200 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
productive be intensified, The value of the output from the farm per 
man employed is not the only measure by which to gauge the efficiency 
of the management, but is certainly one of primary importance. A man 
with a spade can dig an acre of land in about two weeks at a cost to-day 
of about 41. 10s.; a horseman and a pair of horses can plough an acre 
in about a day and a-half at a cost of about 11. 15s.; a farm mechanic 
on a tractor can break up an acre in about a quarter of a day, and 
uthough in the absence of sufficient data the comparison cannot yet be 
completed by reference to the cost of motor ploughing, it is fairly 
safe to suggest that when all the factors are considered—speed, less 
dependence upon atmospheric and soil conditions, as well as actual cost 
—there will be a still further advantage to be derived by investing the 
manual worker with the control of mechanical power. Thus it may be 
that high labour costs to-day are due in many cases less to the ineffi- 
ciency of labour and more to the inefficiency of management. In a 
recent issue of The Times an agricultural writer expressed the view that 
if the means existed for determining the proportion of the net returns 
of agriculture accruing to-day to labour, it would be found that labour 
was taking an excessive toll of farming results. This view is probably 
very generally held, and it affords a good example of the misconcep- 
tions which may and do arise in people’s minds in the absence of exact 
information upon which to base their assertions. This happens to be 
one of the questions which have been the subject of investigation at 
Oxford, though only on the small scale that the means at the disposal 
of the University has admitted. An investigation was made before the 
War of the Distribution of the Net Keturns of Agriculture as between 
landlord, farmer, and labour. The net returns are calculated from the 
net output, and the net output was ascertained by the method followed 
in the Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United 
Kingdom, 1907 (Cd. 6320). Under this method the cost of materials 
at the works is deducted from the value of the output at the works, and 
the difference constitutes for any industry the fund from which wages, 
salaries, rent, royalties, rates, taxes, depreciation, advertisement, and 
sales expenses, and all other similar charges, have to be defrayed, as well 
as profits. The same basis of calculation was adopted in the Report of 
the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on the Agricultural Output of 
Great Britain (Cd. 6277) made in connection with the Census of Pro- 
duction Act, 1906. In applying this measure of net output to the 
agricultural industry the method is to value the farmer’s capital at the 
beginning of the year and to add to this figure all live and dead stock 
bought during the year, foods, manures, tradesmen’s bills, on-cost and 
establishment charges, &c., and to deduct the total from the sales during 
the year added to the valuation of the farmer’s capital at the end of the 
year. Only in the case of the workers is their share of this net output 
available as net income. The landlord has to incur a considerable 
expenditure upon the farm in the way of repairs and maintenance, and 
this must come out of his share of the net output. From an inquiry 
conducted by the Land Agents’ Society in the year 1909 it appeared 
that about 30 per cent. of the rent received by the landlord is expended 
by him in repairs, insurance, management, and similar payments neces- 
