MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



23 September, 1919.] 



Mit. JAMES DONALDSON. 



[Continued. 



11.377. Mr. Ashby: Will you look at a sentence 

 in tho middle of paragraph 7 of your evidence in chief , 

 a rather important sentence, I think. It says : 

 " At the present time farming is being carried out 

 intensively as intensively as present circumstances 

 will permit with the object of producing the last 

 possible bushel of wheat, the last possible pound of 

 meat, and the last possible gallun of milk per unit 

 area. " Do you not, from your experience as a 

 farmer, think that that sentence needs an addition 

 of something like this within the limits imposed 

 by the present amount of technical knowledge and 

 experience possessed by farmers:' No, I should say 

 the farmers possessed all the technical knowledge 

 and experience necessary at the present moment to 

 comply with those conditions, if it were made worth 

 their while. 



11.378. You produce milk, do you not? No. 



11.379. But you are more or less conversant with 

 the dairying industry, 1 take it? I know a little 

 about it. 



11.380. For instance, do you know that on fairly 

 good tenant farms the yield of milk per cow varies 

 between, say, -400 and 600 gallons per annum? Yes, 

 quite. 



11.381. And there is very little difference between 

 the cost of feeding a 400-gallon cow and quite 

 frequently the cost of feeding a 600-gallon cow, and 

 to that extent you have not reached the last gallon 

 of milk per unit area even if returns are increasing 

 or decreasing? That is being remedied now by 

 the Milk Kecording Societies. 



11.382. Take another instance, the case of the 

 dressing of grass land with basic slag. Assuming 

 that you can get supplies of basic slag, the point has 

 not yet been reached where you get diminishing 

 returns if you get farmers' to use it who never used 

 it before? You must remember that this method of 

 using basic slag is a matter of comparatively recent 

 date. There is no doubt that a greater proportion 

 of the farmers know the value of basic slag to-day. 



11.3*3. But there is a certain proportion of fanners 

 at any rate, who do not apply the best technical 

 knowledge and experience that is applied even by 

 their own neighbours? A very small proportion. If 

 a farmer finds his neighbour is making a good thing 

 out of it by buying a certain thing, you will find that 

 that farmer imitates him anyhow. 



11.384. Following up that point, in that same 

 paragraph you have a quotation from Mr. Prothero, 

 as he then was, on the law of diminishing returns. I 

 suppose you realise that any statement of physical 

 tendencies like the law of diminishing returns 

 always postulates certain conditions, and that as far 

 as finance is concerned, that is, the financial results 

 with which the farmer is concerned, you do not 

 necessarily reach the point of diminishing financial 

 returns at the same time as you reach the point of 

 diminishing physical returns?! think your question 

 is rather complicated to my limited " intelligence : 

 but if I could refer you to the source from which 

 this extract was drawn, you will find there, I think 

 to your own satisfaction, that the law of diminishing 

 returns does apply. I do not think vou can con- 

 trovert that statement there. 



11.385. No, I am not controverting the statement 

 as it appears in the article or as it appears in its 

 present form here ; but supposing your total costs, 

 given a certain amount of fertilisers supplied this 

 is the way they reach law of diminishing returns 

 also reach a given figure, if you can economise on 

 any item of your total costs, say, on your labour by 

 using machinery, you can still go on adding to your 

 manures, which are on the plane of diminishing 

 return?, and yet not find diminishing returns in 

 financial results? Yes, but in order to obtain the 

 best effects of machinery, you must have a large 

 farm. 



11. .'{>. You go on to say something about that 

 afterwards;-' Yet 



II, '(-:. Hut again let me put to you. Do you 

 consider that, taking the application of fertilisers 

 alone to agriculture, there are no cases in which you 

 could nt : r,.f, increasing returns rather than 

 diminishing returns? Not if you exceed a certain 

 point. The law of diminishing returns applies 



irrevocably. You cannot get beyond that. If you 

 are speaking of a farm which would respond to 

 fertilisers which has had no fertilisers applied to 

 it, that is quite a different question. 



11.388. That is exactly the point: if you have 

 reached the point, generally speaking, where you get 

 diminishing returns, or, are there not a great many 

 cases in which you could get increased returns? 

 Broadly speaking, if you give us a favourable supply, 

 we shall employ more fertilisers. Kven the most 

 uneducated will" be led up to it. 



11.389. Just at the end of that paragraph there 

 is rather a specious sentence which passes current that 

 " High farming is no remedy for low prices." You 

 do not suggest that the yields of English arable land 

 were falling from 1875, say, to 1907, the period of 

 the depression? That they were falling? 



11,300. That the yields were decreasing? I should 

 answer that question by stating that those lands which 

 were not capable of giving a certain increase were 

 put down to grass, and therefore you had the more 

 fertile lands, and if your returns did not diminish 

 it was du<? to the increased fertility of the soil. 

 By the fertility of the soil I mean that you are only 

 using the most fertile soils and allowing the other 

 soils to go into grass. 



11,391. That is a true statement so far; but on the 

 other hand is this not true : that, though you were 

 raising your average of arable land, and you were, 

 as you admit, getting rid of the worst of it and 

 maintaining rather increasing yields on what you 

 had left, you were also considerably increasing the 

 productive capacity of the live stock? Yes; I think 

 with regard to live stock we take a position second 

 to none to any country in the world. Would that not 

 point more and more to adapting ourselves to grazing 

 agriculture? 



11,302. Yes, but surely it is one type of high 

 farming? Yes, exactly, if you like to call grazing 

 high farming. 



11.393. Take one instance alone. So far as we know 

 the average yield of cows from 1890 to about 1908 was 

 increased from 120 to 130 gallons a year? Due to 

 better selection. 



11.394. Partly; and better treatment? I think it 

 shows the progressive mind of the farmer. 



11.395. Then in paragraph 9 you say that farmers 

 " can cut down their expenditure on manures applied 

 and cultivations done to increase the fertility of the 

 soil, and at the end of it all with reduced pro- 

 ductivity." You are rather, I take it, drawing a 

 parallel between what did happen in the depression 

 and what might happen in a future depression? I 

 think they are statements of yours. 



11.396. Is it true that farmers during the late 

 depression cut down their expenditure on fertilisers? 

 I do not think there is any doubt about that, be- 

 cause the price paid to them did not pay for it. It 

 altered the returns again. You cannot get away 

 from it. 



11.397. But surely the consumption of fertilisers 

 in this country was rising during tho whole of the 

 time? What fertilisers? 



11.398. Superphosphate, basic slag, nitrate of 

 sodium and sulphate of ammonia, which was quite a 

 recent thing? With regard to superphosphate and 

 basic slag, I could account for that quite easily by 

 saying it was applied to the pastures and not to the 

 arable land. 



11.399. Of course, we are on more or less debat- 

 able ground, but I think you would find, as far as you 

 can get any comparable statistics, that the use of 

 fertilisers was increasing, ruling out basic slag, during 

 the depression? But you cannot point me to statistics 

 showing that more fertilisers have been used on arable 

 ground, can you? 



11.400. I want to suggest to you that the real 

 economies that the farmers made in the depression, 

 were not economies in fertilisers but economies in 

 manual labour? That is a matter of opinion. 



11.401. Is it also a matter of opinion that, although 

 it may be true that the yiejds per acre were falling 

 during that period, the yields per man engaged or 

 employed were rising? That may be so. 



