QUESTIONS OF PRINCIPLE 49 



experience, but must start from the actual cost to him of the 

 materials concerned, however disadvantageously they may 

 have been acquired. 



The Distribution of the Cost of Cleaning Land. The fact 

 that the effect of certain manures endures beyond the 

 removal of the crop to which they have been applied has 

 long received recognition, not only in theory but also in 

 practice, for it is the custom of agricultural valuers to allow 

 two years before the residues from purchased foods are held 

 to be exhausted, whilst to certain manures an even longer 

 duration of effect is allowed. In the same way the duration 

 of other improvements beyond the year in which they are 

 effected is recognized. These matters afford a precedent 

 for an attempt to distribute the cost of cleaning the land as 

 performed at the time of fallowing, or before and during the 

 growth of the root crop, over all the crops which intervene 

 until this operation falls due to be done again. The simplest 

 case is that of the bare fallow. The land has grown a rota- 

 tion of crops, ending with a corn crop, and it is too dirty 

 to be cropped again until it has been fallowed. Whether 

 this be cheap or costly will depend very largely upon the 

 season, but wet or fine there will be a considerable expendi- 

 ture of labour and a year's rent and rates from which the 

 farmer will reap no return in the form of a crop. It is not 

 unusual to put all this outlay to the charge of the following 

 wheat crop, and the cost of ' wheat after bare fallow ' may 

 amount to a very large figure, in an outgoing valuation. 

 As a matter of fact it is not justifiable to look upon the fallow- 

 ing expenses as being the cost of work necessary to grow the 

 wheat crop alone, for all the crops following in the rotation 

 will benefit by it, and a division of the total cost should 

 be made between all the crops accordingly. The same case 

 arises when fallow crops replace the bare fallow in the system 

 of management, with the difference that here a distinction 

 must be drawn between work done as being necessary to 

 secure the crop, and that which is performed only to clean 

 the land. 



In either case a certain figure is found which represents 



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