BookV. valuing labor and materials. 483 



same quantity in a day, to a greater distance, an additional man will be required for every 

 20 yards. 



3082. To find the price of removing any number of cubic yards to any given distance : 

 Divide the distance in yards by 20, which gives the number of wheelers ; add the two 

 cutters to the quotient, and you will have the whole number employed ; multiply the 

 sum by the daily wages of a laborer, and the produce will be the price of 30 cubic 

 yards. Then, as 30 cubic yards is to the whole number, so is the price of 30 cubic yards 

 to the cost of the whole. Example. What will it cost to remove 2,750 cubic yards 

 to the distance of 120 yards, a man's wages being three shillings per day? First, 120 -}- 

 20 = 6, the number of wheelers; then -^ 2 tillers = 8 men employed, which, at three 

 shillings per day, gives twenty-four shillings as the price of 30 cubic yards ; then 30 : 

 24 :; 2,750 and 24 x 2,750 4-* 30 = llOZ. 



SuBSECT. 5. Of Estimating the Value of Agricultural Labor and Materials. 



3083. Estimating the value of work done is a necessary part of agricultural knowledge, 

 and is founded upon the price of labor and the time of performance. The price of 

 labor is every where determined by the operations of the public, and therefore in any given 

 case can seldom admit of much difference of Opinion. In a theoretical view of the sub- 

 ject the proper wages for a laborer in England has been considered for ages, to be a peck of 

 wheat ; and that of a horse the amount of his keep, expenses of a year's shoeing, and ten 

 per cent, on his value or cost price at a fair age, added together, and divided by the num- 

 ber of days such horse is supposed to work in a year ; this brings the value of the day's 

 work of a horse to something more than once and a half the value of the day's work of a 

 man ; so that supposing a laborer's wages two shillings per day, a man and a pair of 

 horses would be worth eight shillings per day. This, however, it mu^t be acknowledged, v 

 is a calculation not to be always depended on, as local circumstances continually intervene 

 to alter the proportions. In all cases of valuing labor, therefore, all that the valuator can 

 do is to ascertain the local price, and to estimate from his own experience the time 

 requisite to perform the work. 



3084. In estimating the value of labor and of materials, considerable difficulty occurs 

 in some departments of agriculture. Thus in valuing fallows and sown crops it is often 

 a nice point to determine satisfactorily the value of the manure or other dressings ; and in 

 valuing the tillages or the condition of the arable lands of an out-going tenant, regard 

 must be had not only to the actual number of ploughings a field may have been subjected 

 to, the preceding or current year, but to the position which the state of that field holds in 

 the rotation, and to the value which may still be in the soil of manures or limings given 

 to former crops. Supposing a field fallowed, limed, and dunged in the year 1820, and 

 tliat when it fell to be valued in the spring of the year 1 824, it was drilled with beans on 

 one furrow, it would be no adequate compensation for the tenant to be paid for one 

 ploughing, the beans, and the drilling; the fallow, the dung, and especially the lime 

 given in 1820, must be considered as extending their influence even to this crop, and there- 

 fore an allowance ought to be, and generally is made for these three articles, besides the 

 mere value of the labor and seed. What this allowance should be it does not seem easy 

 to determine : land valuers and appraisers have certain rules which they go upon, which 

 are known to few but themselves, but which having ourselves been initiated in the busi- 

 ness, we know to differ considerably in diflPerent parts of the country. Some calculate 

 that the value of dung extends to the fourth year, and declines in a geometrical ratio, or 

 in tlie proportion 1, 2, 4, 8. Others limit its effects to three years. Lime is allowed in 

 some places to produce effects for three years only, and in others, especially on new 

 lands, for twelve and fourteen years, and its value is generally supposed to decline in 

 the proportion of 1,2, 3, &c. Naked fallow is generally considered as of beneficial 

 influence for five years, where it occurs every seven or eight years, and shorter periods in 

 proportion. A crop sown on a single furrow after a drilled crop which has been manured, 

 is considered as partaking of the manure or other dressings according to the extent to 

 which these have been given, and generally in the same ratio as in manured fallows. 



3085. In estimating the value of materials alone, the first thing is to ascertain their 

 quantity, and the next their market price. Thus, in the case of heaps of manure, the 

 cubic contents must first be found, by finding the area of the base of the heap, and its 

 mean depth, and multiplying the one into the other ; next the quality of the malerial. 

 must be examined, and the expense of purchasing it in the nearest. town or source of 

 purchase, with the addition of the expense of carriage to the spot where it lies. Ricks, 

 whether of straw or hay, are valued in a similar manner. Crops in a growing state are 

 valued according to what they have cost, including tillage, manures, seed, rent, taxes,, 

 and other out-goings, and ten per cent, on the outlay of capital ; crops arrived at matu- 

 rity are valued according to their quantity and quality, deducting the expenses of reap- 

 ing, threshing, &c. In coal countries an allowance is made for thorn-hedges which 



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