J o z m u l of Agricultural Economics. 36 1

Drscussrow ON MR. CURRIE’S PAPER. Professor Edgar Thomas (in the Chair):

At this moment I am not going to pretend that I am sorri that I have to deputise for Sir James Scott-Watson, for nothing could give me greater pleasure than to induct Mr. Currie to the Presidential Chair of this Society. Mr. Currie deserves this honour for many reasons-for his life-long services to our Society as well as for his own personal contribution to the furtherance of agricultural economics both in this country and in the international field.

Up to the present the Agricultural Economics Research Institute at Oxford is the only institution which has given two Presidents to our Society. I am sure you will all agree that i t is right and fitting that from today the Oxford Institute will share this distinction with Dartington Hall-that unique establishment which has played such an important role’ in the story of agricultural economics in this country and abroad.

Mr. Cume has probably had a better opportunity than anyone else.of putting into practice his theoretical studies in the field of farm management. It is to his credit that he has taken full advantage of the chances which have come his way. I have long regarded him as our most advanced practical thinker in farm management. When I look at Mr. Cume and think of him as an expert in farm management I come to the conclusion that there are three important qualifications for success in that particular field. The first is without doubt to be born on Arran, the second is to have the good luck to spend the greater part of one’s working life in the soft South-west, and the third is to have had the opportunity which Mr. Cume has had of knowing personally practically every one of the significant workers in farm managemenf,research not only in this country but all over the world. I am glad that he has chosen A Review of Fifty Years’ Farm Manage- ment Research ” as the subject of the Presidential Address which I have now the great pleasure of asking him t o read.

C . H . Blagburn: I should like to begin, kIr. Chairman, by echoing what you yourself said in introducing

our new President. I t is a real pleasure and a privilege to be invited to open the discussion and to thank our new President for his Presidential Address, and I am sure I am expressing the thoughts of everyone here when I say how glad we all are to welcome one so human and so practical as Jock Cume to be our President for 1955-56. I suppose it is over thirty years since Jock was first tempted by the alluring view southwards from‘ the border (like several others of his countrymen) and most of that time has been spent I believe in association with that remarkable experiment in rural reconstruction which we know as Dartington Hall. I am quite certain that both he and Dartington have mutually benefited by that association. We must not forget either-for no mention has been made of this-the valuable work which Jock has done and is doing still as one of the back- room boys in connection with the International Conference of Agricultural Economists which I believe had its origin at Dartington. I t is true to say, I think, that the thirty years or so which our President has had in association with the subject of farm economics and farm management have developed in him a blend of practical experience, economic .theory and sound commonsense which gives him the pungency which we associate with the dish that is known as “ curry.”

I hope, Mr. President, you will take it as a compliment and not as a criticism when I say that yo11 have a natural exuberance in your ideas and in your style of expressing them which would not have lecl one to expect quite so concise and orderly an account of developments over the past fifty years. I feel that the production of this paper must have involved a tremendous piece of self-discipline !

In reading the paper, when I came to the sub-heading ” Econometrics ” (I hope I have pronounced it rightly) I felt a certain feeling of envy; because reading that para- graph one felt the implication that our President understands the writings of Heady. I must say that, as far as I am concerned, he speaks a languagc which I don’t understand. .knyway, when I came to the end of that paragraph, I did feel that perhaps, like me, he obtains a certain amount of his appreciation at second-hand; because he said, if you remember, ’ I I have been assured that they give remarkably useful indications of the desired relationship over a wide range of conditions.” I personally have to be assured about anything that has been said by Heady.

We must thank our new President for the valuable reminder that he has given US of the work which was done for us by the pioneers in this field which perhaps we may tend to forget. So much is being said nowadays on the subject of farm management, and developments are going on so rapidly, that perhaps we may forget that research in this geld is not a recent invention in the United Kingdom but that others abroad have

I must say that my first reaction to his paper was one of surprise.

JwrnaE of Agricultural Economics.

done far more of the work than we have done ourselves. Indeed I think that is one’s main reaction to our President‘s address-the comparatively small proportion of the paper which is taken up by the work done by those of us who live in the U.K. as compared with other countries and particularly the United States. I don’t think the paper is in any way out of balance in that respect: it does put things in their true perspective. I t is perhaps a sobering thought that so much of this work has been done elsewhere and that a comparatively small proportion of the work in agricultural economics which has been done in this country has been done in the field of farm management. It happens to be my job to impart to people i n the National Agricultural Advisory Service some of the results of research in farm economics in a form in which i t can be used by them for advisory purposes; and one cannot help being struck by the comparatively small amount of published material in this country which is valuable for that purpose. It is, I think, a defect, which wants to be remedied, and which could be remedied.

There is obviously, as our President has pointed out to US. a great deal of room for work, for example, in the field of social and psychological studies, in connection with supply and demand trends, the outlook for prices and 90 on-things which, as he puts it, are “ factors which are outside the ‘ farm gate ’ and which influence farming decisions.” But while it is true that there is a great deal of room for more work of that kind, we mustn’t forget that there is also a great deal of room for more work on factors within the “ farm gate,” and I would like to make a plea for more work of that kind which can be used to help farmers to improve their management. I think we need more investigations of specific farm problems of the kind illustrated by the recent work published by Gill at Newton Abbot on the economics of the use of the combine and pick-up bailer on small farms. But what we particularly want is a more intelligent use of the vast mass of material accumulated in the course of that type of work which we have to do, which i s called “ required work ” and which comes out in the form of the results of the farm management survey and in our various enterprise cost studies. We want a more practical and intelligent use of that material.

There is, as again our President has pointed out, a tendency to express the results of these surveys as “ averages ” : in that form they are not of very much use to the farmer who wants data that will help him in the improvement of his farm management. So much of the basic material that goes into those averages could be used for the purpose of studying those factors which lead to higher profits on farms and we really do need a great deal more work of that kind on the material which is already to hand. I know it can be argued that material which has been obtained for one purpose is very rarely suitable for another. I don’t altogether accept that view. I know also that there is a school of thought which says that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is what is wanted and that in the course of that kind of research into matters which, as far as could be seen, had no particular practical value, many fundamental discoveries have been made-quite unexpected ones-which have contributed to the welfare of mankind. I do not personally altogether accept that point of view. It seems to me that unless you happen to have an overwhelming, consuming curiosity on some subject or other which may not have any apparent practical value-in which case you ought to be given your head-you might just as well settle down to investigate problems which appear likely to produce some practical results; in the course of doing that you may just as likely, by accident, stumble upon some of these fundamental discoveries which have led, for example, in the world of physics, to such benefits as the atomic bomb-but that is by the way. I do think we need to have more practical objectives in mind in the projects which we undertake for research purposes. I know it has been said (it was whispered in my ear yesterday by someone who shall be nameless) that this question of farm management is rapidly becoming a world bore,” and it may be that we who work on that subject become obsessed with the importance of the field in which we move and forget there are also other fields. Nevertheless I still think there does remain a great deal to be done in this field. I would like to repeat, Mr. Chairman, our thanks to our President for his address.

Dr. R. McG. Carslaw: I am one of those ancient fogies to whom the President referred and my memory,

iike his, goes back to some of the early efforts of the economists in this country. Some of these early efforts and endeavours were very amusing and I suppose it is one of the privileges of my age to be allowed to reminisce, for a few minutes. I can remember, for example, at the beginning of the research in farm economics a t Cambridge when we all specialised on cost accounting. In our usual enthusiasm we accepted the statements of the advisers of that period, that cost accounting was the solution and panacea for the farmers’ problems. I also remember the trouble, the agitation, that I had to go through before I got sanction from the Ministry of Agriculture to replace the slide rule which had been our sole method of calculation for the first four or five years with P Burroughs

Jolcplpal of Agricultural Economics. 363 adding machine which cost L32 10s. Od. I had great difficulty in persuading, first of all, the Drapers Professor of Agriculture a t Cambridge that a slide rule was not necessarily the best mechanical means of going through the arithmetic involved in cost accounts. but also I had great difficulty in persuading the Ministry of Agriculture that such an immense. sum as L32 10s. Od. could be justified to the Treasury. A few days ago I re-visited Cambridge and indulged in the pleasure of going through the now greatly enlarged farm economics branch and. of course, saw, I suppose, many thousands of pounds worth of mechanical aids to the calculations which are carried out every day.

There are one or two things in the Presidential Address that rather surprised me. I think it was in the opening paragraph where Cume said that it was rather astounding, or amazing, how easy it was to make profits in farming when prices were rising, and how difficult it was to make profits when prices were falling. Personally I think if you tried to persuade a farming audience that there was anything amazing or astounding they would not know what you were talking about. When I was learning cost accounts 35 years ago, at the time of the depression in 1920-22, there was a cartoon in Punch of one of the new advisory staffs trying to persuade a poultry farmer that he should keep accounts in order to increase his efficiency. The poultry farmer was replying to the advisor that he didn’t see any point in keeping accounts because when prices were good there was no need to worry and when prices were bad there was nothing to put into books anyway. I think perhaps that there was quite a lot in that argument.

Later on in my career as a professional economist I had an opportunity of visiting lmerica and seeing and studying under Dr. Wall and other eminent American economists of the time. A t that period I was beginning to discover that my facility for understanding statistics was very limited. I remember discussing with Ezekiel, about 1930, whether the advanced statistical methods which were then being developed were really a necessary function in the development of farm management, and I remember how immensely relieved I was when he said that in his opinion the type of data collected in farm manage- ment work were really not suitable to the very advanced statistical approaches. I was so relieved by that statement coming from so eminent an authority that I there and then decided it was not worth my while to try to learn the statistics which now seem to be a t the fingertips of all the new graduate assistants.

I am afraid I look at the problems of farm management now much more from the point of view of the farmer than from the point of view of the economist. I am perturbed sometimes when I see what great stress is laid by economists on the potential of theoretical advances in technical or economic efficiency. The farmer, of course, is continually pressed for time; time is one of his main adversaries whom he is constantly trying to defeat. Very often he is unable, owing to the pressure of time, to carry out the theoretically most desirable practices and I have the feeling that as a result too often he is blamed as being unenterprising, unintelligent and inefficient. I am not in any sense an antagonist of efficiency; I think efficiency and progress are not only desirable but necessary.

We are often inclined to forget that a range in efficiency from low to high is not a characteristic of the farming community alone. There is a range in efficiency of individuds in every industry and profession, not excluding the N.A.A.S. or the economic staffs of the Universities. Ideally, one should always try to make the least efficient members of a community more efficient. Immediately after the war I saw a bulletin with a compli- cated calculation showing that if every farmer was as efficient as the most efficient farmer the production of food in this country would go up by an enormous percentage and the costs would come down quite substantially. That sort of calculation when it is put over seriously of course is just stupid, and also very annoying to the people concerned. I would ask that advisory economists and N.A.A.S. officials should bear in mind that other professions, other industries, in the country have the same range and perhaps even greater ranges of efficiency, and show some tolerance to the farming community as a whole.

.i vtlwr Jones: I would like to be associated with the tribute that has been paid to our President

for the extraordinary pioneer work he has done not only a t Dartington Hall but elsewhere. I think he was the first to realise that the farm management approach must be related very closely indeed to the technical aspects of agriculture and he refers to that in his papef;. I think the danger in the past has been that we thought that farm management was not quite the thing.” and that agricultural economics was something of a little higher academic status than farm management. Farm management is a marriage between economics and technology and if we forget one or the other then we shall be in danger. Following up Carslaw’s remarks, it would not be a bad idea if we looked. realistically, at the low output farmers, whose efficiency cou!d be increased, without being in any way intolerant. There could be very much improvement.

I would like to refer to one thing that is exercising my mind a great deal, and that is the place of farm management on the experimental husbandry and university farms.

364 Journal of =Igricultural Economics. There appears to me to be a tendency to look a t these farms as places where you can carry on more and more experiments, very often without any reference to their economic implications. Is i t possible for these experimental husbandry farms, and other similar farms, to look at the problems that a:! facing the farmer from a different point of view ? Can we carry on ‘ I systems of farming experiments there, rather than ad hoc experiments on particular crops or stock ? I would like to have Mr. Currie’s view on that. It appears to me that we have not progressed very far in forty years so far as that kind of work is concerned.

We in the N.A.h.S. would not have been able to go as far in our work with district officers as we have had i t not been for the pioneer work done by the people like Carslaw 25 or 30 years ago, and by all provincial agricultural economists and their staffs, assisted by the co-ordination work of the economic division in the Ministry. We are indebted to them for a very great deal. But where are we going from here ? I look forward t o the day, and it is near, when all farm management work of a local character, what we call general practitioner work, will be done by the district officer. But we are going to need still more research work. Upon what lines do the provincial agricultural economists, and Mr. Cume for example, think that future investigational work will develop that can be of use to our district officers ? The success of farm management advisory work SO far as the N.A.A.S. is concerned will depend on the competence of the men themselves, but above all on the flow of information and intelligence from agricultural economics departments.

Dr. J. R. Raeburn: I was wondering, after our discussion of the Example farm last night, whether we

could use our President as an example agricultural economist. He has the advantage already of being pretty fully recorded I If you look back in the Journal of this Society, the Journal of the Animal Production Society, that of the Grassland Society and the Reports of the Intzmational Conferences, some of you will be a little surprised at the ” gems of wisdom which have been propounded by our President in the past. Not only that, he is recorded, we all recognise, in the work and the farms of Dartington Hall itself, and that, I think, will be a lasting memorial to him. Difficulties arise in accepting him as an example agricultural economist when we look at his character of mind and spirit. The truth is that he is much more progressive than many of us, a lot more prepared to be the pathfinder, to quote Mr. Barker. He is also far above average in his practical experience apd in his ability to judge new technical developments not only from an economic point of view but from a technical point of view too. H e is, after all, a successful farmer, and how few of us are that. I would also point out that he is exceptional in a very large degree because, partly as a result of his direct responsibility and partly as a YFsult of his own attitude of mind, he has been led to take what he has himself called

the microscopic approach to farm management problems.” And, again using the ,words of Mr. Barker last night, he has picked winners so often in the past. If you look through the Journals, at his own paper of 1933, or the discussion of Mr. Pettit’s paper in 1939, you will see that many of the things which are popular and in which we are engaged today are already down there as things t o work on. Let us look particularly at some of the proddings that are in his paper today: the need for more input-output data, a franker recognition of uncertainties and so on. He refers to the natural scientists, I suggest, as well as ourselves. In these unsettling days the President is exceptional in that he has been prepared to have himself and his work demonstrated and inspected very fully. He has taken a very full part, as many of us know, in the young farmer movement and other rural groups.

I must conclude by saying that I think we are honoured to have Jock Cume as ou‘r President and as our example agricultural economist, and long may he be recorded.

Dr. iMargaret Wright: I should like to pay a tribute to this paper, To those of us who are learning agricultural

economics the hard way it is a treat. I would like t o suggest for the benefit of people like myself, that when this paper comes to be printed it should be accompanied, if possible, by a very full list of references.

Profcssm A . N. Dtrckham: I would like to support the suggestion hinted a t by Currie, and specifically by Arthur

Jones, of using experimental farms to obtain input/output ratios and other physical data needed for farm management advisory purposes. To date, farm management data, and hence advice on this subject, have been based on statistics obtained by the survey method. This is very useful but has its limitations. I realise that, to be effective, the experimental approach might require substantial numbers of acres or animals. But it could, I feel, be used t o clarify some important current or anticipated economic problems such as the

Journal of Agricultural Economics. 365 relative merits for milk production of high concentrate feeding (aciyocated by Boutflour!: of forage farming (advocated by Stubbs), and of the orthodox methods of feeding.

One reason why we need to use the experimental method as distinct from the survey method is that the former could, I think, be used to get results more quickly than the latter, which must necessarily be based on I‘ after the event ” analyses of current practice. Experiments might, indeed, be used to throw light on anticipated problems which have not yet affected the commercial farmer; for example, the immersion sterilisation of milking equipment.

At present technical changes are occurring faster than economic changes in, for instance, the level of demand for specific commodities. With the coming of nuclear energy, the speed of technical change is likely to accelerate still more. This wil l add to the already complex problems of “ decision-making ” by farmers.

In my view, decision-making on’ the farm is more difficult than decision-making in industry or Government administration. This is because the farmer has to take day-to- day and even hour-to-hour decisions in a complex, constantly varying and highly integrated biological field. In farming, as distinct from a factory or Government office, a very high proportion of decisions have repercussions throughout the organism.

To make good decisions quickly the farmer must have in his mind a whole and vivid picture of his farm as it is at the moment of decision and as it wi l l be (or may be) two days, two weeks, or two years later. He must see his farm as what the psychologists call a “ gestalt.” The industrialist need, in many cases, only look at one bit of his picture when taking a decision; the farmer must see his picture as a living whole. This was never easy, but it becomes harder with each major technical advance. Part of our job is to provide the farmer with management data which will help him to see his farm more clearly and more accurately so that he can more easily foresee not only the husbandry repercussions but also the effect on his bankbook of decisions born of frequent and ever more numerous technical advances. Experimental farms could play a major role in providing management data for this purpose.

V. H. Beynon: I think i t is true to say that we do need more work on these experimental farms.

And those farms must surely be representative of the type of farming in a particular area. I think that a t the present moment we are in real danger of creating absolute confusion amongst the farming community. I can think of two reasons for this. First of all i t is because there is disagreement amongst scientists themselves about the effect of certain practices. Silage has been mentioned. Why has not silage been introduced ? It has been advocated over a good many years now and its advantages have been shouted from the housetops, but recently I was told that losses in silage making may be as high as 45 or 50 per cent. That is quite considerable and much more than has been generally anticipated in the past. We ought to make absolutely sure of our facts before we start plugging a theme.

The second point I wished to make was that we have to beware of reporting in the press. I am referring in particular to Professor Duckham’s reference to the Boutflour and the Stubbs schools. It is akin, I suppose, to the Russell and the Paterson schools. I was in Bristol at a meeting some time back when both Russell and Paterson were present and I expected fireworks. Here were two experts, diametrically opposed, or so I had been led to believe by reports in the farming press. On that occasion the meeting was characterised by complete unanimity of opinion. These two people had always been refemng to two different sets of conditions: Paterson thinking of his large farms and Russell on the other hand thinking of the small farmer.

I cannot let this opportunity go without paying a tribute to our President, partly because I have the good fortune to be in Newton Abbot, quite close to Dartington. It may well be that Currie is now known nationally and internationally but the real test of the character of a man is the way in which he is regarded in his own community. I can assure everybody here that Currie is really a friend and advisor of every farmer and everybody else in the County of Devon. I would like to join with the others in complimenting him on his able Presidential address.

E. Dawson: I was particularly interested in Dr. Carslaw’s remarks on the use of statistics in farm

management. I did not have the advantage of meeting Ezekiel, nor have I had the advantage that some of my contemporaries have had of sitting at the feet of some of the present day American giants, but I can say that I came to very much the same sort of conclusion on the use of statistics, on the basis of my own experience, as Carslaw did. When I first came into the service and made my first acquaintance with statistical

middle of the road

366 Journal of Agricultural Economics. methods, they came as a revelation and seemed to offer tremendous advantages. However, the difficulty I ran into when I tried them out was that the results I obtained seemed to be in conflict with farming commonsense. A good many farmers’ sons like myself were brought into very close contact with farming problems at an early age and that experience of farming I find conflicts with all my recent experience. I think i t is necessary to realise just what is the difficulty with statistical methods. One very great difficulty is that in using statistics the general tendency is not merely to accept a new tool, but to adopt a complete philosophy. Another is that in using statistics one tends to concentrate on the numerical or quantitative aspects, thus closing one’s eyes to a whole range of phenomena which one ought to be taking into account.

I think we have been very lucky today in having several pointers as to how we should go about this problem, and I have been particularly interested in what Professor Duckham has said. I am convinced in my own mind that the “ gestalt ” approach is infinitely more valuable. We can also df?w inspiration from the qqotation which we see every week on the front page of Nature: To the solid ground of NBture trusts the Mind that builds for aye.” In our case the solid ground of nature is the farm.

W . E. Cave: I should like t o underline one point in the paper. For the young farmer starting

farming adequate capital is a real problem, but i t is also a problem for the established farmer. With rapid inflation and high taxation it is becoming increasingly difficult to finance expanding production and new methods. I hope that this lead which the President has given us will result in a paper on this most important subject in the not too distant future.

W . E. Richardson: As one of the younger members of the Society I would Like to thank Mr. Cume for

his stimulating address on the subject of farm management. From my own small experience in the field of farm management one of the greatest shortcomings appears to be the lack of information on physical inputloutput relationship on the farm. This has already been mentioned by several previous speakers but it appears to me the situation might be remedied partly by making available to agricultural economists the results of N.A.A.S. field experiments which have not only recorded the physical inputs but physical outputs. Again, in our own farm management survey investigations every effort should be made to obtain an increased accuracy in the physical information usually collected and in addition the physical aspects of the input side, in particular feedingstuffs, fertilisers and seeds, should be looked a t in much more detail.

Ancrum Evans: The need for farm manFgement work being a combined operation is shown clearly

in the Ministry’s pamphlet Farming as a Business,” and my profession of accountancy shows up extremely badly by criticisms implied in various parts of that pamphlet. Do you perhaps confuse the search for principles of farm management technique with their application in day-to-day work ? If you paid attention to combined operations and got the ordinary run of the mill accountant in the ordinary provincial or market town to pay more attention to your work, would you not then be able to go forward on a wider front ?

My second point refers to credit. Capital is the farmers’ own money, credit is the additional money that he gets from outside. .4nd in this field there is a new movement. There is operating by the N.F.U. Development Co. a credit service unit, under the auspices of which the Hampshire Farmers have started a pilot scheme for credit. There are other credit organisations on the stocks but I cannot say more than that. If people come forward with their credit problems, solutions may be found co-operatively.

Dr. Margaret Wright: A great deal of attention is paid to getting the farmer greater income by improving

his own methods. I think it should be remembered that farming has produced a greater improvement in output since the war, or during the years since 1939, than any other industry in the country. Another important thing to note is that, although a great deal of attention is paid to it, not nearly enough stress is put on the extraordinary high costs of all the equipment that the farmer has to buy. His labour costs are high and you cannot do much about it; his food costs are high and we in particular are doing something about that. But all the costs of brooms, brushes, cement, tar and the thousand and one things he buys do not seem to me to show any signs of coming down in price. The farmer does not get sufficient credit for what he has done; and costs are crippling him. Also you have to remember that when he does spend his capital on equipment he has to buy machinery that stands depreciation and requires upkeep and storage room in a way that no other

Jourwl of Agriculcural Economics. 367

industry has to do. In the pharmaceutical industry to which I belong a machine has to work jolly hard, sometimes two shifts, to pay for itself. The farmer has t o use a machine for perhaps six weeks or four weeks in a year, and it is expensive and it has depreciation. These are obstacles that I believe few other industries present.

J . R. Cuwie: Mr. Chairman, you have been so kind to me that my problem in winding up this

address is a comparatively easy one. First of all, you have beer. in general agreement with what I have said, and have made personal references which I deeply appreciate; then you have left me only a short space of time to make any further contributions. To meet the latter, I shall not attempt to deal with all the points separately, but will try to incorporate them in an I‘ omnibus ” reply, apart from certain points raised which do not fit neatly into this.

On specific points, I agree, that the new “econometric ” approach has surrounding it a great deal of technical jargon which makes it anything but easy reading; however, this should not deter us from understanding its meaning and the important contribution its adoption can make to our ’‘ stock-in-trade ” as professional economists. In my opinion i t is the best means of studying the “ dynamics ” of farming; and, in a neat and decisive way, shows up the blanks in the evidence we require for the solution of many farming problems. This is becoming more important than ever with the increasing developments of new techniques, and the changing patterns in economic relationships both within and without the “ farm gate,” affecting farming prosperity.

This aspect leads on very naturally to the particular point raised by Mr. Jones in relation to the objective of our new experimental husbandry and university farms. I look upon these units as a working laboratory, so to speak, to test out economic relation- ships and provide basic data which will enable all those responsible for, and interested in, the solving of farming problems to do so with greater haste and precision. In this I do not suggest that they should be an aggregate of experimental plots or anything of that kind, but, on the contrary, I do think they should be so devised that their results can be easily interpreted and incorporated directly into prevailing farming systems. TO this end, their evidence has to be precise, and must be obtained in such a way that their input/output relationships with associated factors of farming fortunes can be evaluated. On the one hand it is not sufficient that they obtain isolated evidence on a selected problem, nor, on the other, get a successful result in such a way that it has no ready interpretation in terms of other farms with comparable environments.

Incidentally they will, in this way, also provide, automatically, sound teaching material.

Now, as to the point raised by Dr. Carslaw, whom we are so glad to welcome back to the “ fold,” the ‘‘ quote ” from my paper is taken from evidence given during enquiries in the late ’nineties. Now the position is clear, but then it was not, for the simple reason that there was little consideration given to the economic factors involved. Up to that time. the common philosophy was, as I stated earlier, that greater production per unit must necessarily be followed by greater returns-the not uncommon view, still prevailing amongst some of our brother scientists. This half-truth is so subtle that I thought it worth quoting, and therefore I am glad i t caught Ronnie’s eye, but I’m sorry that he missed the point of my saying it.

One other point raised, of special importance, is the best means of establishing the validity and relationship of opposing farm practices and underlying economic theories, as examplified by the Boutflour and Stubbs controversies, as quoted by Blagburn. The econometric approach can give the answer . . . W. S. Senior: Are you sure of that ? . . . J . R. Cuvrze: I am certain and, further, I think this is a problem for our research institutes or the experimental husbandry farms to deal with, so that we can have the data with which to calculate the economic effect of both theories, under actual farming conditions. -it the moment, for example, we are gravely short of precise and reliable data on the basic requirements of ruminants under varying conditions of management, and the effect of varying proportional-combinations of feedingstuffs of different qualities. Regarding the latter, have we a satisfactory medium to define quality which we can equate in economi; terms ? For certain important farm products, like “ hay,” “ silage ” and ’’ dried-grass, this is very important. We must ultimately have this evidence as economists if we are to be able to give sound pronouncements or guidance on controversial and important economic issues such as arise over the replacement of high cost, purchased concentrates, with home-produced foods. We have the technique of assessment to hand now, and we await the accurate data to enable us to use it.

I t is obvious from the general discussion that a little bit of professional stocktaking is worthwhile, and I am particularly glad to see that none of my colleagues has stated any desire to narrow the sphere of responsibility which we as agricultural economists

368 Journal of Agricultural Economics.

should undertake; and equally I am gratified that there is not any undue haste to discard old techniques, while prepared to explore new territory with new methods. This, I think, is terribly important, as it gives a considerable assurance that the fruits of past endeavours will not be lost: and, simultaneous1 there is a willingness to adopt new techniques to supplement or replace older ones wten it is clear tha-t by so doing greater reward will follow such a change. We in this country owe it both to fanners and agricultural administrators to provide accurate and comprehensive evidence which will enable wise decisions to be made on farms and in the areas of administration. Both are very important now that British agriculture has such an important part to play in our national economy.

I was particularly pleas.,d to note the far-sighted views expressed by several of my friends, especially in relation to the economic aspect as distinct from the purely technical effect of new lines of farm operations: the examples quoted by Professor Duckham illustrate what I have in mind. Also, the corollary in relation to how we should be prepared to provide the economic evidence, we must see to it that our brother scientists are kept aware of our needs in relation to their disciplines. In the past some of y r efforts iz collecting evidence has been rather puzzling to others not so involved in as we are, and to some extent it has tended to create dXculties in getting their co-operation. This phase would appear to have passed, and the present time seems propitious for getting the full co-operation of the other disciplines with which we must work i f our efforts are to be most fully realised. This will free our resources as economists to apply them more directly in the way they can be most effective, and with the lowest degree of frustration.

Those of the younger generation of economists can only guess at the extent of this aspect of our pioneering work. Carslaw's reminders are quite appropriate here and useful in retracing our steps, so that we can avoid misunderstandings and, in a positive way, prepye the ground for a forward thrust in tackling all aspects of the farming problem as a combined operations ' I job, so that facts can be presented fully and impartially.

Fortunately, we have reached a stage in the development of our science when we can grasp a fairly clear perspective of the nature and size of our problem area. And, equally, we have developed a wide technique of approach to our roblems, so that our findings can now be established with much greater confidence: and wgat is very important, those whose interest i t is to implement the results of our work can do so with much more precision and assurance.

economics