MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



83 



12 August, 1919.] 



DR. E. J. RUSSELL. 



[Continued. 



1952. Have you any information about their costs? 

 -No. 



1953. You do not know whether they incur a loss 

 in roots or not? No. I should like to point out for 

 the purposes of a comparison of these tables, that if 

 you take the table in paragraph 2, where I have 

 deducted 15 per cent, from the roots and added it on 

 to the wheat, that is quite legitimate in wheat pro- 

 duction ; but when a milkman is talking about the 

 cost of milk production he sometimes takes the whole 

 cost of his roots into account. That is legitimate if 

 he is not growing grain, but it is not legitimate if 

 he is growing grain and transfers 15 per cent, to 

 his wheat. 



1954. To come to the point of the efficiency of the 

 labourer, from your table in paragraph 4 it would 

 seem to be a fair deduction that there was no falling 

 off in efficiency up to 1915-16? No. I think that is 

 seasonal. I do not think there was any falling ott in 

 efficiency then. 



1955. That period would coincide with the Army's 

 demands? Yes; we lost our young men and some of 

 our best men. 



1956. And some men that you will not get back? 

 We do get them back, but whether they are as 

 efficient as before we have to discover. 



1957. How many of the men that you had before 

 the war have you now? Of the regular men all, 

 but of the casuals that were regular, so to sp'eak, 

 that is to say that used to come when they wanted 

 work, not quite all. 



1958. You mentioned that you were of opinion that 

 a 10 per cent, reduction in hours may mean a 15 

 per cent, reduction in output? Yes, I 'think so. 



1959. Upon what do you base that? Because of 

 the difficulty in getting work started in the late 

 afternoon when a man is going to finish in half 

 an hour's time. Supposing a man has an hour to run, 

 you can wend him off to do a job, but if he has only 

 got half an hour to run it is not worth ivhile 

 starting him on work except about the buildings. 

 Of course one always has to remember the kind of 

 IM-I-OM yon have as farm bailiff is not necessarily 

 a very good organiser, and you cannot' always be 

 on the spot to make sure the men are used in the 

 best way. 



1960. I think you admitted that you looked to 

 better education as a help, and if there were better 

 supervision by the bailiffs, it might come to con- 

 siderably ]<>., than 15 per cent, reduction? In a 

 factory, yes, but I do not think so much in the 

 case of a farm. On a farm you have to make hay 

 while the sun shines. You cannot c-ontrol tl>e 

 weather for to-morrow and you have M -ee the job 

 through in the day. I have" reduced all these hours 

 to the standard d'ay. That is the only practicable 

 way of doing it. so that the overtime counts as timo 

 and a quarter. 



1961. tlr. 6'reert: In paragraph 9 yon say these 

 figures are probably representative of much" of the 

 havy arable land in England? Yes. 



1962. You say you know of other experiments 

 having been carried out by farmers up and down the 

 country. Are you aware of the experiments which 

 have beon conducted by Mr. Christopher Tnrimr 

 in Lincolnshire? His costing figures are rather 

 lower than yours on poor grass land? I have not 

 lieen actually over his land, though I have dis- 

 ciis^'d his experiments with him. I think his hind 

 is lighter than, ours, and that would reduce the cost. 



1963. Are you aware of the figures of Mr. Orwin, 

 nf Oxford, whirh are also considerably lower than 

 yours? I have seen some of his > sheets. He also 

 has got lighter land than ours.* I am not suffi- 

 ciently familiar with his figures to be able to speak 

 definitely. Are you referring to his figures for 

 wheat or for oats? 



1964. For wheat. I have seen them myself. As to 

 the efficiency of labour, as a scientist and teacher, 

 what would you propose to do for the young men 

 who want to go on the land, especially having regard 

 to Mi. l-'i-l,, r' s Extension of Education Bill? Would 



MISS 



you propose that these young men should go to 

 experimental stations such as yours, or colleges, or 

 go on commercial farms pure and simple? Are you 

 thinking of the workers or the farmers? 



1965. The workers? I do not think the worker 

 should go to an experimental station. I think that 

 he ought to have education in agriculture and in 

 the reasons underlying the operations on. the farm, .so 

 that he may take an intelligent interest in the work. 



1966. Do you propose that he should go to an 

 agricultural school or college or to a farm? I should 

 say night classes in the village run by peripatetic 

 teachers, with demonstrations arranged on some good 

 farm in the district. 



1967. Mr. Edwards : In answer to Mr. Langford 

 you seemed to suggest that your scientific know- 

 ledge, which of course we know is high, if not higher 

 than that of any farmer in England, has only been 

 of a limited help to you in your actual farming? 

 That is so. Our yields are limited by the weather. 

 I think we could probably work up to an average of 

 40 or perhaps nearly to 45 bushels of wheat, but I 

 do not think we can get any further. I think the 

 weather stops us then. 



1968. After all, that leads us to the conclusion that 

 the cry for the better scientific training of the farmer 

 has its limits? That is so, but there is an enormous 

 amount of land in the country that does not give even 

 30 bushels of wheat, and much of that land could be 

 improved considerably. As you have raised that 

 question, I should like to emphasise the point 

 mentioned in my concluding paragraph ; that is, 

 that you must not rely on modern science to produce 

 the food for nothing. The only way of getting food 

 out of the land is to put good, honest work into the 

 land, and although science will help, there is no way 

 in sight whereby you can get food out of the kind 

 simply by pressing buttons. You have to put as much 

 work as before into the land it need not be as much 

 manual work, but what you cease to do ma'nually 

 has to be made up in intelligence. 



1969. In paragraph 6 of your evidence you 

 refer to the fluctuations in yields from causes beyond 

 human control which upset all attempts at calculations 

 of output, and so forth. You are aware that there, 

 are two sets of enquiries now being made into the 

 costing of agricultural produce, one by the Wages 

 Board and another one by an independent body? 



1970. I should like to have your views as a scientific 

 man as to the use of the result of those investigations 

 into the fixing of wages on the one hand and prices 

 on the other, and legislation generally for the agri- 

 cultural industry? You mean what value will the 

 results be when they are got? 



1971. Yes? That is a very difficult question to 

 answer. I have not seen the work of either of those 

 Committees at first hand, and it is always difficult to 

 criticise the work of a Committee \\hcn one has not 

 seen either its work or its Report. Costs of production 

 vary considerably from farm to farm and from season 

 to season. I imagine that by taking the average 

 of a large number, one could get an average result, 

 but average results have a knack of breaking down 

 when applied to a particular farm. An average result 

 would mean, supposing a man were farming 10,000 

 acres, or 20.000 acres, or 30,000 acres, his results 

 would on the average come out to a particular sum; 

 but if you take a man farming a 200 acre farm, 

 the results might easily come below the level what 

 any of these Committees would lay down. 



1972. Your answer is that the result of the enquiries 

 must he taken with excessive care, otherwise a large 

 number of farmers might be put in a very difficult 

 position? Yes, they would require very intelligent 

 interpretation. I take it that the purpose of the 

 figures is to find out whaf is the reasonable return 

 tin' farmer should expect, and ho\v the return should 

 be divided between the workers and the farmer. 



1973. You say, "The situation can be met in my 

 opinion by arousing first the civic conscience both 

 among farmers and workers." I should like some 

 further information on that point as to how you 



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