504 



NATURE 



[December 15, 1921 



landlord had the pre-war scale of distribution been 

 maintained. Rents and wages under normal con- 

 ditions are slow to adjust themselves to changes 

 in farming fortune, and, except in a time of violent 

 economic upheaval, it is right that this should be 

 so, for if the landlord may be regarded as a deben- 

 ture holder, and labour as a preference share- 

 holder, then the farmer, as the ordinary or de- 

 ferred shareholder, has to bear the brunt, and if 

 he must take the kicks so also is he entitled to 

 the halfpence. 



Turning now from problems in which either the 

 nation generally or whole classes of the industry 

 are concerned, it may be stated that there are 

 many economic problems arising on the farm 

 itself in the solution of which the individual farmer 

 should be able to derive help from the economist. 

 Some of these problems are so simple that their 

 solution should be obvious, but the fact remains 

 that waste in its most easily eliminated forms is 

 constantly to be met with on the farm. The need 

 for the study of the economic use of manual 

 labour has already been referred to in another 

 connection, but, granted that the balance between 

 the employment of land, capital, and labour on 

 any farm has been established, cases are continu- 

 ally met with where labour is being mismanaged. 

 It is a not uncommon practice at threshing-time 

 to take the horsemen from their work to assist at 

 threshing, and as this operation can be performed 

 only in dry weather, it may be assumed that 

 the horses might usually be employed on thresh- 

 ing days. With manual labour costing about 

 75. 6i. a day and horses about 55. a day, the 

 advantage of hiring casual labour for threshing, 

 even at high rates of pay, will be obvious when 

 it is remembered that the horseman whose horses 

 are standing idle represents a daily cost for the 

 manual work performed by him of some 185. On 

 a Midland counties farm, where the maximum 

 possible horse-hours in a certain week in November 

 last were 238, the time actually worked by horses 

 was found to be eighty-seven, owing to threshing 

 operations, and the wastefulness of the labour- 

 management in such a case is obvious. Again, 

 employers in certain cases object to paving Satur- 

 day overtime to men willing to work, because 

 overtime payments are at a higher rate than those 

 for ordinary time, but they overlook entirely the 

 fact that the Agricultural Wages Board provides 

 no overtime payments to the horses, and thus the 

 cheapest horse-labour on the farm is that per- 

 formed on Saturday afternoon at overtime rates of 

 pay to the horsemen. 



Even-one realises, of course, the importance of 

 keeping horses busy, but not everyone thinks how 

 heavilv the cost of manual labour is increased by 

 idle horses. The maximum number of working 

 days in a year is 312, a total obviously impossible 

 of attainment in practice. Such records as are 

 available show that the days actually worked by 

 horses on the farm will not vreually exceed four- 

 fifths of the maximum. More time may be lost in 

 summer than in winter, a fact not generally real- 



NO. 2720, VOL. 108] 



ised, and the period of maximum unemployment 

 falls between haymaking and harvest. The busy 

 seasons are, of course, the autumn and the spring, 

 when the preparation of the ground for winter and 

 spring corn is going actively forward. In the year 

 191 8 figures were collected to show the percentage 

 of days worked compared with "possible days" 

 in each month on four farms distributed pretty t 

 evenly over England, and the results, thrown to- |: 

 gether, are as follows : — \ 



Percentage of Days Worked to Possible Horse- 

 days on Four Farms in 1918. 



Although the figures represent an average of 

 four farms, it is noteworthy that the results on 

 the individual holdings varied one from another 

 in degree only, and that the months of maximum 

 and minimum employment were the same in every 

 case. The loss of time is far more serious than 

 many people realise. The maximum possible 

 horse-days in the year are 312, and the cost per 

 day of the horses on the above four farms on this 

 basis was 25. yd., whereas, owing to the time lost, 

 the cost on the basis of days worked was 35. yd. 

 Whilst some difference is inevitable, so great a 

 discrepancy as these figures reveal can be avoided 

 by skilful management, and one of the tests of 

 the farmer's efficiency is provided by an examina- 

 tion of the distribution of horse-labour throughout 

 the year on his farm. His cropping and other 

 work should be so contrived as to provide for the 

 uniform utilisation of horse-labour month by 

 month. Under skilful management the differences 

 in the number of days worked by horses from 

 vear to year are extraordinarily slight. On an 

 East Midlands farm, employing twenty-three 

 horses, the days worked per horse during the past 

 six years have been as follows. :^ — 



Year 1913-14 1Q14-15 1915-16 igi6-i7 1917-18 igiE-rg 

 Days worked 



per horse 25025 247 243 236 243 2445 



It may be noted, in passing that figures such as 

 those given for the seasonal employment of horse- 

 labour emphasise the need for a study of the place 

 of the agricultural tractor in farm management, 

 for the busiest times of the year synchronise, 

 more or less, with the seasons when the weather 

 is more uncertain and suggest that the application 

 of speedier mechanical power to field operations, 

 in substitution for slower horse-power, would 

 result in economic advantages in certain cases. 



In connection with the study of economics on 

 the farm the question of ag^ricultural costings 

 naturally suggests itself. Farmers, as a class-, 

 are not accountants and much less are they cost 

 accountants, but this has not deterred many of 

 them from taking part in discussions of farming 

 costs which have been going on in the Press and 



