27 



Sheep Owned by Proprietors on some Hirsels This 

 system enables men to take and work sheep farms 

 with comparatively little capital. 



Munis of Paying Higher Wages in the Xorth. It will 

 be seen under the foregoing headings that, if 

 farmers in the North have always paid and are 

 continuing to pay higher wages than in the Mid- 

 lands and South, they have advantages in the 

 \orth which go towards enabling them to pay 

 them ; and farmers further South have not these 

 advantages. 



Miillnnd tirazings. On the other hand, farmers on 

 the rich Midland old grass farms have advan- 

 tages which the Northern man has not got. 

 There are strips of natural grazing in portions 

 of the Midlands which, if only they were pro- 

 perly farmed, are unapproachable for the cheap 

 feeding of cattle by anything to be found further 

 Xorth. The grazings in the North are made good 

 by means, in the first instance, of the plough. 



Hir'il Wtiijrs in i.'on rn an nt Employment. In the 

 Xorth labour is, on the whole, much less un- 

 balanced than it is further South by the frequent 

 neighbourhood of such work as for contractors 

 for Government works, such as aerodromes and 

 Hoad Boards, who pay such exorbitant wages as 

 2 per week to an undersized boy of 16 for 

 shovelling sand, and 3 12s. per week and up to 

 5 per week for ordinary unskilled navvy work, 

 with short hours. Such pay results is upsetting 

 the balance of all labour in the neighbourhood, 

 with the consequence that the output from the 

 farmers' labour is much reduced. 



The Comparative J'selessness of Estimates of the Costs 

 of Procuring given articles is obvious, except for 

 purposes of comparison, to show the increases in 

 costs of production now as compared to pro-war. 

 However much the estimates may be based upon 

 actual experience, they remain at best only esti- 

 mates ; and the estimates of costs vary 'immensely 

 according to locality. A good many of such esti- 

 mates have none the less been procured and have 

 been duly presented for your inspection. For 

 purposes of fixing prices to the farmer for his 

 produce they would appear to be almost useless. 

 The practical point remains that most farms are 

 mixed farms ; all the farmers' eggs are not in one 

 basket. A minimum revenue off the farm is 

 necessary to pay expenses, and so much more re- 

 venue is necessary to make such a profit as will 

 make it worth the farmer's while to remain in 

 business ; and what the farmer loses on the swing 

 he must gain -m the roundabout, or he will not 

 be able to carry on. No bettor illustration could 

 be given than by examining what has happened 

 during the present season on many Northern 

 farms. Bumper crops of corn were grown, but, 

 owing to continuous bad weather for six weeks, 

 on some farms probably up to two-thirds of the 

 oats and a large quantity of the barley has been 

 shed; a considerable proportion of the potato 

 crop on the heavier land has rotted ; and the 

 turnip crop, from tho Southern Cumberlan3 

 borders up to the northern coasts of Banffshire 

 and Elgin and Nairn, is, on the whole, only 

 sufficient to keep the breeding stocks and is in- 

 sufficient to provide for feeding purposes. 

 Itii iitx.iiliHifi/ of .\rnri ay at Profits Derived from 

 liiiliri'lunl Source* <i Misfit Farm. It has 

 been found quite impossible to ascertain^ from 

 farming accounts, the proportions of earnings 

 from the different sources of revenue. For this 

 purpose one is compelled to fall back on estimates. 

 I' i ant for Farm Prnrluf.r Meat Beff. It scarcely 

 seems to come within the legitimate scope of these 

 ad interim Notes to do more than make a few 

 passing remarks upon the extremely complex pro- 

 blems of adjustment of prices from time to time 

 for farmers' produce. 



While these Notes are being penned, a fresh 

 announcement is made by the Food Controller in 

 regard to meat prices to producers. Up to the 

 present point it is, in the opinion of many 

 farmers, only possible to make a profit on feeding 

 for beef at recent levels of prices for beef and 

 for. stores if animals are bought young, as stirks, 

 at tho hack end of the year, nnd are kept running 

 on as stoivs through the following winter and 



summer and are fed off the second spring after 

 purchase. 



Mutton Recent prices for sheep seem to give 

 reasonable satisfaction. 



Milk. Great harm was done to milk production, 

 as well as to the reception of the minimum wage 

 among farmers in certain counties, by the ex- 

 tremely unsatisfactory early summer price of milk 

 to the farmer and by the delay in adjusting the 

 price. 



The recent jirice of milk appears to have given 

 reasonable satisfaction to the milk producer who 

 breeds and rears his own cows; but it is ap- 

 parently impossible for the producer to avoid a 

 loss on his production where the system followed 

 is the town neighbourhood system of purchasing 

 cows after their third calf, milking them out, 

 and feeding them off fat after being milked out 

 for, approximately, eighteen months. 



In view of the clamour of the middleman and 

 the retailer for full consideration for their in- 

 terests, it is instructive to note cases of farmers 

 who own a retailing shop for their milk. One 

 case may be quoted of a farmer who is at the 

 present time actually losing money upon the pro- 

 duction of milk on the town neighbourhood 

 system slightly modified, but who appears to be 

 making up for his loss on production by his profit 

 on retailing through his own shop in the neigh- 

 bouring town. This farmer assures us that he has 

 always made three times as much profit out of 

 retailing his milk as he ever made by producing it. 



Wool Prices give satisfaction at present levels. It 

 calls, however, for a little patriotism on the part 

 of the farmer to feel satisfied when a wool broker 

 assures him that the War Office made lid. a Ib. 

 profit out of the Cheviot wool which ho produced. 



Shf of Farm Best S-uitf.d to Meet Higher Costs of 

 Farming. It will be remarked from perusal of 

 the tabular analysis that, had the wages of 1917 

 or 1918 been paid in 1913 or in 1914, the corres- 

 ponding reduction of profits in the latter years 

 would have borne more hardly upon the medium- 

 sized farms than upon the largest farms. In the 

 case of the former, the pre-war profits would 

 sometimes have been extinguished. 



(futility of Farms and of Farming the Most Suited to 

 Meet the Higher Costs of Farming. It is not 

 apparent from scrutiny of the tabular analysis, 

 read concurrently with the careful description of 

 each farm and farming system which has been 

 given with each of the individual specimens of 

 farming accounts already presented for your 

 inspection, that it is either the specially good 

 farms or the specially cheaply rented farms that 

 have paid much better than the farms enjoying 

 less advantages in the matter of soil and climate 

 or than the higher rented farms. But it should 

 be noted that the greater number of the farms in 

 regard to which financial results have been given 

 are the farms which have been improved by high- 

 class farming, while the rents remain unchanged. 

 To one who has personally recently visited up- 

 wards of 100 farms in various parts of the 

 country, it is obvious that the higher the quality 

 and skill of the farming, the higher the profits. 

 It is not possible to bring out this point in sta- 

 tistical form owing to the fact that in the major- 

 ity of the cases taken the quality of the farming 

 is the best provided by the neighbourhood on the 

 style of farming described, and examples are 

 seldom shown of the less skilfully and prudently 

 managed farms. The difficulty of finding farmers 

 whose books could form the basis of any statement 

 of financial results, together with the care which 

 had to be exercised in finding and selecting 

 enough farms in the time allocated to the inquiry, 

 which might be considered to be representative of 

 all the different classes of farming in the district, 

 precluded the making of as complete a survey for 

 comparative purposes as it may be possible to 

 make a year hence, when farmers will have learnt 

 book-keeping, or will have improved their book- 

 keeping methods, under the exigencies of making 

 correct returns of the results of their farming 

 business for Income Tax purposes. 



From the tabular analysis, together with the 

 individual descriptions of farms, one fr.ct is 

 apparent and stands out in bold relief that is, 

 the very severe handicap under which tho tenant 



