(To TEE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.")

Sni,—In your article under this heading in last week's issue you set out to show " what ordinary farm land will produce under the plough," and as evidence in support of your conten- tion you submit a trading account for the year ending March 31st, 1920, sent you by "a careful correspondent, whose books have been accurately kept and are vouched for by a trained accountant." Unfortunately for your correspondent's careful- ness and accuracy—to say nothing of the trained accountant's reputation—the Items on both sides of the account have been incorrectly cast up, as your readers will see if they take the trouble to check the additions for themselves.

Correctly added, the items are :

s. d. s. d.

(1) The Cr.

or Receipts *ide

And not as printed by you:

£ a. d.

(I) (a) Sales

. . 1.456 19 10

(b)House % 140 8 0 1,687 s. d.

(a) Bale % 1,447 14 4

2 10

(b) House % 189 13 0 1,587

7 4

(2). The Dr.

or Expendi-

(2) Dr. or

E x p enditure

ture aide ..

1,217 12 5 side 1.087 12 5 Thus giving ..

£339 14 11 and not £529 10 5

as the balance or net profit on the year's trading. Thus the cor- rect figures show not an increase of £329 10s. 5d. or 164 per cent., but of £139 14s. 11d. or 70 per cent., between the first and second year's trading. These errors in the additions make no differ- ence, of course, in the amount of foodstuffs yielded by the use of the plough on Sir White-Black's ninety acres of land, but they do give a false value to your argument when measured in profits. To-day we are looking, more earnestly perhaps than in pre-war days, for safe and reliable guides, and it is discour- aging, to say the least of it, to find the Spectator arguing upon figures so obviously incorrect.—I am, Sir, &c.,