The stream of subsidy dollars flowing from the federal Treasury - about $20 billion last year - has a way of turning arable acres into welfare tickets.

The Russell lands at Dyrham were in 1311 one of the largest arable demesnes in Gloucestershire, that is lands farmed in-hand, not let out to tenants, comprising 420 acres arable and 60 acres of meadow.

Assuming a three-course rotation, it implies 7 - 8 acres arable plus meadow and grazing (or common rights), making a farm of perhaps a dozen acres - bigger if 'corn' meant only the cereal crop.

So it thus came about that the fields, meadows, pastures and arable acres of Combsburgh were finally taken in from the waste which had existed for millenia.

Meanwhile the landless people of Lewis found themselves existing in overcrowded, squalid conditions, alongside empty arable acres given over to sheep, deer-stalking or grouse-shooting.

There are 427 million arable acres in the United States.

Farmer Input: a payment of £6-£7 per farm plus £1.25-£1.50 per arable acre per year for general administration; a list of all machinery (make and year of manufacture) that he is willing to 'hire out' to the machinery group.

The rock fissure was well hidden at the extreme end of the landing grid behind a clump of the tough thorny bushes that the farmers were clearing from the arable acres.

Higgs' 40 arable acres and some grazing land supported 200 sheep and 40 cattle, besides pigs and other small stock.

The nephew sold the estate, which extended to about 885 acres, chiefly arable and enclosed land, but it included about 54 acres of woodland and wooded policies.