Profits per acre. 
43 
Produce per acre : — 
£ 
s. 
d. 
39 bushels barley at 27.5. per quarter .... 
6 
11 
7 
1^ loads straw at 156*. 
1 
2 
6 
7 
14 
1 
To set against cost of cultivation per acre (as before) 
6 
8 
0 
Net profit per acre . 
£1 
6 
1 
This would make out barley to be a less profitable crop for 
Mr. Prout to grow than wheat, and undoubtedly the land is 
much better suited for wheat than for barley ; it is essentially 
wheat and bean land. 
Oats are even less profitable to grow. As already stated, 
they only occasionally form part of the system, and the 
records concerning them have not been kept throughout. 
Mr. Prout states the case thus : — - 
Produce per acre : — 
£ 
s. 
d. 
6^ quarters oats at 17.5. per quarter .... 
5 
id 
6 
If loads straw at 205. ...... 
1 
15 
0 
7 
5 
6 
To set against cost of cultivation (as before) per acre 
6 
8 
0 
Net profit per acre . 
£0 
17 
6 
From thirty to forty acres of the farm are now sown every 
year with red clover, and this is cut for hay. It is hard to 
say what the average gain from this has been, for seasons are 
so variable and prices so fluctuating. Sometimes, indeed, the 
clover has failed altogether ; at other times it has brought in 
a large and profitable return. It is also recognised as the best 
preparation for wheat. 
So far Mr. Prout’s general estimate, based on the average 
obtained over a series of twenty-five years, has been taken ; 
but though nothing can be said against this as being the real 
test in his case whether he has, taking one season with 
another, made a profit or not, yet the student of the system 
will want to have more particulars given him, to know more 
about the fluctuations from year to year, to ascertain how the 
later years of the quarter-century period compare with the 
earlier ones, and so forth. An average of good years with bad 
ones, and of high prices with low ones, will tell Mr. Prout 
whether he has made money or lost it ; but there are those who 
will want more particularly to know whether, at the present 
time, the system is a paying one. Accordingly the following 
particulars are set out from the actual records that have been 
kept 
