MINUTES OK EVIDENCE. 



71 



12 August, 1911).] 



Tin-: HUN. EDWARD STRUTT, (J.H. 



[Continued. 



1669. Do you believe in the farmer doing every- 

 thing in his power to improve his methods of cultiva- 

 tion ? Certainly. 



1670. You have had great experience with regard to 

 dairying, have you not? Yes. 



1671. Am I correct in saying that you have gone in 

 for milk recording for many years past? Yes. 



1672. Your object being to eradicate the more or 

 less unremunerative cows? Yes. 



1673. Would it be fair to suggest that you have 

 now reached a very high standard of milk production? 

 1 am afraid my standard is not so high as I should 

 like to see it. Since the war it has gone down. Up 

 to the time of the war it had improved very much. 



1674. I put it to you that milk production could be 

 very considerably cheapened by carefully recording 

 the milk and eradicating the unproductive cows? I 

 should think it would, and it would certainly be a wise 

 thing to do. 



1675. Do you think there is a likelihood of a reason- 

 able profit coming from specialised farming in future? 

 What do you mean by specialised farming? 



1676. Keeping pedigree cows, for example, instead 

 of non-pedigree cows? Yes, but that is a very small 

 thing compared with the whole of the industry. 



1677. At any rate, that might be done on a much 

 larger scale than it is at the present time? If it was. 

 it might not pay so well, you know. 



1678. Do you think that the Board of Agriculture 

 when it is re-constituted might very considerably 

 assist the farmer by setting up experimental stations 

 and demonstrating, and so on? I think something 

 could be done in that way. It would be some help, 

 but I do not look to that as making much difference 

 between profit and loss in farming operations. It 

 will help the thing no doubt. 



1679. May I ask you to what you do look to improve 

 farming in the future? I look to better organisation. 



1680. You have said in your precis of evidence in 

 sentence 9, paragraph (7) that tho farmer must use 

 more artificial manures? Yes, I think so, and a 

 great many other people think so also. 



1681. More efficient organisation, better account 

 keeping, better railway transit, better organisation 

 in buying and selling, and the abolition of middle- 

 mr-ii's profits, would all be steps in the direction of 

 the improvement of the industry in the future? Yes. 



\>>-*2. If the farmer is to use more artificial manures, 

 the compensation to the farmer for unexhausted im- 

 provements and manures will have to be revised? I 

 think there is no doubt the farmer ought to have 

 \\liatever he is entitled to for unexhausted manures. 

 I do not know what the present rule is. 



H<). May I ask you how main working horses you 

 kei-p to the hundred acres? I profess to keep four, 

 but I think I sometimes keep a few more. I have some 

 tractors now, but I still keep four horses. 



1684. On the basis of four horses to tho hundred 

 do you think you have put down sufficient 

 tO "iver horse labour in the future? To tell you the 

 real truth I do not think I have, lint if you are going 

 to use more tractors and things of that sort, I do not 

 know. I have not put down too much; I have put 

 it on the low side rather than lire high side. I am not 

 taking the cost this year of course. 



1686. Mf. l.i -niinril: In your evidence-in-chief, 

 which 1 regret I have not yet had time to examine as 

 thoroughly as T should have likod. I gather your 

 method is to take the pre-war cost of certain farms, 



and then to allow a percentage of increase on that? 



VI thought that was the best way of doing it. 

 Can you tell me a better. 



No. I as not quarrelling with your method. 



! only wanting to ask \oii whether you would 



that that would not allow for any increased cost 



on newly ploughed arable land? No ;' that would be 



quite right. 



Can you give us any idea of tho difference in 



f production of the. poorest quality <>! the old 



arable land as compared with the ]Mx>resl quality of 



arable laud put under the plough during the war? 

 When I speak of the poorest quality of the new arable 

 land I meant the poorest quality which you would 

 consider it desirable to keep tilled that is, ruling out 

 cases where mistakes have been made in ploughing up 

 quite unsuitable land? I think, on the whole, land 

 that has been down to grass for 30 or 40 years would 

 be less expensive to cultivate than equally poor land 

 which has always been arable. I think it would be 

 less expensive after you got over the initial work ; I 

 think there would be less weeds. 



1688. That might continue for some time? Yes, that 

 might continue for three or four years. I may say I 

 think, on the whole, the land I have ploughed up has 

 paid me. 



1689. You spoke of a decline in the efficiency of 

 agricultural labour. Have you noticed any change in 

 the efficiency of the agricultural labourer in the case 

 of the return of demobilised soldiers who were formerly 

 agricultural labourers? You would expect during the 

 war that among the older men who would necessarily 

 be employed that there would be more inefficiency? 

 The demobilised soldiers have been working splendidly 

 on the whole, but I do not think we get quite the same 

 amount of work that we used to get in times past. I 

 suppose they are just like I say of myself, tired. I 

 am tired, and they are tired, I suppose, and everybody 

 is tired. 



1690. It is a matter of common experience, is it not, 

 that the demobilised soldier, although after he haa 

 been back at work for six months he may be an ex- 

 cellent workman, is often for the first six months or 

 so inclined to take things a bit slack ? Yes. What we 

 find about him is after he has been at work for some 

 time he is inclined to take a day off now and then 

 at least, that is what I am informed by my bailiffs. 



1691. That is a temporary phase, you think? Yes. 



1692. Do you think there is much room for piece 

 work in the agricultural industry? Yes, I think it is 

 the essence of it. If we do not have piece work I am 

 afraid we shall go back to grass. If you do not have 

 piece work there is a tendency for the standard of 

 efficiency to decline. The smallholder as a general rule 

 is the person who maintains the standard of 

 efficiency. 



1693. 1 should like to know your opinion about the 

 feasibility of the extension of piece work with a mini- 

 mum time rate basis a man to work on piece rates 

 which would give him an opportunity of earning more 

 than the minimum time rate, while at the same time 

 being guaranteed the minimum time rate? That 

 might bo done, I think, but I think he ought to take 

 it as it is and make the best of it on the whole. 



1694. Do you agree that fixing minimum piece work 

 rates would be a difficult matter? Yes; one field will 

 hoe quite well when it is in a certain state of friability, 

 and another time it will cost perhaps double as much 

 to hoe it. I think every farmer will feel that. 



1695. Would you agree that the efficiency of a 

 labourer to his employer depends not only on the 

 physical and moral qualities of the man, but also on 

 the direction he receives from his employer? Oh, yes. 



1696. Would you agree that on many farms there is 

 eonsiderablo room for improvement in this respect? 

 Mr. John Orr in his book on agriculture in Oxford- 

 shire thinks that fanners in Oxfordshire at least pay- 

 far less attention to the problem of efficient labour 

 direction than they do, for instance, to the problem of 

 manuring the land. Do you think, that applies to 

 other parts of the country as well as to Oxfordshire? 

 Yes; I think that better organisation is the best 

 chance- wo have of keeping wages up and of higher 

 cultivation. 



1697. In that part of Oxfordshire with which I am 

 acquainted, it is considered a good day's work to 

 plough half or three-quarters of an acre. I have 

 been told that this is not the fault of the man hut 

 of the horses. Do you think that it is often the case 

 that men are prevented from doing as efficiently as 

 they might otherwise do because of the poor quality 

 of the horses and machinery, and so forth, on the 

 farm? -There is no doubt if a man has poor horses 

 he gets into .slow ways and goes the pace of his horses. 

 No doubt some farms have poorer horses than others. 



