18 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AORICULTURK. 



14 



, mi.] 



MR. JAMU GAUUNKK. 



ICoittinuni. 



a very wide neighbourhood. But ia there 

 mot more than that in itP Is it not generally agreed 

 that a good deal of land which might be profitably 

 uaed for other stock U used for deer to the exclusion 

 of other stock:' There is that fact. 



13,067. Do you think Uiat needs to be dealt with? 

 We hare that in our policy. 



13.088. You did not put that forward. Then with 

 regard to the treatment of game generally, I think 

 you said in answer to a member of the Commission 

 that, except in the wide neighbourhood of the deer 

 forests, the worst offender against food production 

 was the rabbit ? That is so. 



13.089. The rabbit has been unprotected from the 

 farmer for about 33 years, has it not? About that 

 period, I think. 



13.090. So that so far as the history of that ques- 

 tion can guide us, the mere permission to the farmer 

 to kill and destroy game is not always an adequate 

 safeguard even to him. It has not been BO in the 

 case of the rabbit, has it? It may hare been an 

 adequate safeguard to him, but it has not been per- 

 haps an adequate safeguard to his neighbour. 



13.091. At all events you will agree it has not 

 been an adequate safeguard to whatever right the 

 community may have as regards food production? 

 That is so. 



13.092. The national interest is not served? No. 



13.093. There are also, I think you are probably 

 aware, cases in which tenant farmers commute that 

 right for a compensation of some kind? Yes. 



13.094. It is a mistaken practice no doubt, but it 

 does happen occasionally? It does happen. 



13.095. Your other rase was the case, I think, of 

 the very excessive .ha nil rearing of pheasants? Yes. 



13.096. Would it be possible for the neighbouring 

 farmers to protect themselves adequately by merely 

 killing the pheasants on their crops against a neigh- 

 bour who had large covers and reared pheasants there 

 if he did not feed them sufficiently to keep his 

 pheasants at home? Would that protect their crops 

 adequately? Certainly it would devolve upon them- 

 selves, but whether the crops would be thoroughly 

 protected or not from the national point of view is 

 not quite so certain. 



13.097. Ever the farmer would not be able to pro- 

 tect them sufficiently. It would be rather difficult to 

 kill all the game that came on his crops? I may 

 give you an example of that. I was speaking to a 

 gentleman on that subject last night. lie has a farm 

 on the edge of a hilly country where grouse are very 

 plentiful. His objection is that the grouse never 

 come to his quarter at all, because he has permission 

 to shoot them, but go to his neighbours who cannot 

 hoot them. 



13.098. So that it would not be a very adequate 

 safeguard, would it? Not from that point of view. 



13.099. Would it not be really a better safeguard 

 to make it a matter of public administration under 

 the Agricultural County Committees to prevent people 

 from rearing an excessive quantity of game on their 

 ground? It might be if the constitution of your 

 County Committees were properly representative of 

 the national interest and fairly representative of the 

 other interests. 



13.100. Is that not broadly the case now? Yes, 

 broadly it is the case. 



13.101. Has it been reported to you whether the 

 damage from pheasants has been greater or less during 

 the period of the war than it was previously? Wo 

 hare not been much troubled with the evidence lately 

 of damage from pheasants; it has been mostly from 

 grouse; but there is no doubt at all that it exists. 

 Shooting during the course of the war, when so 

 many of our owners and sportsmen have been engaged 

 in deadly warfare, has not been pursued rery much. 



13,103. Mr general information is that there has 

 been a good dal more trouble 'luring the war than 

 there previously had been, in spite of the fart that 

 there was no hand rearing going on? You must 

 remember, a* regard* this question of gam.-, that I 

 hare no game at all on my farm and I am not 

 acquainted with the question from the practical point 

 I riew at all. 



13.103. I thought as Chairman you would know 

 what kind of complaints had been brought before your 

 Union? Yes, we have complaint* coming in at pivtiy 

 regular intervals. 



13.104. Now I want to take you to another point. 

 You speak of education. You are familiar, no doubt, 

 with the work of the West of Scotland College? I 

 am more or less familiar with it. 



13.105. I suppose you agree that, GO far as the 

 education of farmers ia concerned, the best work is 

 that which ia done by the County Extension Lec- 

 turers? So far as the 'farmers are concerned. 



13.106. That is to say, they get access to the farmer 

 who cannot himself go to college? Yea, in a sense 

 that is so, but whether ho gets the proper (scientific 

 foumlatinn for his work is open to question by thai- 

 method as compared with the method of going to the 

 college direct. 



13.107. Yes, but the number who can go to college 

 is extremely small, is it not it is an expensive 

 matter? That is so. 



13.108. Are you familiar with any of the demon- 

 stration areas in which demonstrations are given <>f 

 a whole rotation ami the expense of manuring, and 

 the varieties of seeds, and so on? More or leas. 



13.109. Do you regard that as a valuable method 

 of instruction? Very. 



13.110. With respect to the work of the County 

 Lecturers and also to the demonstration areas I think 

 you know it is the practice of the colleges to give 

 whatever kind of teaching and demonstration is appro- 

 priate to the local character of the industry? Th-vt 



IS. SO. 



13.111. That is to say, it would be useless to have 

 a great apparatus for teaching dairying in East 

 Lothian where there is none, and so on? Precisely. 



13.112. You ngreo that that is the proper course 

 to pursue that naturally whatever teaching is given 

 should be teaching in the industry as it is practised 

 locally? Yes. 



13.113. If you ore dealing with a grass pastoral 

 county, even if there were an opinion that it ought 

 to be cultivated to a greater extent, it would still 

 not be possible for the college to interest people 

 engaged in t4l ordinary farming of that locality in 

 problems of cultivation and cropping, would it? 

 Undoubtedly, that is so. 



13.114. The people would say, " Teach us what v.e 

 are really doing "? Yes. 



13.115. My point is this: Although education, as 

 you have said, is of the utmost importance it would 

 not do much to change the character of the industry 

 in a particular locality? To alter the system of 

 fanning in a locality which had long practised that 

 system would require very clear demonstration. 



13.116. Speaking generally, the people of a locality 

 would say they wanted to be taught to improve the 

 method of farming that they were at tho moment 

 engaged in? Yes, that is the likeliest avenue of 

 progress. 



13.117. So that really education would not bo :i 

 determining element in converting land from gratis 

 to arable cultivation. In a grass county tin- nlm-.L- 

 tion and demonstrations would be on pastoral suli- 

 jecte? That is so; but these people rrcul about the 

 experiments that are carried on in othor parts of 

 the country, and I think teaching would fail if the 

 teacher in the pastoral county win-re the land might 

 also be suitable for arable cultivation under a new 

 set of conditions failed to call attention to th;it fact 

 if ho left out of sight the possible development of 

 arable cultivation in that district. 



13.118. I think you will agrex- it would bo very 

 difficult to begin to interest the people in one locality 

 in lectures really intended to improve th work of 

 those who are engaged in a different t'orm of the 

 industry. People would not come to the lectures in 

 point of fact, would they, to the same extent? They 

 would want to hear about the tilings they were them- 

 selres doing, would they not!'- They would go to hear 

 that lecturer on their own business, but if they took 

 note of the experiments that were going on in other 

 part* of the country, it would certainly have a ten- 

 dency to keep their minds open as to an alternative 

 method of farming. 



