would also, I am afraid, be the cause of much friction, which it should be the aim of all to try and avoid as much as possible.

In each of the two Bills allowance can be claimed for corn grown on the holding and consumed on the holding by cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs.

Taking, first of all, the question of the allowance for home-grown corn, it seems to meet a felt want, and, although there will be difficulties in arriving at the proper value to be allowed for such consumption, I think that, in the hands of competent valuers, the difficulties may disappear.

As regards the allowance for the consumption by horses, on the holding, of cake and other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, as well as for home-grown corn, I think the policy is open to question, and one which will require very careful consideration. In a hunting centre such as ours it is a well-known fact that many farmers breed hunters and are encouraged to do so, and they also keep more nags than, possibly, do others in other parts of the country on farms of the same size.

From such horses as these some of the manure is retained, certainly, on the farm, but much is removed from it by droppings on the road and on other persons' land, so that an incoming tenant cannot possibly derive anything like the full weight from the consumption of corn by horses under such conditions as these

While on the subject of allowance for the consumption of cake and other feeding stuffs, may I protest against price being almost invariably taken as the basis of value? For instance, one-third of the price the last year, one-sixth the previous year, for cake and beans, and one-sixth of the price the last year, and one-twelfth for the previous year for other feeding stuffs, are frequently used for the purposes of arriving at the valuation. In a rough-and-ready way perhaps price might answer; but when objection is taken that the valuation has not in the past been fair to either side, then I think we ought to take every precaution against the recurrence of anything which might be unfair in the future.

I need hardly remind you that the only reason for allowing compensation for the use of purchased and other goods on the holding is the fact that they contain certain valuable manurial constituents, viz., nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, but that the principal object that the farmer has in buying such food is their feeding properties due to a great extent to the fat and carbo-hydrogen which have no manurial value at all, the manurial constituents being found in the albuminoids and the ash of the food.

Take as an illustration, and for the sake of comparison, linseed cake and cotton (decorticated) cake.

The price of the former in London to-day is about £8 a ton, and of the latter £7 5s.

Say that the farmer was in the habit of using about the same quantities of each cake every year, then, according to the practice in vogue, he would receive compensation as follows:

or, practically, for every ton of linseed cake he is repaid half its cost for the manurial residue.

If the price of cotton cake be £7 5s. a ton, then the farmer receives back £3 12s. 6d. in the shape of the value of the manurial residue.

Now compare the value of the two cakes when their constituents, looked at only from the manure point of view, are considered.

I have not now time, nor is this the place, to explain how my values for the nitrogen as ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash are arrived at, but anyone who cares to go into the subject will find the method fully explained in a Paper which I had the honour to read at Great George Street in 1887, and which has been published in the "Transactions" of the Institution.

For our present purpose I think it will be fair to take nitrogen as ammonia at 4d. a lb., phosphoric acid (P2 О ̧) at 2}d. a lb., and potash (K O) at 2d. a lb.

From these figures you will see that, while the generally approved method of arriving at the value to an incoming tenant of these two feeding stuffs which have been consumed on the farm is, for linseed cake £4 a ton, and for cotton cake £3 12s. 6d. a ton, by taking the manurial constituents as a basis, the value of the former cake is only £2 14s. 4d. a ton instead of £4, and the latter £3 18s. 2d. instead of £3 12s. 6d. a ton.

Similar results would be discovered in treating other feeding stuffs in the same way, and some, as for instance brewers' grains, which are largely used in some dairy districts, have little manurial value, although I have known cases of considerable sums having been paid by an incoming tenant in respect of brewers' grains which have been used by the outgoing one.

EE

ADAPTED FROM SIR J. LAWES' TABLE, R.A.S.E.J., 1886.

Then again, many valuers have a hard-and-fast rule from which there seems to be no variation; and the same scale is adopted in the case of feeding stuffs which have been given to fatting animals as to store or young animals or milch cattle, while experience tells us that the manure produced by cows in full milk, fed upon linseed cake, is not so valuable as that produced by fatting animals, and corresponding results would be obtained were we to consider the cases of store or young animals, though here the depreciation in value of the manure is not so great.

It is not, however, only on the animals from which it is derived that the value of the manure depends. There must be a great difference in the worth of the manure made in boxes and that made in open yards exposed to the weather.

Again, the value of manure made by sheep fed on cake in the spring will be different from that made by the same animals in the autumn.

Such considerations as these shew how very difficult it is to estimate the manure value arising from the consumption of cattle foods, and that any tables ought to be taken more as a guide, than as binding either upon landlord or tenant.

You may, possibly, have been wondering what these remarks upon the subject of the valuation of cattle food have to do with the 1883 Act, but, when I remind you that in the Bill to which I have alluded provision is made for the appointment of official valuers for each county, whom the Board of Agriculture and the County Court will appoint when called upon to do so, and who shall be paid according to a rate of charges fixed by the Board of Agriculture, you will see how necessary it is that these official valuers should be masters of their subject. To obtain men whose opinion will be respected by both sides, the rate of fees must not be on too low a scale, or else I am afraid that really qualified men will not care to undertake the work. But here, again, I am afraid one of the objects of the proposed Bill will be defeated, viz., the cheapening of the process, for to make a really satisfactory valuation requires much time to consider the circumstances of the particular farm, the nature of the stock, the kind of soil, &c.

My Paper has unconsciously reached such dimensions, that I must leave the other interesting alterations proposed in the Bill for others to deal with.* Suffice it to say that any Bill which attempts to pave the way for the settlement of this question must be founded on justice alike to the landlord and to the tenant, or else the end will be failure, and the rule, which still obtains on many estates in England where the landlord is not suspicious of the tenant, and the tenant trusts the landlord, so that for them no Agricultural Holdings Act is needed, will have year by year a greater number of exceptions, and capital will be withdrawn from the land owing to this lack of mutual confidence-capital by which alone those concerned in agriculture can even hope to weather the present crisis.

Namely, the freedom of cropping, appointment of parish valuers for allotments, the giving compensation for cultivation above the usual standard, or, as it is commouly called high farming," and protection to tenants of mortgaged holdings.

(From "Surveyors' Diary and Directory," 1894).

Statistics.

CORN PRICES.

RETURN OF THE AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CORN, IMPERIAL
MEASURE, AS RECEIVED FROM THE INSPECTORS AND OFFICERS OF
EXCISE DURING THE UNDER-MENTIONED PERIODS.