MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



29 



26 August, 1919.] 



MR. M. D. BANNISTER, F.S.I. 



[Continued. 



land more than half an acre a day, and that would 

 make the cost very much heavier. 



5872. Would the number of ploughings have to be 

 very much more:' If we were growing a fallow wheat 

 we should have five ploughings. 



5873. You only allow here for three? Yes. 



5874. There would be five ploughings therefore, and 

 that would be much more costly: 1 Yes. The first 

 ploughing would have to be with three horses half an 

 acre a day, and as to the subsequent ploughing under 

 favourable conditions they might do it with two 

 horses, but it is extremely doubtful. 



5875. You have been asked about the dung. I will 

 not say anything about it except that in my view 

 it ought to be worth more than 5s. 6d.? It is worth 

 in the market infinitely more. I do not base it on the 

 market price, but we never pay outgoing tenants 

 enough for the dang. 



5S76. Take No. 4, wheat after mangolds and maize. 

 Why do you not charge to the wheat crop some of the 

 various ploughings and cleaning operations you had 

 in growing the mangolds? I think perhaps one should 

 in fact, I am sure one should. 



5877. Olearly you ought to? Yes. 



5878. On each of these estimates you add nothing 

 for any weeding or any hedging or ditching or road 

 making that has to be done? No. 



5879. Nothing? No. 



5880. You have told us also that you have added 

 nothing for interest on capital or for the farmer's 

 management ? No. 



I . Have you formed any idea as to what the 

 guarantee ought to be to keep our Sussex land this 

 part that we know in cultivation? My opinion, 

 which I submit with very great diffidence, is that you 

 cannot grow wheat in our district under 80s. 



~i--2. Your opinion and mine coincide? But 

 whether you can got a guarantee of that amount is a 

 matter of very great doubt in my opinion. 



5883. You think that a guarantee of that figure 

 would keep this land in cultivation? I think it 

 would; I am not at all certain as to it. 



5884,. But without something of the kind are you 

 satisfied that land will go down to grass? The land 

 which I have in hand for owners. All the land that 

 I have broken up I have put down again. 



5885. Already? No, I have got one field which 

 goes down next spring. 



5886. Your business takes you over a very wide 

 district? Yes, it is about 60 miles across. 



5887. Could you tell us whether the farmers or 

 owners are laying very heavy lands down to grass? 

 Yes. 



5888. Are they laying the very light lands down 

 to grass? A good deal of it, but nothing like n> 

 much as the heavy land. The heavy land is of course 

 going down because the yield, except in a dry summer, 

 is poor and the costs of cultivating it are so very much 

 higher than in the case of light land. 



5889. What do you say about our district becoming 

 a larger dairying district or a smaller one? A larger 

 one considerably. I would not like to say it has 

 become larger during the last eighteen months 'or 

 two years, but up till then it was increasing very 

 fast. I should think that for the last eighteen 

 months or so it has been stationary, and this Michael- 

 mas I am selling out several of the big dairies. 



5890. You conduct all the farm sales in the district, 

 do you not? A very large proportion of them. 



6891. Is it your experience that people are going 

 out of dairying? Yes, I have found that a tre- 

 mendous lot of genuine tenant farmers are going out 

 of the dairying business and out of arable land and 

 going in for pedigree breeding on the basis that 

 there is less labour entailed, less worry and rather 

 bigger profits. 



5892. What is the reason that induces these leading 

 furriii-rs to give up the dairying business? Partly 

 the uncertainty from time to time as to what they 

 arc going to get, and largely, I think,, the extra- 

 ordinary difficulty that they are having over labour. 

 '.. The land is not particularly suited to dairying 

 is it. with the exception of that part which is situated 

 nearest to London? Yes, that is it. 



6994. Is it your view that the controlled prices had 

 a detrimental effect upon dairying? Undoubtedly!, 



partly because although I thought when they were 

 fixed it was quit a good price for the summer, as 

 the summer has turned out it has proved to Be an 

 extremely bad price. 



5895. That is as to the present summer? Yes, and 

 iu the preceding year I think it was very much 

 prejudiced by the fact that the price was not fixed 

 until the last moment, and the farmer did not know 

 what was going to happen from day to day. 



5896. Has the same 'thing happened with regard 

 to this winter's prices? Yes, they are not fixed to- 

 day. 



5897. In your view has the control of milk had the 

 effect of lessening the supply instead of increasing it 

 so far? Yes, I think so. 



5898. If the price had been fixed earlier do you 

 think control would have had any damaging effect? 

 Nothing like so damaging an effect as it has had. 



5899. Have you any opinion at all as to whether it 

 would be possible to do without a controlled price of 

 milk? I believe if all control was done away with 

 there would be an awful trouble for anything up to 

 six months, but after that if any of us were left alive 

 things would straighten out and be very much 

 better. I think that control is an evil, but a necessary 

 evil. 



5900. Could you suggest anything that would im- 

 prove the dairying industry in Sussex? If the price 

 was fixed at a price which would show a reasonable 

 profit. In fact it has got to show a big profit and a 

 good profit, because the dairying business is very hard 

 work and very thankless work. If the price was fixed 

 at such a figure and fixed at once for twelve months 

 the two prices it would simplify matters very largely 

 in dairy farming. 



5901. You agree that milk is like other farm pro- 

 duce, that if the price is satisfactory farmers will 

 produce it? Yes, if they get enough for it they will 

 produce it. 



5902. As regards the question whether the clay land 

 in Sussex is to be kept in cultivation or not, the 

 price of corn must be such as to give the farmer a 

 profit, and the same with regard to milk? Yes, unless 

 the farmer is going to see a profit, he will do what 

 suits him best. 



5903. That is really at the bottom of the whole 

 thing? Yes; it is the natural business instincts which 

 govern it, I think. 



5904. Would any guarantee of cheese prices affect 

 it? Supposing there was to be a guarantee of cheese 

 prices so as to use up the surplus production of milk 

 in the summer, would that stabilise the production of 

 milk in the winter? There is never in our district 

 any difficulty in getting rid of our surplus milk. 



5905. Not even in the summer? No. 



5906. Not before the war? A little but very little. 



5907. Before the war there has never been a short- 

 age of cheese in this country, has there? Not in the 

 South, at any rate; probably there has been in the 

 Midlands. 



. 5908. I think we may take it that since the war 

 the consumption of milk has increased per head as 

 well as the total consumption? I should think so, 

 I have seen no statistics. 



5909. T believe that is so? 1 think that the more 

 wages a man has the better food he buys. 



6910. A suggestion has been made that if the cheese 

 price were guaranteed for the summer that would lead 

 to a more stable production, and we should have a 

 larger supply in the winter and be able to dispose of 

 the surplus in the summer. Do you think that would 

 have any effect in Sussex? I do not think it -would 

 affect it in Sussex. 



5911. Mr. Dallas: You have suggested that if a 

 guarantee were given it would have to be 80s. ? Yes. 



5912. You have also sa'd that the farmers and those 

 who have control over lands are already laying these 

 lands down to grass. Does that not show you that, in 

 spite of the fact that a guarantee is given, farmers 

 will act on the principle, as you have already stated, 

 of doing what pays them best ? They will un- 

 doubtedly do that. 



5913. So that even if the Government were in the 

 future to guarantee a price, unless it was an extra- 

 ordinarily high price so as to pay the farmers very 



