38 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICOLTIWK. 



, 1919.] 



PROFESSOR R. O. WHITE. 



[Continued. 



permanent improvement* 

 in 1010 and 1911. 



represented by the deficit 

 in 



IIMI.'H. And, in addition, taking more out of the 

 land through grain crop*, instead of having it in 

 grf-Yes. 



10.071. Mi l. f . With regard to your rent, I see 

 you put 285 acit-.t of low ground at 32s. 3d. an acre, 

 and 400 acre* of hill at 6s. an acre. Arc they adjoin-' 

 ing? 1- tlu- 'iill just outaide the other P Yes, practi- 

 cally adjoining. There is a small break, but it is 

 not mor? than a few yards. 



10.072. Because, on the face of it, if adjoining land 

 is worth 32s. 6d., 6s. for the- hill looks a very low 



I take it you take the whole place at a lump 

 rental and apportion them for your own coin, -nien- <. 

 It was really just for the purpose of this Commis- 

 sion, so that they might get some idea of the relative 

 values of the land. 



10.073. Have you charged the whole of the Sinking 

 Fund to the low ground, borau-i- that would make a 

 difference? No, I arrived at the total of 629, and 

 then allocated it as well as I could between the throe 



of land. 



10.074. According to your estimate of the respective 

 values P Yes. 



10.075. What does the grazing of 860 sheep cover 

 the whole yearP No. just the summer months. 

 Of course, it is very difficult to estimate that, but I 

 may say how 1 fixed it nits in this way : that before 

 the war I could get winter grazing for sheep at from 

 4s. 6d. to 5s., and about half that seemed a fair 

 charge for the summer grazing. It is, of course, a 

 very rough estimate. 



10.076. That only works out to 1. lOjd. a head, and 

 for the other six months it amounts only to about Id. 

 a week? It is not that exactly. We turn the year- 

 lings up to the mountain about the beginning of 

 April, say from 220 to 260 of those. Then we turn 

 the ewes and lambs out about the middle of June after 

 they have been shorn. So that it is not really 860 

 for six months. 



10.077. 1 suppose it would not affect your general 

 balance sheet, but it would rather affect the corn 

 and their stock rations P I do not think it really 

 affects the accounts at all, what relative value you 

 put on it. I thought that by allocating it in this 

 way. the Commission would he able to form some 

 idea of the type of land. I do not think it affects the 

 accounts so long as it is approximately correct. 



10.078. The other land is more than five times as 

 valuable as the hill; that is 6s. as against 32s. 6d.P 



Yes; 1 do not think there is much wrong with that. 

 I'll,. mor.t ditlirull thing to estimate is the value of 

 the open mountain grazing. 



10.079. If you separate your corn returns from your, 

 sheep returns, it looks as if you were hardly doing 

 the sheep justice? From the accounts, as prepared 

 here, you cannot separate the corn from the sheep, 

 because included- in the returns from the sheep are 

 the sales fn.m .sheep fattened on the low ground. 

 We fatten our wether lambs on the low ground during 

 the winter; so that you cannot, strictly, separate the 

 mountain from the low ground. 



10.080. They all run backwards and forwards. Why 

 do you write down the value of your pedigree animals 

 below the actual cost? Simply to be on the safe side. 

 It is of course a very difficult matter to ascertain the 

 value of pedigree animals. It is a much simpler 

 matter to estimate the value of an animal from a 

 commercial point of view. 



10.081. You take then in your valuation simply 

 as commercial stock? Yes. The object of that is to 

 keep the valuation at pretty much the same level the 

 same year, so that the balances shown in the accounts 

 are genuine balances, and not paper profits, or losses 

 due to fluctuations in market value. 



10.082. Then the wages rise from 835 in 1912 to 

 1,179 in 1918. Are, approximately, the same number 

 of people employed? There were not so many men in 

 1918. Of course, labour was practically unobtainable. 

 There might be the same number, but the great pro- 

 )>ortion in 1918 were women. 



10.083. It is not the same quality? There was not 

 the same number of men by any means. 



10.084. Then is your working staff calculated simply 

 on a commercial basis, or have you had extra hands 

 because of your experiments? We have to have extra 

 hands on account of the experiments. That, of course, 

 is the chief expenditure in connection with experi- 

 ments. 



10.085. So that your labour will really be a higher 

 figure than it would be if you simply worked on a 

 commercial basis? Distinctly. 



10.086. So that your profits would be somewhat 

 larger if it were run as an ordinary farm? I have 

 tried to allow for that in the summary that I have 



!. We have a grant from the (ii>ver!iment for 

 experiment*, and I have -assumed that that aboui 

 covers the cost. 



10.087. That covers the extra expenditure? Yes. 

 I think perhaps it does not quite cover it, but it is 

 somewhere about the mark. 



Chairman: Thank you verj much. 



(The witness withdrew.) 



