148 



19 Auyu.1, 1919.] 



hOTAL COMMISSION ON AGR1C1TLTI UK. 



MR. J. O. VIXTKH, F.S.S. 



[Continued. 



3603. What U the particular cause of your 

 pessimism:- It has been the most unremunerative 

 business in the country. A roan has just scraped a 

 living together. I could give you one instance of 

 that. Where I was a pupil the man was one of the 

 most practical farmers in South Yorkshire. He 

 farmed 600 acres of land for 40 years. He commenced 

 with a certain amount of money. He had no family. 

 He was very careful indeed in his habits and he 

 always had pupils. When he died he left 6,000, and 

 he must have had nearly that sum when he started. 



3694. That would depend upon his rate of expendi- 

 ture when he was alive P As I say, he waa very 

 careful in his habits. 



3685. You go on to say that the depreciation was 

 overrated, and that the return from farming was all 

 that could reasonably be expected, taking into con- 

 sideration the healthy and pleasant lives which 

 farmers enjoy? That is why I am farming to-day. 

 We cannot value health. That is to say, we cannot 

 appraise it exactly; if we get health and pleasure 

 and recreation out of it; but it does not follow that 

 the person who has to get a living out of it should 

 take up agriculture, because if I had had no other 

 source of income during my first ten years of farming 

 I should have been in the Bankruptcy Court. 



3696. Looking at your returns from farming since 

 then, I should say there was not any prospect of your 

 ever having to go there ? I hope not. 



3697. Mr. Prosier Jonei : I think you farm your 

 own land? I do. 



3698. If you were a yearly tenant, would you sink 

 as much capital in your farm as you do now? It 

 would be unwise if I did not if I could. 



3699. You think it would pay you better even to 

 risk it if you were n yearly tenant? I think it always 

 pays one to equip their farm as well as one possibly 

 can. 



3700. Even with the risk of being turned out in 

 13 months P Now you are on the subject of security of 

 tenure. 



3701. Yes? I think security of tenure is very 

 desirable. 



3702. Do you favour State interference in agri- 

 culture, or would you prefer being left alone, as 

 we hear some farmers would wish to be? 



Thr Chairman: I think that question has been 

 answered. Mr. Vintcr said it was impossible for a 

 farmer to go on unless he was guaranteed by the 

 State. 



The Witneis: I do not think that is this gentle- 

 man's point. 



3703. Mr. Prouer Jonei: What I wanted to know 

 was whether you are of the same view as these farmers 

 who say they would prefer to be left alone and would 

 do better if they were left alone? I think if wo were 

 left alone for the next four or five years we should 

 do better without control, but after that the deluge. 



3704. Mr. Longford : Mr. Ashby questioned you 

 nbout the unexhausted values being carried forward 

 in your balance-sheets at 35s., say, pre-war? Yes. 



37<i."i. You spoke also of the removal of the reserve 

 fertility of the land to a greater amount than 35s. ? 

 I put it at 3 or 4 an acre. 



3706. When you carried forward unexhnu-t. d 

 manures in your own land that would be as though 

 you were calculating as between an outgoing tenant 

 and an incoming tenant? You are on the subject of 

 tenant right valuation? 



3707. Yes? When I used to debit and credit at 

 the end of the year that account with exhausted 

 manures and seeds, and then debit the new seeds, I 

 found that the differriuv at the end of the year for 18 

 years was so fractional that I have ceased to do it. 



3708. My point is that as an outgoing tenant it 

 would have been your duty to leave a good deal of 

 fertility in the land so that it might be in a fair 



tat* of cultivation?' I do not know about duty. I 

 In nut know that I should take it as an absolute 

 duty, but it would have happened as a fact. 



37( n. The amount you have transferred as unex- 

 hausted on your balance sheet did not represent the 

 whole of the fertility that might have been removed 

 from the farm? N" 



3710. Under the stress of heavy cropping during 

 the war and the nation's need, and your inability to 

 get suitable manures, you have lifted from the soil 

 a greater amount of fertility than you would have 

 carried forward in an ordinary balance sheet? That 

 is my contention. 



;t711. That would be very necessary as between the 

 amount you carried forward on the balance sheet 

 and the amount that is now owing by the farmers to 

 the land in consequence of heavy cropping? Yes. 



371'2. You have been questioned about page 5 of 

 your little leaflet, and unless I misunderstood you 

 said the figures you have put down there do not 

 represent the cost of growing an acre of corn? No, 

 that is costings. 



3713. Do the figures up to the 29th September, 

 1919, of 9 18s. an acre represent the cost for each 

 acre of your .')20 acres? Yes, for the whole occupa- 

 tion ; but, of course, the figures have been revised. 



.(714. Yes, the 10 10s. would represent the 

 receipts per acre from the whole of those 320 acres? 

 Yes. 



.'171.5. Deducting the 9 18s. cost from the 10 10s. 

 receipts, it leaves a profit of 12s. per acre? Yes. 



371G. In that amount have you put down anything 

 for your own time and management expenses? No, 

 nor have I put dowu anything for interest on capital. 

 It is in that column I have revised my figures. 



3717. I put it to you, you have made a very close 

 study of farming, and that you are somewhat above 

 the average farmer in intelligence:' I am uot a 

 farmer. 



3718. At any rate, you understand farming? I 

 think so. 



3719. You have been at it all your life, have you 

 not ? No, not all my life for the past 26 years now, 

 and, of course, I did some farming 50 years ago. 



3720. I put it to you that very few farmers in your 

 locality would be able to obtain the same good result* 

 from farming as you yourself have been able to ob- 

 tain because of your better methods? I confiden- 

 tially see a good many farmers' accounts in various 

 capacities, and I am justified in saying that, 

 although I am not a farmer by profession, farmers 

 as a rule do not do it as well as 1 have done. I 

 attribute that to my knowledge of upkeep accounts, 

 to my long experience in other businesses of business 

 methods, and I think perhaps to a fair practical 

 knowledge of agriculture. That is a romliination of 

 things which the ordinary tenant farmer, perhaps I 

 may say, docs not possess. 



3721. I submit to you that your farm is about tin- 

 right size for economical working? I should think 

 it is rather less in acreage from that point of view. 

 I have written other papers, and 1 have generally 

 taken tho standard of economy as regards size as 400 

 acres. 



3722. Throe hundred and twenty acres of tillage 

 farmed as yours is would be very much, from the 

 standpoint of economy, on the same basis as a very 

 nun -li larger farm with a larger area of pasture? 

 No, I think 1 stand at a little disadvantage in that 

 respect, because if you could spread the salary of 

 your foreman or bailiff over 1,000 acres instead of 

 over 300 the percentage of expenses is less than those 

 of tho smaller occupation, and there would be some 

 saving, perhaps, also in the labour bill not much, 

 but some, and perhaps in the horse account, too. 

 I think that the 1,000 acres should be managed at 

 rather less per acre than the smaller holding. 



3723. Your farm of 320 is much more economically 

 worked than a 100-acre farm would be? Yes, dis- 

 tinctly. 



