MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



87 



12 August, 1919.] 



DR. K. J. RUSSELL. 



[Continued. 



lay down for two or three years, and do a certain 

 amount of dead fallowing or' bastard fallowing. 



2036. Do you think by doing that you will suffi- 

 ciently clean your land, or get the land in an efficient 

 state of cultivation for grain? We hope so; we are 

 using a tractor, and as we cut the corn throwing it 

 up into the middle and ploughing in between, iJo that 

 we hope to steal a lot of cleaning work in that way. 



2037. Do you sell a lot of the root crop off the 

 holding? Yes. 



2038. What do you bring in in place of it? We 

 buy a good deal of London dung and artificial 

 manure. 



2039. Do you keep cattle ? Usually, but I did not 

 bring them into the accounts, because it complicates 

 them. 



2040. Yes, I quite appreciate that. What I want 

 t at is whether you are not impoverishing your 



land? No; I do not think we are doing that, but 

 one of the things I do not like is that we shall not 

 employ so many men as we used to. 



2041. What reduction will there be in the man 

 hours by giving up potatoes? It contributes 

 materially to our reduction from 40,000 to 25,000. 



2042. Will you reduce the number of horses? 

 They will reduce themselves we shall not replace 

 them all. We have got one tractor, and we shall 

 probably get 'another tractor for light work, and try 

 to work, on those lines. 



, '<. Are you of opinion that you will be taking 

 full value out of the machinery and the horses that 

 you have after you have reduced your green crop? 

 I think we can do that. That, of course. is a matter 

 which has to be worked out in detail on the land. 

 You have to remember that wo are not only working 

 this farm, but the experimental farm also with the 

 same machinery. 



2044. Mr. Orinixin: I am very glad we are going 

 to have your balance ^hoets. I suppose attached to 

 the ordinary balance sheet will be the yearly valua- 

 tion? We do not have a yearly valuation at all. Our 

 primary p not a profit on the whole of our 



trail-action,. \\".- are principally concerned at the 

 nt timo with Dotting our land ba"k to a normal 

 state, so that we can carry out experiments. 



2HI5. You do not have a valuation at any time of 

 the year? N.> 



2040. Mr. .l/iA-'T Simmons: The thing that strikes 

 me so much with regard to your statement of expendi- 

 ture is> your very hi)ih cost of root production. I 

 (jiiite understand, of course, that yours is more or 

 less an experimental farm? That does not enter into 

 it. 



2047. If it costs an ordinary farmer anything ap- 

 proaching your figures for root production, he could 

 not possibly produce roots, because it would be quite 

 double tin 1 'o-t of production on an ordinary farm. 

 You begin, for iii-tance. in the year 1917. and are 

 spending 1 1 7 IOs. an acre on your roots? Yes. 



201". I make a great many valuations of roots in 

 the course of the year never less than forty valua- 

 tions a year and in 1913-14 I am sure in no one 

 <lid the I'xpend'turn on roots amount to more 

 than half y.mr fi^-ire? IK that on a cash basis or 

 on the unexhausted values? 



2049. On the actual cost of producing the roots, 

 which is paid for by tho incoming tenant to the out- 

 going tenant? With no allowance for unexhausted 

 value? 



2050. Xo. What is done with tho ordinary main- 

 tenance item* hedging, ditching, and so on? Are 

 those carried into the account or not? 



2n."il. Xo. it would not be, but if the outgoing 

 tenant did not leave his hedges and ditches in proper 

 order, he would bo fined for it? There are many 

 items which have to be distributed amongst the 

 various crops and cannot be carried to a particular 

 crop. Wo have allowed for that. 



2052. Even where yon are selling off your roots 

 uhj-h would be forbidden in the ordinary case of 



an ordinary farm holding, because that is never 

 Allowed where you are selling your roots at the 

 market price practically every year shows a loss? 

 Yes. 



2053. The same remark applies to potatoes. Your 

 expenditure on potatoes is almost equal to the 

 Lincolnshire expenditure? Yes. 



2054. You say you could only grow 5 or 6 tons to 

 the acre, whereas the Lincolnshire man would not 

 dream of expending, say, JO an acre- as he was 

 doing two years ago without looking to getting 

 certainly an average of 10 or 11 tons an acre. I 

 shall be abje to see when we get more details from 

 you how you arrive at this, what seems to me, extra- 

 ordinary expenditure upon roots? I think the 

 ordinary farmer underestimates his expenditure on 

 his root crops. 



2055. I do not think so, because we go very care- 

 fully into it and pay the farmer for everything he 

 has done? You say you do not do anything with re- 

 gard to these various items. 



2056. No; but hedging and ditching on a 300 acre 

 farm, we will say, ought not to cost a man more 

 than 25 a year? There are a lot of other things, 

 trademen's bills and .repairs to harness, time lost 

 through bad weather, deprecation, and that sort of 

 thing. 



2057. Do you charge repairs to harness to roots? 

 A proportion of that has to be borne by the root 

 crop. 



2058. Y r ou stated that this year's price of grain 

 would not be satisfactory in your case. Do you 

 realise that the present year's price of grain is the 

 world's price, and that the guaranteed price is only 

 a minimum? Yes, I quite understand that, but 

 of course it does not matter to us whether we grow 

 wheat or any other crop. 



2059. I should like some explanation of how you 

 arrive at what appear to me extremely high prices 

 for the production of roots and potatoes? Yes, you 

 shall have those figures, but I think you will find they 

 are correct. 



2060. Would you say that your farm could he taken 

 as a fair example of tne farms in the county of Herts ? 

 .Not of the gravel soils and not of the alluvial 



land-., but of the heavy clay soils certainly. 

 It is typical of a great deal of the land overlying the 

 chalk in Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and 

 KSM>X, and a very great deal of the heavy land in the 

 Midlands in Northamptonshire, for example. 



2061 . .1/r. Pea : You put your cost of growing 

 wheat at CIS 16s. an acre. Your average for 

 five years is 28 bushels. Supposing for the sake of 

 argument it is 32 bushels tins year at 75s. a quarter, 

 tour quarters would be 15, leaving a deficit of 

 3 16s. Do you sell all your straw? Yes. 



2. What quantity of straw per acre do you get? 

 We shall probably get 30 cwts. of straw. 



2063. That might reduce that loss, say it was 4 

 a ton, to a profit of 2 4s.?- Yes. 



2064. Do you think the conditions will be such in 

 the future that an average yield for the country of 

 32 bushels an acre can make wheat growing profit- 

 able considering the cost of production, labour, 

 manures, and other things? I should very much 

 doubt it, but I do not see at all why that yield should 

 not be increased ; I do not at all see why we should 

 stick at 32. 



2065. How much do you think it could be in- 

 creased? I would rather not tie myself to a figure, 

 but I think unquestionably an increase could be 

 got. I want to make it clear, however, that that is 

 dependent both upon the farmer and the worker 

 deciding that they are going to do their very best to 

 get it. 



2066. Putting their backs into it? Putting their 

 backs into it. 



2067. Assuming there is going to be an increase, can 

 the increase be achieved by the use of more scientific 

 methods, or by increased labour, or increased effi- 

 ciency of labour, or by all fhree combined? Yes. I 

 should put increased efficiency of labour first. 



