MINUTES O EVIDENCE. 



41 



6 Auyiul, 1'J19.] 



ME. J. M. CAIE. 



[Continued. 



through him as an official at the request of your 

 Board, was it not-' I am not sure of that. 



888. To revert to the question that has just been 

 pat to yon with regard to the average figures, are 

 these figures a true average ? Take the 40-65 bushels 

 of wheat and the 41-53 bushels of oats in the year 

 1918, for example. Is it an average, taking into 

 account the quantities produced at different rates 

 per ai r. r It is a weighted average at any rate, 

 starting from the parish average. The reporter fur- 

 nishes us according to his information with what he 

 believes to be a fair average for the parish. 



880. Does be give yon a total for the parish? Yes, 

 a return is supplied to him, giving the acreage of each 

 crop by parishes, on which he subsequently fills in the 

 yield figures. 



890. There was a very considerable extension of 

 cropping in Scotland daring the harvest of 1917 and 

 1918 with the result that a good deal of land was 

 brought into cultivation which bad not been culti- 

 vated for a very long period? Yes. 



891. Is it within your knowledge that a very con- 

 siderable part of that land in some districts was very 

 imperfectly harvested? How much does " a very 

 considerable part" mean? 



892. May I take yon to the district of Kirkcud- 

 bright? I do not know the condition of their harvest. 



893. Take North Ayrshire? I believe some of it 

 was not well harvested I have heard that. 



894. There was a great deal of it lost in the har- 

 vesting, was there not? I believe there was a certain 

 amount lost I do not know bow much. I know they 

 had a very difficult season. 



895. The loss in harvesting in many parts of Scot- 

 land was so great that it formed one of the principal 

 reasons for discontinuing the cropping of this land? 

 Yes, bnt of coarse under war conditions farmers 

 put land under crops which they would hesitate to 

 do under ordinary circumstances. 



896. How do these facts reflect themselves in the 

 figures submitted by yon? Are they taken into 

 account? Oh certainly. It simply means that in the 

 other districts the crops were good enough to make 

 up for that. The proportion of wheat, I take it, in 

 the south-west is not very Urge. 



897. Are you certain that ail these losses are taken 

 into account by your reporters in the average they 

 put forward? Yes, I think so, although I do not want 

 to put too great a value upon the reporters' figures. 

 The reporters are in the great majority of cases them- 

 sehrtsi practical farmers who are familiar with the 

 yield of the crops in their own districts. At the 

 same time, I do not assert that they are statistical 

 experts. 



898. May I take it that there is a very large element 

 of conjecture in the results arrived at in these 

 Tables? Xo, I would not say there is a very large 

 amount of conjecture with regard to them, although 

 I do not say they are mathematically precise. 



899. What quantity of oats, for example, are 

 weighed and fully accounted for, say, in Ayrshire? 

 I cannot say. 



900. You do not know what proportion of farmers 

 give a full acount of their granary work? It is left 

 to the reporter to go round and visit the different 

 places which he does do and ascertain the facts 

 from the best means at his disposal and put down 

 what be considers a fair average figure for the parish. 



901. I put it to you that a very Urge proportion 

 of the oat crop in Scotland i produced not for sale 

 but for use on the farm? Yes, that is so. 



902. And that in many districts it is common to 

 thresh it week by week ? Yes, and in some parts day 

 by day even. 



903. Do you believe, it is the general practice of 

 farmers in districts where no selling is carried on to 

 weigh their weekly threshings? So far as my know- 

 ledge goes I think farmers have a very shrewd idea 

 as to the total amount of their yield. 



904. How do they get that idea? From checking 

 their stacks and their threshings. I am speaking 

 of the north-east particularly. 



905. It is on the farmer*' statement of these weekly 

 or daily threshings that the reporter makes up his 

 report:- It is on the best information that the 

 reporter can get from whatever source or means. 



906. Is that the general character of his information 

 in many cases? To some extent to what extent I 

 cannot say. 



907. He most often rely on statements of that 

 kind made by the farmer, must he not? I should 

 think so. 



908. He does not himself attend the threshings and 

 weigh the proceeds, does he} I should not think so. 



909. Does he ever do it? I cannot say. 



910. If he does not do that he is dependent upon 

 the statements which are made to him? Yes, and, 

 of course, his own judgment also. I have no doubt 

 be got, round and forms the best opinion he can from 

 his own observations, but obviously these figures are 

 open to a certain amount of statistical criticism 

 because they are based simply on a practical 

 estimate. At the same time I do not think they are 

 so bad as yon appear to indicate from your questions. 



911. I think you have answered most of my ques- 

 tions in the affirmative. With reference to your 

 tractors and horses I believe yon mentioned charges 

 for hire which I think you and I have already dis- 

 cussed elsewhere? Yes. 



912. Did yon make any money out of these trans- 

 actions? No. 



913. How much did you lose? I believe, speaking 

 from memory, we lost at the rate of about 30 per 

 cent., the reason for that being, of course, in the 

 first place, that these tractors were used mainly for 

 the cultivation of new Und for additional cropping. 

 It was difficult for the committees in the district* 

 to arrange for all the land in one district to be 

 ready for the tractor work at the same time. Some 

 farmers required a little more persuasion to plough 

 than others. The result was that a tractor might do 

 a little bit of work in one parish and then move 

 away to another place, and at the time it had 

 finished at the second place a man in the first 

 district had made up his mind to plough, and the 

 tractor would go back to that district again. A 

 certain amount of time was lost in that way, moving 

 about from one place to another. Secondly, during 

 bad weather the tractor men, of coarse, had to be 

 paid; and, thirdly as it was a matter, apparently, 

 of vital importance that Und should be ploughed 

 the tractors were very frequently put on Und which 

 was probably not altogether suitable for tractor work, 

 simply because that was the only way of getting the 

 Und cultivated. Consequently, the bill tor repairs, 

 breakages, and so on, was a good deal higher than 

 it would be where a farmer was using a tractor him- 

 self, and using it to the best advantage. 



914. My question was not at all intended to 

 criticise the fact that money was lost. I only wanted 

 to make it dear that these figures do not give us 

 any clue whatever to the actual cost of cultivation 

 under normal circumstances? The 1 evidence I am 

 giving now is secondhand evidence. I am simply 

 quoting from what the chief engineer told me, 

 bating his information on what he had been able to 

 collect from local engineers and so on, that this 

 would bf; a fair indication of the cost at which a 

 farmer could run a tractor himself. I do not give 

 that with any official authority behind it. 



915. It is very difficult to check the. accuracy of the 

 figures? It is very difficult to check. 



916. Mr. Ba : I rather gathered from your answer 

 to Dr. Douglas that your figures in the tables are 

 not based upon actual results? Not entirely. 



917. They are not taken, as they are in England, 

 at harvest time? No, we get them in early in tho 

 autumn. I believe the reporters do try, as a rule, 

 to get rwirdg of actual threshings as far as they 

 can, but, of course, the figures are not based on 

 threshings running over the whole of the winter. 



918. So that really they are practically compiled 

 from estimate*? Largely so. 



919. I see that the average yield of wheat was 

 five bushels in excess of that of barley? Yes. 



