26 



CONCLUSIONS. 



The " outcome " arising from Professor Elliot's analysis of Wilton 

 House Home Farm account and the pamphlet, " Production of Cereals 

 and Butcher's Meat Profitable in England/' coupled with this treatise, 

 confirm by minute details the principle upon which the Peel Government 

 founded the abrogation of the Corn Laws ; and this circumstance is 

 demonstrated by the eight-acre test of the two publications before- 

 mentioned, and achieved on the farm in question. During an experience 

 of twenty-three years, Professor Elliot shows by his work that the 

 production of cereals was attained with a profit of £4- 17s. 5d. per acre on 

 the cost of their production; but he also shows that a loss of £2 18s. 8d. 

 per acre was the result of producing the hay, root, and green crops, or 

 conversion into meat products. This loss was sustained through an 

 excessive expenditure of £6 19s. l|d. per acre in feeding stuffs designedly 

 employed in testing how far fertility could be maintained in an inferior 

 type of soil, in conjunction with increased production. This result — the 

 loss of £2 18s. 8d. — was attained, as the eight-acre test demonstrates, 

 by an expenditure of £4- Os. 5|d. per acre in feeding stuffs, the like 

 amount having been profitably expended during the twenty-three years' 

 experiment, as well as borne in the eight-acre test, where the meat 

 products are shown to be profitable to the extent, in A, of Is. 3fd. per 

 acre; and in A I, £2 7s. ll^d., and not at a loss of £2 18s. 8d., as shown 

 in the twenty-three years' experience ; and, consequently, evidencing the 

 result of the application of an abundance of plethoric food, in main- 

 taining fertility and stiffness in the straw of the crops grown. This 

 result should, however, be weighed in conjunction with the course of 

 cropping adopted in the eight-acre test, i.e., four-eighths and not five- 

 ninths of the area is employed in the production of hay, root, and green 

 crops, thus affording a more general average in respect of light and 

 heavy soils. The main feature in the scheme for increased production, 

 is increasing the products grown by augmenting and keeping afloat 

 agricultural capital in the cost of production, provided the Land Laws 

 of the country afford security to the tenant-occupier for investment of 

 his money. Moreover, as regards the cost of production in the expenses 

 incurred in "Protection times," not only that is kept up, but increased; 

 thus affording a support to the mercantile transactions of the country. 



