How would George Henderson get on today?

Gander

Member
Location
Ilminster
I'm currently re-reading George Henderson's books; 'The Farming Ladder' and 'Farmers Progress'.

For those who don't know, George Henderson was a very successful farmer on 85 acres in the Cotswolds. He and his brother Frank 'devised' or adapted a system of highly intensive mixed farming on an acreage that many at the time said was too small. They started with very limited capital, and built up their enterprises out of profits. Within very few years of taking on a tenancy they were able to buy their farm, and went on to buy other farms where they installed tenants that they had trained as pupils in their own system back on the home farm.

George was a strong advocate of highly intensive production, keen to turn over his money as many times as possible through the year, as opposed to the traditional production systems that would see a farmers capital turned over once every 1-2 years or longer. He advocated having many enterprises, ie. Cattle, sheep, poultry, pigs and arable. With the livestock constantly building up fertility and the arable land utilising it. He aimed to, and was successful, in increasing productivity year on year through this constant fertility building and ensuring each branch of the business grew out of profits.

Reading his book, He tells of how he was rarely required to alter much of the system, through hard times and good, war or peace. He felt it was fail proof and could stand the test of time.

He did diversify, and had alternative income streams, but these were born through spotting opportunities rather than a need. Quite different to small farmers being told they MUST diversify as in recent years.

What I'm asking is, are there people out there doing similar now. Making a 'proper' living on farms, say sub 100 acres? Mixed farms that don't therefore rely on one niche enterprise? Is it still possible?
Are there people farming by his methods (or similar)?

Someone on here must have known him or his descendants, are they still going? What would he say about the small farm today? We constantly hear how small farms must go, that large agri business is the way forward, economy of scale and all that...but I cant help thinking that there is room for both.

Am I nuts?
 
I think he might have told Farm Assurance to swivel.

Maybe some of what Joel Salatin does is a modern day equivalent - though this relys heavily on his own personality to market things. i think getting people to actually purchase the stuff is the challenge - we are all so attuned to supermarkets, processed food etc.

No reason why a diversified small farm can't be a healthy business - bit of stock, arable, marketing, holidays, renewables, conservation, online sales, consultancy, off farm work etc...
 

Robigus

Member
I think that in today’s economy you would struggle to make a living on an 85 acre farm if you were producing commodity product, especially if you did not want to buy in your fertility. The system that worked for him was, I suspect, highly labour intensive by contemporary standards and would be uneconomic today.

If I had a farm of that size today I would look at either intensive livestock – chickens or pigs – or consider a market garden producing either fruit and veg, or crops for garden centres.
 

jade35

Member
Location
S E Cornwall
I was thinking about his book the other day and how he would be farming today.(Unfortunately years since I read the book:()> The posts by MOTP actually made me think about the book. The question is who is challenging the status quo at present? The names I come up with are mainly from the farming forums but there must be more out there. Also, more importantly, where is the new blood that will bring new ideas in?
 

VSS

Member
Location
Llyn Peninsula
The system that worked for him was, I suspect, highly labour intensive by contemporary standards and would be uneconomic today.

I believe that he was something of a workaholic and I suspect he had little or no social life. Most people wouldn't want that sort of life these days.
 

Fox Red

Member
I was thinking about his book the other day and how he would be farming today.(Unfortunately years since I read the book:()> The posts by MOTP actually made me think about the book. The question is who is challenging the status quo at present? The names I come up with are mainly from the farming forums but there must be more out there. Also, more importantly, where is the new blood that will bring new ideas in?

There are plenty of young people with ideas, most don't stand a chance of getting on the "farming ladder", so they take a different route.
 

DX 3.90

Member
Location
Shropshire
There are plenty of young people with ideas, most don't stand a chance of getting on the "farming ladder", so they take a different route.
+1 Or they get tired of waiting for the old farmers to give them a chance and move on to something that isn't the next best thing to slave labour!! Sad but all to often true. :(
 
A Nuffield Scholarship Report also called "The Farming Ladder" by Michael Blanche is well worth downloading and even reading.
George Henderson's book has long been a favourite of mine. He took advantage of the situation and opportunities available to him at the time. Of course things are different today and those of us who started from scratch more recently used other opportunities rather than following old formulae.
Having said that I would love to have a mixed farm but I just have to be realistic.
 

DRC

Member
The problem now is justifying the expense of being in assurance schemes for small enterprises and associated costs such as buying wormers etc,tagging[sheep eid],as small quantities cost so much more. Labour would have been cheaper, as today you couldn't justify paying for help with a small flock of sheep for instance.
Last year,after ploughing most of the farm up,I was left with some small grass fields around the farmstead.I bought 28 b/blue weanlings and some store lambs as i thought it would be nice to have a few stock about,but after all expenses i reckon the cattle broke even and the sheep lost a few quid.There just wasn't the scale,so this year have let the grazing. I also couldn't have stood any losses with so few and the purchase price being so expensive.
When we had a workman and dad helped,we had pigs,lambed a flock of sheep and kept cattle.Also grew sugar beet[only 20 acres],all disappeared now as can't afford labour.
 

Gander

Member
Location
Ilminster
A Nuffield Scholarship Report also called "The Farming Ladder" by Michael Blanche is well worth downloading and even reading.
George Henderson's book has long been a favourite of mine. He took advantage of the situation and opportunities available to him at the time. Of course things are different today and those of us who started from scratch more recently used other opportunities rather than following old formulae.
Having said that I would love to have a mixed farm but I just have to be realistic.

I've just downloaded and started reading it...I like his style of writing and what he says so far makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
We have a family in the village who keep 5 employed on 200 acres though sadly no livestock anymore. They farm odd rented land in addition to their own, run a successful animal feed and forage business, odd bits of contracting, grow cereals, sugar beet, potatoes and hay. Their machinery is small, efficient and immaculately maintained as are their buildings. They are a thoroughly nice family to boot
 

Timbo66

New Member
I'm currently re-reading George Henderson's books; 'The Farming Ladder' and 'Farmers Progress'.

For those who don't know, George Henderson was a very successful farmer on 85 acres in the Cotswolds. He and his brother Frank 'devised' or adapted a system of highly intensive mixed farming on an acreage that many at the time said was too small. They started with very limited capital, and built up their enterprises out of profits. Within very few years of taking on a tenancy they were able to buy their farm, and went on to buy other farms where they installed tenants that they had trained as pupils in their own system back on the home farm.

George was a strong advocate of highly intensive production, keen to turn over his money as many times as possible through the year, as opposed to the traditional production systems that would see a farmers capital turned over once every 1-2 years or longer. He advocated having many enterprises, ie. Cattle, sheep, poultry, pigs and arable. With the livestock constantly building up fertility and the arable land utilising it. He aimed to, and was successful, in increasing productivity year on year through this constant fertility building and ensuring each branch of the business grew out of profits.

Reading his book, He tells of how he was rarely required to alter much of the system, through hard times and good, war or peace. He felt it was fail proof and could stand the test of time.

He did diversify, and had alternative income streams, but these were born through spotting opportunities rather than a need. Quite different to small farmers being told they MUST diversify as in recent years.

What I'm asking is, are there people out there doing similar now. Making a 'proper' living on farms, say sub 100 acres? Mixed farms that don't therefore rely on one niche enterprise? Is it still possible?
Are there people farming by his methods (or similar)?

Someone on here must have known him or his descendants, are they still going? What would he say about the small farm today? We constantly hear how small farms must go, that large agri business is the way forward, economy of scale and all that...but I cant help thinking that there is room for both.

Am I nuts?
I met his Grandson Ross in my local pub this evening...Ross is 25 and a true entrepanaur..similar to his Grandfather I would guess...Ross's Father Frank has diversified and modernised the same farm that George farmed utelising the buildings for different busineses...George's Wife, Ross's Grandmother is 91 and still going strong Ross tells me.. I agree with others comments about cheap labour and plenty of it in George Henderson's day...My Father farmed in a similar way on a 200 acre mixed farm on top of the Cotswolds..he too had a very mixed farm with lots of different projects...all very intensive...when he took the tenancy here in 1947 he averaged 1/2 ton of grain per acre...with good rotational cropping, grazing, and 80 wooden Hen fold units rotating the pastures, plenty of pig and cattle FYM, and an intensive forward sheep grazing system he built up the fertility of this thin Cotswold brash land to average 8 times his original yields 45 years later..
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
I met his Grandson Ross in my local pub this evening...Ross is 25 and a true entrepanaur..similar to his Grandfather I would guess...Ross's Father Frank has diversified and modernised the same farm that George farmed utelising the buildings for different busineses...George's Wife, Ross's Grandmother is 91 and still going strong Ross tells me.. I agree with others comments about cheap labour and plenty of it in George Henderson's day...My Father farmed in a similar way on a 200 acre mixed farm on top of the Cotswolds..he too had a very mixed farm with lots of different projects...all very intensive...when he took the tenancy here in 1947 he averaged 1/2 ton of grain per acre...with good rotational cropping, grazing, and 80 wooden Hen fold units rotating the pastures, plenty of pig and cattle FYM, and an intensive forward sheep grazing system he built up the fertility of this thin Cotswold brash land to average 8 times his original yields 45 years later..
Funnily enough I've just read this book. Great to hear good news
 

DeeGee

Member
Location
North East Wales
George Henderson and his brother took on derelict land at, IIRC, Oathill Farm, and worked almost every hour God gave them. The profit figures given at the end of the book are pretty astounding if you multiply them by about 50 times to get to today's values.
I will agree that they had little time for socialising away from the farm; but essentially they made a farming business work very profitably at a time when many large established farms were leaving their land grow wild as they deemed that there were basically no returns to be had from farming it.
Above all else, it seems that they dealt fairly and honestly with everyone; so their success was earned through hard work and honest endeavour without conning or swindling people in order to achieve their returns.
I have read 'The Farming Ladder' some three times over the past fifty years; and many of it's facts and figures were hopelessly out of date the first time my father gave it to me to read in the 1960's. What stands the test of time and endures to this day however is their ethos of enterprise, hard work, straight dealing and honesty. Must read it again before too long.
 

ski

Member
This should be the best thread for me for ages. Instead of endless do we, don't we need subs threads going back to the past to see what can be gleaned for the future is always really worthwhile. There are definite echoes for me and what I am planning to do and doing.
 

jerseycowsman

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cornwall
I'm currently re-reading George Henderson's books; 'The Farming Ladder' and 'Farmers Progress'.

For those who don't know, George Henderson was a very successful farmer on 85 acres in the Cotswolds. He and his brother Frank 'devised' or adapted a system of highly intensive mixed farming on an acreage that many at the time said was too small. They started with very limited capital, and built up their enterprises out of profits. Within very few years of taking on a tenancy they were able to buy their farm, and went on to buy other farms where they installed tenants that they had trained as pupils in their own system back on the home farm.

George was a strong advocate of highly intensive production, keen to turn over his money as many times as possible through the year, as opposed to the traditional production systems that would see a farmers capital turned over once every 1-2 years or longer. He advocated having many enterprises, ie. Cattle, sheep, poultry, pigs and arable. With the livestock constantly building up fertility and the arable land utilising it. He aimed to, and was successful, in increasing productivity year on year through this constant fertility building and ensuring each branch of the business grew out of profits.

Reading his book, He tells of how he was rarely required to alter much of the system, through hard times and good, war or peace. He felt it was fail proof and could stand the test of time.

He did diversify, and had alternative income streams, but these were born through spotting opportunities rather than a need. Quite different to small farmers being told they MUST diversify as in recent years.

What I'm asking is, are there people out there doing similar now. Making a 'proper' living on farms, say sub 100 acres? Mixed farms that don't therefore rely on one niche enterprise? Is it still possible?
Are there people farming by his methods (or similar)?

Someone on here must have known him or his descendants, are they still going? What would he say about the small farm today? We constantly hear how small farms must go, that large agri business is the way forward, economy of scale and all that...but I cant help thinking that there is room for both.

Am I nuts?
We have a neighbour with 60 friesians on less than a 100 acres supporting 2 families. They have no mortgage or rent either
 

S J H

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I'm currently re-reading George Henderson's books; 'The Farming Ladder' and 'Farmers Progress'.

For those who don't know, George Henderson was a very successful farmer on 85 acres in the Cotswolds. He and his brother Frank 'devised' or adapted a system of highly intensive mixed farming on an acreage that many at the time said was too small. They started with very limited capital, and built up their enterprises out of profits. Within very few years of taking on a tenancy they were able to buy their farm, and went on to buy other farms where they installed tenants that they had trained as pupils in their own system back on the home farm.

George was a strong advocate of highly intensive production, keen to turn over his money as many times as possible through the year, as opposed to the traditional production systems that would see a farmers capital turned over once every 1-2 years or longer. He advocated having many enterprises, ie. Cattle, sheep, poultry, pigs and arable. With the livestock constantly building up fertility and the arable land utilising it. He aimed to, and was successful, in increasing productivity year on year through this constant fertility building and ensuring each branch of the business grew out of profits.

Reading his book, He tells of how he was rarely required to alter much of the system, through hard times and good, war or peace. He felt it was fail proof and could stand the test of time.

He did diversify, and had alternative income streams, but these were born through spotting opportunities rather than a need. Quite different to small farmers being told they MUST diversify as in recent years.

What I'm asking is, are there people out there doing similar now. Making a 'proper' living on farms, say sub 100 acres? Mixed farms that don't therefore rely on one niche enterprise? Is it still possible?
Are there people farming by his methods (or similar)?

Someone on here must have known him or his descendants, are they still going? What would he say about the small farm today? We constantly hear how small farms must go, that large agri business is the way forward, economy of scale and all that...but I cant help thinking that there is room for both.

Am I nuts?

I wonder if he made more money from 'dealing' rather than improving the soil.

Warren buffet only made a fortune through compound interest
 

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