Cargo Continued.

                                                                                                   Per Bushel. 

Rebate of Draft - - (10) 1½ % for 60 days on (12) 2/1.535 - — .063 Commission on Cr. - - (11) 1/8 % on (12) 2/1.535 - —---...----- .032

                                                                                                      -  0 0.031
                      - -  (12) - -                                        - —                  -  2 1.535

Exchange - - (13) £20 % (12-2/1-535) - — - 0 5.235

                     (14)                                                  - —                  -  2 6.770 

Stamp Duty - - (15) 2/- % on (12) 2/1.535 - — - 0 0.026

                      (16) - -                                             - —                  -  2 6.744 

Discount on Freight (17) - - 4½ % on (2) 8.839 - — - 0 0.398 F.O.B. - - (18) - — - 2 7.142

                               Handling Charges - -                                2.772 — 
                               Railage - -                                                4.375 — 
                                                                                                   —  0 7.147

Siding - — — 1 11.995

Exchange —1st July 1931.

Date: T/T Premium: 60 days' Premium:

                                           £     s.   d.                       £        s.       d. 

March 24, 1930 — — 6 2 6 4 3 9 October 9, 1930 — — 8 10 0 7 1 3 January 5, 1931 — — 15 0 0 13 11 3 January 6, 1931 — — 15 2 6 13 13 9 January 13, 1931 — — 18 0 0 16 11 3 January 17, 1931 — — 25 0 0 23 11 3 January 29, 1931 — — 30 0 0 28 11 3

Bad Farming and Care of Machinery: Extract from evidence of Mr. McLarty (Q. 3081) —

"There is also much bad farming going on. We have some of the worst farmers in the world."

There is no doubt bad farming is a distinct disability to the inefficient farmer.

Your Commissioners would like to quote from an American Farming Magazine, as follows:—

"The farmer should endeavour to reduce their production costs by increasing yields from each acre planted. They should only farm their best acreage and fertilise that well in order to get the highest yield per acre at the lowest possible cost, and grow more of their own food and feed."

"The good land should be relieved from the destructive competition of poor land." " 'No substitute for efficiency.' —You cannot legislate prosperity to the farmer. You cannot subsidise prosperity; you cannot bring it about by artificial means, much as we might like to do it. The honest fact of the matter is there can never be any substitute for the efficiency of the individual farmer. The farm problem begins right on the farm."

A good deal of criticism has been levelled at the farmers, because of their lack of care and attention to their machinery. Some do not even trouble to shed their implements and machinery, which must cause rapid depreciation. It would be well for farmers to remember that a machine purchased, say, at £100 is costing at least £7 per annum in interest plus depreciation, and very often these costs do not enter into some farmers' calculations. These charges are emphasised in the cases of tractors where costs are so much greater. Your Commissioners feel that tractor sellers are themselves chiefly responsible for their losses through bad debts, in encouraging farmers to buy tractors on terms which have been too extensive and liberal. It was emphasised by several witnesses that, under present prices, cropping by tractors does not pay, but your Commissioners are convinced that farmers generally will be wise to leave tractors alone and those in possession of tractors will be well advised to gradually swing over to horses. Apart from the fact that tractors have been the cause of many farmers' downfall, and that by the use of them the farmers in a measure are "queering their own pitch," it must not be forgotten that some proportion of cropping is necessary for fodder, and if horses are used it means help toward the objective of a self contained farm instead of spending money on imported machinery, petrol, kerosene and oil, which cash has to be remitted abroad. It cannot be expected that the chaff markets will be reinstated to the activity of former years, but by using horses it creates demand for breeding, the necessity for which during recent years has been so considerably diminished. Your Commissioners agree that the policy of the Agricultural Bank in refusing assistance for the purchases of the power transaction is the correct one.