204 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
It may be noted, in passing, that figures such as those given for the 
seasonal employment of horse-labour emphasise the need for a study of 
the place of the agricultural tractor in farm management, for the busiest 
times of the year synchronise, more or less, with the seasons when 
the weather is more uncertain and suggest that the application of 
speedier mechanical power to field operations, in substitution for slower 
horse-power, would result in economic advantages in certain cases. 
In connection with the study of economics on the farm the question 
of agricultural costings naturally suggests itself. Farmers, as a class, 
are not accountants and much less are they cost accountants, but this 
has not deterred many of them from taking part in discussions of 
farming costs which have been going on in the Press and in the Food 
Controller’s offices for some time past, and the confusion of thought 
on the question of what cost of production really is which these dis- 
cussions have revealed is evidence of the need for study and education 
in costing processes. Few things can be of greater service to the 
farmer than scientific book-keeping carried out and interpreted with 
proper understanding, but few things can deceive him more than 
costing wrongly conducted or misinterpreted. The need for accurate 
thinking is evidenced in nothing, perhaps, so much as in connection 
with the question of the valuation of the raw materials grown on the 
farm, the hay, straw, roots, pasturage, &c., produced for home con- 
sumption in the process of manufacturing milk and meat. There can 
be only one basis of value possible, namely, their cost to the farmer, 
but it is contended, almost universally, that their market price should 
be substituted for the sums that he has actually paid for them. As 
a matter of fact, the bulky feeding stuffs usually produced and con- 
sumed at home rarely have any market value at all. A market value 
is one that can be realised in the market. Thus, corn, meat, and 
certain other commodities have clearly market value because they are 
always saleable, but if all the farmers in the country decided to sell 
their mangolds they would find that the market for mangolds is non- 
existent, and that the prices quoted in market reports represent a few 
deals to satisfy an infinitesimal demand. The same is true of straw 
and, in a slightly less degree, of hay in normal times. Even if the 
difficulty of fixing the market prices of certain products, such 
as turnips, straw, or hay, be ignored, and if it be assumed that 
there be a free market in such things, a fuller consideration of what 
the farmer really does in feeding them to his stock will show how 
inapplicable such values are to his case. The market value of an article 
is the figure at which a willing buyer and a willing seller can agree 
to do business. The farmer who contends that he is justified in 
‘selling’ his roots or hay to his stock is selling them, in point of 
fact, to himself, and seeing that there is only one party to the trans- 
action there ean be no market and, consequently, no market price. 
In the majority of cases each of these things is grown because the 
farmer has need of them in the production of the article or articles 
of food towards which his management is directed. If he could buy 
them more cheaply than he can grow them he would surely do so, but — 
to regard himself as a merchant instead of as a manufacturer, and — 
