TARIFF.) Size and Efficiency As a Productive mainte nance of a high standard of production is very generally associated in Continental agriculture with farming in small units, and the ad vocates of the extension of the small-holding movement in this country base their case very largely on this fact. Figures collected in the course of investigations of farm organization go to show that this extra production is apparent rather than real, and that it is purchased by the expenditure of capital and labour which would be more productively employed on larger areas. Here is a table showing the manual labour and the horse labour requirements of farms in three agricultural districts, grouped by size; it will be seen that in each of them the labour required in production, whether manual or horse, varies inversely with the size of the holding, or, alternatively, that the efficiency of labour varies directly with the size of the holding:— It might be argued, however, that the higher labour require ments on the smaller farms are the measure of their greater pro ductivity, and the following table, showing the extent to which the production per unit of land and per unit of labour is affected by the size of the holding, supplies some confirmation of this. The sales per acre in the group given below (which corresponds to District No. 2 in the above table) show that the total produc tion varies inversely with the size of the farm. The economic effect of this, however, is considerably discounted by the next column, showing the sales per person employed, when once more the greater advantage of the larger holdings is clearly indicated:— In a country where alternative employment is available to an extent such as is general in Great Britain, and at higher wages than those prevailing in agriculture, it is clear that the tendency of agricultural development must be in directions which will increase the value of the unit of labour—in other words, the movement will be towards large-scale production.
To consider, now, the capitalization of the farm, evidence of the influence of size is afforded by the table below, in which is shown the value of the implement equipment, per too acres, on farms in three other districts. Here, again, it is apparent that the capital cost of the implements per unit of land falls as the size of the holding increases.
The question at once suggests itself—"What is the economic unit of production?" The answer will not be forthcoming until more work on the study of farm organization and equipment has been carried out. In some of these tables it will be observed that the rate of variation slows down as the size of the holdings in creases; in fact, if curves were plotted they would rise or fall steeply through the smaller size groups and then tend to flatten out from about the 300-400 acre farm upwards. In other words there is evidence that the "economic unit" of farming in the districts used for the purposes of illustration, does not occur until this size group is reached, and that it continues for some considerable period above it. Evidence is not yet complete on the question of a top limit, but there are certain indications that one-man management does not continue its efficiency beyond a certain point. Thus, in a certain district, which contained a good many holdings extending to I,000 acres and over, the efficiency curve rises sharply from the "under too acres" size group up to the "300 acres-zoo acres" group, flattens out from this point up to the "zoo acres-700 acres" group, and then shows a distinct tendency to fall. This is illustrated in the following table, showing the production per man employed (i.e., sales less cost of raw ma terials) according to size of holding:— Value of production Size group per man employed Acres Under zoo 181 • z I00-300 2II.6 300-500 2S4.2 500-700 283.2Over 700 . . . . . . . . . . 245.1 This result is no more than an indication of what may be ex pected to emerge in future work, but the point is worth studying. For American conditions, see UNITED STATES : Agriculture.
However, the study of farm organization according to the size of the holding gives other results besides evidence of efficiency. The next table shows the influence of size on the nature of the farmer's business. In the district chosen it is clear to what an extent dairying concerns the small farmer, while sheep raising and corn growing become intensified as the size of the farm in creases. It is interesting to note that as regards meat the size has very little influence on the quantity produced, but an examination of the data shows that it is mainly pork and veal in the case of the smaller groups, and beef and mutton in the case of the larger ones.
In England, the study of farm organization and equipment on a systematic basis dates from the establishment of the Agricul tural Economics Research institute in 1913, as a result of an application by the University of Oxford to the Ministry of Agri culture for a grant in aid of economic research in agriculture. As in other countries the institute started its work by the costing method, and allowing for the interruption caused by the war it has continued with it as one line of investigation ever since. Costing is, of course, only the means; it is not the end itself and it may be useful to those who have not studied the process to give a few examples illustrating the kind of information got from this rather complicated exercise.
First, there is the evidence it supplies on the efficiency of farm management in all its aspects. To take one of these for example, the use of manual labour. One object of any system of farming should be to give employment to a regular staff of men at all seasons of the year. Few systems do this better than the ordinary four-course rotation and some of the modifications of it, but many rotations make the farmer dependent to a large measure on casual seasonal labour. The results of costing show that dependence on casual seasonal labour has the effect of raising unit labour costs, and though systems of farming involving much seasonal labour are often justified on account of the usually profitable nature of the crops grown (as in the case of potatoes), it may well be that in certain cases the relative costliness of the labour involved may lead the farmer to consider whether after all it gives him an adequate return for the extra working capital and trouble involved. The introduction of silage or of the sugar beet crop into the rota tion can have a very upsetting effect on labour organization, unless plentiful supplies of casual labour are available at the right seasons, and cost records are the only means by which to con firm or correct the farm-manager's general ideas of the economic value of these and other new crops.
To take, as a second example, the organization of the horse labour on the farm. It costs so much to keep a horse for the year, and on the great majority of farms ,the figure does not vary very appreciably. But it does not follow that there is little variation in the cost of horse labour, for the cost of a day's work depends not only on the cost of keeping the horse, but on the number of days during which it is effectively employed. Allowing for Sundays and Christmas day and for Saturday half-days, the maximum number of working days is 286 in the year, and every day less than this number worked by horses adds proportionately to the cost of the labour performed. Figures collected recently from seven farms showed that the percentage of idle days varied from 13% up to 39%, and it will be realized how seriously the cost of horse labour mounts up in proportion as the number of idle days increases. This is a typical example of the way in which costing may direct the attention of the farmer to possible weaknesses in his management. It may be simply that he has too many horses, in which case results such as these will make him consider the possibility of their reduction. It may be that his system of cropping is such that he needs an abnormal equipment of horses at certain seasons of the year in which case he will be led to consider whether his system is so profitable as to make the idle horses at other seasons worth while, or whether he could not modify it in some way which would enable him to keep his horses more regularly employed.
Average Labour Requirements of Farm Crops and Stock Arable Land Man days Cereal Crops per Acre Winter Wheat . . 6.85 Spring Wheat . . . . . . . . . . 6.58 Winter Oats . . . . . . . . . Spring Oats . . . . . . . . . . 6.21 Barley . . Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5o Peas . 10.2 3 Root Crops Turnips and Swedes (eaten off) . . . . 8 31 Mangolds . . 16.73 Potatoes . . . . . . . . 33•8o Carrots . . . 61.42 Seeds Mown . . . . . . . . . 2-18 Grazed . . . 0•71 Grass Meadow Hay . . 2•og Pasture . o•o9 Live Stock Cows . . . . . 23•00 Other Cattle . . . . . . 7.13 Pigs . . . . . . . . 1-go Sheep (Arable Breeds) . . . . . . . . 1.29 In the absence of data such as these nothing is more baffling than the attempt to trace leakages in farm management which cannot be located by any other means and which are of ten most surely responsible for the difference between profit and loss in farming. In a great number of cases the partial failure of the farmer is due to faulty organization of labour or to some similar cause which defies detection by any process of inspection. As the practice extends of recording daily the operations on the farm it will be possible to establish, district by district, certain effi ciency standards by which to test individual farm management. A good example of what has been done already in this direction is afforded in the case of milk-recording where, by careful obser vation and record, the farmer is provided with the means of weeding out the unprofitable elements in his dairy herd. The case provides an illustration of that which will be possible in many other directions when full records of the various matters arising in farm management are available, and similar weaknesses in the organization of production can be detected.
Although the costing method was thus the first line of attack on the problems of agricultural economics it was always realized that it would not be sufficient in itself, and it was suggested that valuable information could be collected by means of economic surveys of farming districts. The evidence to be got in this way is less complete than that furnished by the more intensive costing method; on the other hand, a much greater mass of it can be collected by the expenditure of an equal amount of time and energy. At the outset, these surveys were planned to deal with particular problems; thus, A. W. Ashby conducted a survey of allotments and small-holdings in Oxfordshire, as the basis for a study of the rural allotments and the small-holding problems, and similarly, J. Orr conducted surveys of the systems of farm management in the counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and considered the problems arising therefrom. But this method was found to be incomplete, for although it may happen that special problems will arise for investigation, the study of farm economics as a whole cannot best be pursued by the examination of par ticular questions. It was decided, therefore, to inaugurate general surveys, designed to collect all the information of any kind what ever which can be got by inquiry on the farm, for tabulation in a variety of ways, and then to study the tables in order to see what information they afforded. The method has been made familiar by the work of American farm economists. This work has formed a part of the activities of the Oxford Institute, and data have been collected from nearly 1,50o farms.
A more recent investigation undertaken by the Institute is the study of the organization of agricultural marketing. The economic weakness of the existing marketing methods has often been a sub ject of comment, and particular attention has been attracted to it by the report of the departmental committee on distribution and prices of agricultural produce. It was felt that it should be pos sible to organize an advisory service for farmers in marketing problems, in fact, that such a thing should be an essential part of the general advisory services available to them (see AGRICULTURE;