MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



101 



3 September, 1919.] 



SIR RICHARD WINFREY, M.P. 



[Continued. 



they take it out of the yard and deposit it in heaps 

 and the 12 loads are supposed to rot down to 8 

 loads before they spread it on the land. 



8246. Do you think the load would be a ton? No, 

 I do not think it would be a ton. 



8247. 15 cwte.? I should say so; it is a one-horse 

 load. 



8248. What sort of proportion would there be of 

 straw, do you know ? I really could not say. 



8249. You put down a small amount for the price 

 of straw 10s. in 1913 and 1 in 1919. The market 

 price of straw makes a great deal of difference in 

 what proportion of straw you charge in the case of 

 your potatoes in the cost of the farmyard manure? 

 Yes, that is so. 



8250. Have you any idea of how much seed was 

 sown, for instance, in planting the wheat crop? No, 

 I have not. 



8251. Was it about 2J bushels? I should think 

 about that, but I will let you know exactly.! 



8252. Also in the case of Norfolk the value of the 

 manure and the value of the straw more or less 

 balance each other, do they not? Yes. 



8253. With regard to the ploughing about which 

 Mr. Overman expressed some doubt he said that in 

 one case you charged 25s. for 5-inch ploughing and 

 in another case you only charged 1 for six-inch 

 ploughing ? Yes. 



8254. I suggest to you that, although thero is a 

 difference in the depth in the case of mangolds, the 

 work is lighter work because you have previously 

 cleaned the surface? You think that is the answer? 



8255. t Yes? I will discover what the real facts are. 



8256. You have two operations before your six- 

 inch ploughing? Yes, certainly. 



8257. 1 think you will probably find that is the 

 reason ? Yes. 



8258. Mr. Cautley : Should I be right in saying that 

 the land in the Holbeach district is about the richest 

 farming land in England? Yes, in the Long Sutton 

 district that I quoted, which is five miles from Hol- 

 beach, I should say that that is some of the finest land 

 in England. 



8259. This particular farm of 174 acres which you 

 referred to which has been let for 800 over 4 

 an acre grows principally market garden crops, and 

 sends its produce to C'ovent Garden? No, not to 

 Covent Garden ; they grow crops which are sent to 

 Wisbech for pickling. 



8260. At any rate the crops are for human con- 

 sumption. When it was let at 400 in 1894 that 

 would be almost at the very bottom of the agri- 

 cultural depression, would it not? That was at a 

 time when wheat was 25s. a quarter. 



8261. It was not at the bottom, but very nearly? 

 No, it went down lower than that afterwards. 



8262. I think we will leave that particular illus- 

 tration and come to what is really the subject of 

 your evidence, which is extremely interesting, if I 

 may say so. Does your Association take the land 

 on lease? Yes. 



8263. What rent do you pay I will deal with the 

 Lincolnshire land first? We pay Lord Lincolnshire 

 I think on an average about 30s. an acre for his 

 throe farms. He built us some houses in addition, 

 and we pay him 4J per cent, interest on those. 

 We took the farms and the cottages in the first 

 instance and when we wanted extra houses he built 

 the houses . for us and charged us 4J per cent, on 

 the cost. 



8264. Does he do that now? No, not since the 

 war; we should not, of course, ask him to build 

 houses for us to-day. 



8265. He built you the houses at the proper rate 

 of interest, which was 4J per cent, before the war, 

 and the Association let out the land to tenants? 

 Yes. 



8266. Do they let it out at such a vent as just 

 pays the expenses, or do they let it out at a profit? 

 They let it out at a rent which only just pays 

 the cost of the Steward I have a Steward who looks 

 after the whole of this and the incidental expenses; 

 we just about pay our way. 



t See Appendix No. IV. 



8267. In the case of the smallholder which you 

 have given us, you charge a rent of 2 an acre? 

 Yes, but that brings in 10 for his house and 

 buildings. 



8268. Does each of these smallholders have a house 

 like his? All the responsible ones. 



8269. And buildings? Yes. We divided up the 

 farmyard buildings. One farmyard is divided up 

 amongst seven of them; another amongst six of 

 them, and another amongst four. 



8270. Do I understand that when ihe fresh houses 

 are built there are no fresh rates put 'n? The 

 houses are rated, not the land. 



8271. Do you put forward this illustration of the 

 Lincolnshire smallholder as being typical of all the 

 rest, or is his case an exceptional case? No, this 

 is land in Deeping Fen, and to show you the value 

 of it we were paying about 39s. an acre rent the 

 year before the war, and Lord Lincolnshire sold the 

 adjoining farm to the County Council at 26 an 

 acre. 



8272. I observe you started 25 years ago in 1894? 

 Yes, that is so. 



8273. As a. matter of fact all your tenants have met 

 an improving time in agriculture right the way on 

 up to the war and probably after the war too? No, 

 not all the time. The most disastrous year we ever had 

 was 1912 when we had that very wet time in August. 

 We produced about 250 acres of potatoes and there 

 was_ not an acre of those potatoes which was worth 

 having; the rain stood in the rows for three flays 

 and the potatoes were quite spoilt. 



8274. In that year the tenants asked for relief 

 and you got relief from your landlord?, Yes, 10 

 per cent. 



8275. From that year prices began to be steadily 

 on the upgrade? Not for potatoes; potatoes have 

 fluctuated tremendously in the last 25 years. W 

 have sold potatoes as low as 35&'. a ton during that 

 time. 



8276. I was alluding rather more to the cereals 

 and the price of beef and those sort of things. 

 I think you will agree with me that farming generally 

 has been on the upgrade since 1894? Yes, I think 

 it has Slightly. 



8277. So that your smallholders have met better 

 prices generally except in the year 1912? Carrying 

 my memory back to 1894 and 1900 1 do not think 

 there was any rise during those six years in values, 

 but since 1900 there has been a steady rise with the 

 exception of 1912 until we came to the war. 



8278. 1912 you say was a disastrous year? Yes. 

 I can give you an example of that. We farmed 100 

 acres of this land on co-partnership lines and I kept 

 an exact balance sheet of our operations and we 

 lost 500 that year, that is 5 an acre. 



8279. Of course, when they had that disastrous 

 year they had to have relief? Yes, but it was a 

 very small relief that they got 10 per cent. ; it was 

 only 2s. in the on their rent. If they had not 

 made money before they could not have stood it. 



8280. One bad year would have knocked them out? 

 Yes if they had not done well before. 



8281. If they were to have a aeries of falling prices 

 in future they would be hard hit again? I do not 

 know that I can quite agree with that because these 

 men have shown that they can farm, from a time 

 when wheat was 25s. a quarter. 



8282. Do you put forward this case of a farmer of 

 24 acres of Deeping Fen land as a typical case of 

 the smallholder in your Association? Yes. 



8283. He has not done better or worse than your 

 other smallholders? No; I only selected him because 

 he is more methodical in his accounts than the others. 

 I daresay I could have found two or three others who 

 would have Been equally typical, but I selected this 

 particular man because of his method in keeping his 

 accounts; there might be half a dozen equally as 

 good. 



8284. You told us he had about 18 acres of arable 

 land and six acres of grass land? That is so. 



8285. One acre of his grass land was put down for 

 hay? No, half his grass he has 6 acres in all. I 

 was only giving you an illustration of what the whole 

 acre would come to. He only mowed three acres of it; 

 he put a temporary fence across the other part of it. 



G 4 



