BUSINESS METHODS 181 



to become more and more impossible, the farther we press on our 

 demand for raising a maximum quantity of wheat, because that 

 compels us to descend lower and lower in the impressment of 

 unqualified soil, far too much of which we already — save in periods 

 of emergency, which " know no law," such as wars and the time 

 immediately following — cultivate, that soil not being really fit to 

 grow wheat at a profitable rate, and produce it otherwise than as a 

 hothouse might produce oranges or grapes, at an excessive cost. 

 It is not only that, as Dr. Russell rightly urged in the course of the 

 late Royal Commission Inquiry, you can grow wheat at anything 

 between 60s. and 90s. a quarter. Dr. Russell's limits might indeed 

 be still further extended. From the answers given by witnesses — 

 very experienced men most of them, with good heads on their 

 shoulders — it is plain that very much of the " costings " estimated 

 rests on most questionable conjectures. Farming is a most complex 

 business, the " costings " period of which exceeds a year. Individual 

 farmers put down the cost of fertilisers at a mere guess, at so much 

 to this crop, and so much to the next, as fancy may direct them. 

 Several witnesses complained that sheep keeping was a dead loss to 

 them. " Then why do you keep sheep ? ' " Because I could not 

 grow wheat without it." Leaving the question altogether out of 

 account whether under such circumstances wheat growing was at 

 all in place on such soil, here evidently we have to do with will-o'- 

 the-wisp account keeping. Much of what was set down to the debit 

 of sheep plainly ought to have been carried to the debit of wheat — 

 and that might have proved what has been already suggested, 

 namely, that the soil was not economically suited for wheat growing. 

 The false reckoning actually made up has pleased the advocates of 

 excessive wheat growing. But there can be no question that it is 

 wrong. It is indeed a matter of the greatest difficulty to assess 

 different portions of such outlay as that for fertilisers to different 

 crops. The fertilising effect may in favourable cases extend over a 

 fair number of years. In other cases a wet season may wash away 

 the entire value into the subsoil in less than one year. The same 

 reflection applies to certain operations in cultivation. Not to 

 speak of such operations as mole draining— the value of which, of 

 course, depends upon the nature of the soil — subsoiling may or may 

 not benefit more crops than one. People have, moreover, been 

 found to judge very differently of the price at which they should 

 set down produce consumed on the farm — " sold," as the Americans 

 say, " by feeding." Should that be at cost price— supposing that 

 such can be ascertained ? Or else at market-price ? One very distin- 



