26 FARMING ON FACTORY LINES 



of the bought-in stores has exceeded the price 

 obtained per live cwt. of the beef. 



This matter could undoubtedly have been arranged 

 differently by simply making no attempt to turn out 

 beef during the winter, and by using all the food 

 during winter for the feeding of a sufficient number of 

 store cattle to stock the land during summer, 

 planning in addition to sell largely in mid-summer 

 and at other times when beef reaches high prices. 



PRICES OF STORE BULLOCKS 



For the information of the reader not familiar with 

 the fluctuations in the prices of cattle, which fluctua- 

 tions are fairly constant, it may be necessary to point 

 out that store bullocks are always relatively and 

 absolutely far cheaper from November to, say, the 

 end of January, than from February onwards when 

 on this particular farm every year a large proportion 

 of bullocks were bought in, despite the writer's 

 adverse advice. 



On the question of the rent charged, one feature 

 is worthy of mention. The area involved varied from 

 year to year. Taking the Irish acre to represent 1.5 

 statute acres; the portion of the estate devoted to the 

 experiment in 1913-14, was 298 acres; in 1914-15, 

 327 acres; and in 1915-16, 360 acres. These varia- 

 tions in the size of the farm introduced several 

 complications. Any land which at the annual 

 grazing auction did not bring £3 per Irish acre came 

 into the scheme, and, in one or two instances, pasture 

 land originally in the scheme, for which at the end 

 of the year a higher grazing rent than the above was 

 offered, was dropped out of the scheme. 



This meant, in practice, that the fields included in 

 the experiment were not within a ring fence by any 



