far:m accounts i3o 



THE DEMONSTR.\TION FARM 



A demonstration farm must be a success commercially 

 or it will not serve its object. It differs entirely from an 

 " experimental farm " ; which is not supposed to pay — 

 it is really a " research farm." 



We are behind other countries in regard to demonstra- 

 tion farms ; only quite recently can we be said to have 

 had any at all, and the worst of it is that those we now 

 have are losing heavily. This is no good at all, but the 

 demonstration farm in continental countries pays, and 

 pays well, and it must be made to pay here. 



The demonstration farm is essential to our future 

 developments ; without it we shall never get an accurate 

 system of costing. 



And one reason why our new demonstration farms do 

 not pav is because in England we can rarely find the right 

 type of manager to handle them. A highly qualified 

 man is needed, and though of course we have many 

 highly qualified agriculturists in England, they will not 

 accept the post of manager of a Government farm for a 

 salary of ^(^500 or ;(^6oo a year ; they can do far better 

 than that on their own. A first-class manager should 

 earn an income of from /^looo to £1500 a year, and the 

 bulk of it should be derived from a percentage on the 

 profits he has earned for the farm — payment by result 

 is the soundest of all business principles -but unfortu- 

 nately it is a principle which is not understood by the 

 Imperial Treasury ; if it were, we should have a very 

 different show ing for the expenditure of public money ! 



Then again our existing demonstration farms are not 

 real demonstrations on a commercial basis. They are 

 mixed iij) with settlement schemes ; ex-service men 



