194 LAND TENURE 



the views held by the majority of the witnesses, viz., that com- 

 pensation for feeding stuffs should not be based on cost. 



To show how little relation cost price bears to manurial value 

 in the case of some of the purchased articles of food in most 

 common use, they would instance example of this discrepancy 

 which will arise in most valuations between outgoing and incom- 

 ing tenants. Lawes' and Gilbert's tables fix the original manure 

 values of linseed cake and undecorticated cotton cake at 

 2 11s. lid. and 2 5s. 3d. per ton respectively, and the compen- 

 sation value for one ton of each used in the last year at 1 6s. and 

 1 2s. 7d., or nearly the same for each ; whereas on the average 

 selling price at the present time of linseed cake and cotton cake, 

 say, 8 and 4 10s. per ton, the allowance of one-third of the cost 

 for the last year, which is what most scales that adopt cost basis 

 allow, would work out to 2 13s. 4d. and 1 10s. per ton, or nearly 

 double the allowance for linseed as against cotton cake. 



Naturally, in considering the tables of Lawes and Gilbert, the 

 question arises whether they were justified in making such a large 

 deduction as 50 per cent, from the original manure value of the 

 food used in the last year. Those who have carefully read the 

 article in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society published 

 in December, 1897, in which these tables appear, will probably 

 have come to the conclusion that this deduction is not very wide 

 of the mark. Many of those who may be called practical wit- 

 nesses, and nearly all the scientific ones, considered that this 

 deduction, taken all round, is approximately correct, and actual 

 tests and analyses were submitted in support of this contention. 

 One scientific witness contended that it w r as much too high in 

 the case of food consumed directly on the land, though it might 

 not be any too high where much of the food was consumed in 

 open yards. 



The scales which were submitted are mostly fixed ones, but 

 several adopt the principle of division into two or three classes. 

 There was also considerable divergence in the views expressed by 

 the various witnesses on this point. 



The Committee have very carefully considered this question 

 in all its bearings, and whilst they recognise that there is much to 

 be said in favour of a division into three classes, they are of 

 opinion that such classification is too arbitrary and inelastic, and 

 that it would not admit of that proper discrimination of every 

 factor which should govern compensation ; they have accordingly 

 come to the conclusion that the object in view would be best 

 attained by the adoption of a sliding scale applicable to average 

 cases, with no fixed maximum or minimum, but working up and 

 down according to the conditions, not only under which the food 

 is consumed and the resulting manure preserved, but also every 

 other condition which goes to make the improvement of value 

 to an incoming tenant. 



Lawes' and Gilbert's compensation tables for feeding stuffs 

 go back for eight years, and are based on the assumption that a 



