Some of the Principles which should determine 

 Compensation for the use of Foods and Manures. 



THE task which is before me this afternoon is, you know, one 

 of great difficulty. The proper compensation to be given under 

 various circumstances for the use of purchased foods and 

 manures upon a farm is a subject beset with complications. 

 I enjoy, however, a few special advantages. I am addressing 

 an audience which includes men thoroughly familiar with the 

 problems of which I have to treat. It also fortunately 

 happens that the veteran investigators at Eothamsted Sir 

 J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert have just given us their 

 latest views on the subject in the Journal of the Koyal 

 Agricultural Society, 1897, p. 674, and have republished in 

 a revised form their table showing the calculated manure 

 value of the various foods consumed on the farm, the former 

 estimated values being altered so as to correspond with the 

 present market prices of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and 

 potash. I am thus relieved from a discussion of one important 

 section of the subject, and am able to give fuller attention to 

 other matters. 



My object to-day is to bring before you certain questions 

 which arise from a scientific consideration of the subject, and 

 also to make you acquainted with certain facts, the result of 

 actual experiments, which will help, I think, to inform the 

 valuer's judgment, and enable him to come to a more correct 

 decision upon the questions before him. To suggest a definite 

 scheme of valuations is not my purpose ; it would be pre- 

 sumptuous on my part to attempt to do this. Every detailed 

 scheme of valuations must be made by local men, by persons 

 intimately acquainted with the systems of agriculture pursued 



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