CHAPTER V. 

 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS. 



IT is only in recent years that the subject of agricultural 

 economics has been seriously considered, or that any attempt 

 has been made to systematise it. The term is still regarded 

 with some distrust by many farmers, who do not appreciate 

 the fact that the economics of Agriculture represent nothing 

 more than the business side of farming. Like M. Jourdain, 

 who had been talking prose all his life without knowing 

 it, farmers talk economics all their lives unconsciously. 



The business of Agriculture may be conducted as it 

 frequently is with very little mental equipment other 

 than the natural shrewdness of the man engaged in it. 

 In matters of purchase and sale, in dealings with his fellow- 

 men, the average farmer needs little instruction. The 

 popular belief that the countryman is easily outwitted in 

 a bargain by a smart townsman is held mainly by those 

 who have not had dealings with him. He may be " bested " 

 by superior knowledge of the course of the markets, or by 

 reason of a too narrow outlook, but otherwise he does not 

 usually give much away in a deal. 



The basis of modern business is accounts, and here it 

 must be admitted the farmer as a rule is antiquated. There 

 is, no doubt, a rapidly growing appreciation of the advan- 

 tages of a good system of book-keeping and the National 

 Farmers' Union has thrown its influence into the movement 

 in favour of the general keeping of proper accounts. 



Arising out of the war and particularly out of some of 

 the incidents in the later phases of Food Control, was what 

 may now without disparagement be termed a craze for 

 costing. When Lord Rhondda became Food Controller, 

 the system of price control had been started, but it was 



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