received for grain does not cover the expense of cropping such land and root forage crops are a more profitable proposition.

An examination of the agricultural statistics for the Isle of Man reveals that the acreage under grasses is more than twice that of all other crops, more than three times that of oats and more than seven times that of green crops. The main object in the rotation system is to renew the grasslands and so be able to maintain good pastures for the livestock. The proportion of permanent pasture land to arable land is small as compared with the mainland counties but this is to be explained by the consideration that in the island it is so very important to get the new tender grasses for the lamb fattening and this necessitates temporary grasses being included in the rotation. From these temporary grasses the farmer wants hay and one or more years of grazing and this grazing of rotation ley in the island replaces the grazing of the permanent pastures on the mainland.

The system of rotation not only ensures that good pastures are kept for the stock and that the grass is renewed for the spring feed for fat lambs for the summer trade, but also provides provender for the winter feeding of the stock-the turnips and mangolds are docked in the field and are carted to the farmhouses to be fed to the stalled cattle. The grain crops in the rotation provide not only oats for the stock but also straw to make manure for the land.

This system utilises the land's productivity to the best advantage and is one which provides nearly all that is necessary for the livestock, the cattle consuming straw, roots, grain and hay in winter and providing the manure necessary to keep the land in a high state of fertility. The island's agricultural economy has thus attached a great deal of importance to cattle feeding and fattening but while feeding for beef is most important milk selling is an important enterprise on many farms. Beef is dependent in vital degree upon the uncertain margin between the cost of store cattle and the selling price of fat stock. Dairying is closely associated with the rearing of livestock and milk production is very general throughout the island though its importance varies in different districts. Most of the milk for sale is consumed locally and the farms near the towns and villages, e.g. those in the vicinity of Douglas, Ramsey, Castletown, Peel, Laxey, Port St. Mary and Port Erin have a regular sale for milk in these places. During the visiting season the demand for new milk increases enormously and because of the short distances involved in transport and the facilities of motor transport, production for these requirements is general all over the island. The cows are best calved in the spring months because this enables the maximum milk to be got from them during the grazing period and when the demand for milk is heaviest ; then they can be allowed to go dry in the winter time. Moreover the public now demands tender meat and small joints so the animals for food must be killed at an early age ; the early spring calves can be sold fat at 15 months in May and June, i.e. at the beginning of the visiting season. Autumn calves which keep the dairy herds producing during the winter to supply milk to the resident population of the island can be given a summer on grass and then be finished inside and sold at 18 months, at an age when they provide the small joints so universally demanded by the modern housewife.

Within the island the rearing of cattle tends to concentrate in those areas where the keeping of dairy cows for milk is not the chief object, i.e. a low number of cows is associated with a high number of stores. The majority of heifer calves are kept and reared on the farms to keep up the milking herd. This is a favourable feature of the Manx milk production because this rearing of dairy stock on the farms is a necessary condition for the establishment of a tuberculosis-free milk industry in the island and the insular conditions favour this just as they favoured the establishment and the retention of freedom from foot-and-mouth disease.

Male calves are often finished at home but some will be sold as stores to be fattened else- where either in the island or on the Eden plains south of Carlisle. The bull calves are sold at several markets but mainly at the Ramsey market to which dealers from all parts of the island go for the weekly sales. Some of these cattle are bought by small farmers who wish to rear and sell them as store cattle at about 18 months o" age but several larger farmers buy the cattle in order to rear and feed fat for butchering. The farms in the northern lowland, in Andreas, Bride, Jurby and Lezayre are the chief feeders of cattle since they are at the greatest distance from the market for milk. Although the north of the island has for reasons of distance specialised more than the south in cattle feeding and fattening there is no doubt that the moister and more lime-rich pastures on the limestone and clay subsoil of the south produce a better quality of fat stock. A few small farms in the north and south produce milk for domestic purposes only but the majority of farms are mixed in the sense of both feeding stock and selling milk.

In the Isle of Man stock farming has not led to a reduction in tillage and the farmers have followed the sound policy of having tillage keep pace with the development of stock-raising both to ensure that a maximum of home-grown food shall be available for the stock and to obviate losses through disease, for if livestock are kept continuously on the same land the soil sooner or later will become heavily infested with pests and disease organisms which will infect the herd, but if fresh land is available this state of affairs is prevented.

Sheep and lambs are of greater importance in the agricultural economy of the island than are cattle. The first consideration of the farmer on good arable land is to produce early fat lamb to meet the requirements of the visiting season for throughout the summer there is a large market for fat lamb. To meet the early market, and lambs have recently been marketed earlier and earlier, the lambs require to be born in November, December and January, therefore the renewal of the grass is specially to be considered. The ewes have to be fed with cake, corn and roots in the winter months to keep them in full milk. Since the root crop became an established part of farming practice in the island this crop has been and still is the foundation of winter fattening. The proportion of turnips and swedes that may be grown for this purpose varies in different localities whilst occasionally certain forage crops may be used as substitutes for roots, thus rape and kales are now frequently grown for use during the early part of the winter. Whilst at one time roots alone constituted the sole food for hoggs fattening during winter, it is seldom that one finds this still in vogue to-day. Such a practice worked satisfactorily when fattening took place over a long period and sheep were fed to heavier weights than is now the case, but the demand of the consuming public for smaller joints and the competition of early fat lambs during the early spring months have necessitated quicker fattening. In spring the lowland ewes and lambs are put on the tender grasses. A late spring means much higher costs to keep stock and the more completely ewes and lambs are kept on grassland the lower is the cost of production. Spring feed is an important problem and if lambs come before the grass the artificial keep adds heavily to the cost of production.

On the higher land the lambing season is delayed until February, March or April. Some of these lambs are sold fat, the remainder as store stock to fatten on clover and rape on the better quality land. Some of the lambs will be sold fat in August and September, the remainder at later periods so providing young mutton throughout the winter season.

The mountain-bred lambs are usually from a horned Scotch ewe, which is usually a good milker, mated with a Leicester ram. A large percentage of the ewe lambs are kept for breeding stock and the ram lambs have a ready market on the mainland for fattening.

The leys have probably been the most valuable crop on the farms ; they are grazed hard by ewes and lambs in the early spring, providing a grazing which is particularly valuable for fattening the lambs and then after a brief interval there is the hay harvest. Some of the land is in rotation not so much because of the value of the roots and grain crop as to secure the tender young grasses of the temporary pastures for lamb fattening.

On the lowlands sheep and cattle are kept together. Farmers have long known that the main secret of keeping a flock of sheep in a healthy thriving condition was to stock them fairly thinly on the land, run them in conjunction with cattle and to give them frequent changes of ground. Farms with upland grazing have store sheep for fattening and on the mountains sheep are maintained on large areas of land totally unsuited for any other type of agricultural utilisation. Even the crops of minor importance in the Manx farming economy, such as potatoes and vegetables, demonstrate the prominent part played by considerations of the visiting season in Manx farming. The frost-free, moist and mild winters favour the growth of early potatoes. Formerly the early trade was confined to the arable regions within about five miles of Douglas since that is the chief market for the island ; but with the ease of motor transport to all parts and the short distances involved most parts of the island now cater for this early market but so far as most of the growers are concerned the chief interest lies in the production of main crop varieties. A potato marketing society has recently been appointed to fix prices and regulate exports ; if the quantities returned to the society exceed the requirements for home use an export licence is issued but the main crop of potatoes is mostly consumed in the island, production seldom exceeding home requirements. Turnips, besides being an important stock food are shipped in large quantities to Liverpool where they find a ready market. Ramsey has the heaviest shipments (about 100 tons a week) and Peel and Castletown each export about 30 tons a week. Oats are shipped in large quantities from Ramsey which is the centre for the north, the largest area of oat production, but the oat export is not more than 25 per cent. of the total production. The cake and other cattle fattening foods are brought in through the same ports.

Although cattle and sheep are the most important livestock in the island there has been a big increase in the number of pigs fattened in the last thirty years. These are Berkshire and mixed breeds and there has been an export trade to the bacon factories on the mainland. At present export licences are withdrawn but this item in stock rearing is likely to increase greatly in the future. An increase in pig rearing has been due to a realisation that although the Manx system of catering for the tourist industry is well thought out yet one of the chief difficulties of farming in the island is that nature cannot be made completely subservient to the tourist industry.

The cows are required to meet the needs of only the local population from September to June but production needs to be expanded to meet the considerable additional requirements for the tourists in July and August. The problem of surplus milk in May and June and September and October could be alleviated greatly if the Manx dairy farms kept pigs. Pigs would also consume the surplus main crop potatoes. Moreover, since oats are unremunerative to grow but are grown because of the part a grain crop has to play in the rotation it would seem advisable to substitute wheat or barley for oats in part and so obtain a crop which would provide pig food.

The general considerations above apply to all parts of the island ; its small size and economic dependence on the tourist industry has enabled all parts to cater for this industry. Everywhere the Manx farming economy shows the same fundamental pattern of dairy cattle, beef cattle and sheep but in spite of this large common factor in the rural economy there do exist differences in regional emphasis on one or other aspect of the livestock industry and it is upon these local specialisations, some of which have been suggested above, that the land use sub-regions must be based. When regions are variations of a common pattern it would seem superfluous to describe each in detail and in recognising and enumerating the land use regions attention will be confined to noting briefly the special characteristics which serve to make each distinct from the adjacent regions.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2007