Country- Life
THE COST OF WHEAT.
In the latest of the admirable little leaflets, produced as pleasantly and seasonably as if the Research Institute were a tree, the Oxford economists make preeise-a point on which we have all wanted an exact calculation. What is the normal haLmee-sheet. of an acre of wheat ? The answer, given of course in close detail, is this. At present prices the acre should yield a return of 25 8s. for the grain, or £6 8s. with the straw—and this 11 per sere for straw is a point (as it seems to me) usually neglected in comparing British with overseas wheat, The straw is an asset here, a trouble there. However, that is a small detail. The cost per acre (including all overhead charges) is about 18 8s. The farmer, therefore, would be out of pocket by £2 an acre. Mechanization might perhaps halve the deficit, or more than halve it. We may then draw the inference---it is not drawn in the leaflet—that an extra 5s. a quarter on the price of wheat would make it a paying crop on a well-capitalized farm. And again, since the labour costs are reckoned at /3 3s. 2d. an acre, the family farmer is not necessarily a fool to grow a certain amount of wheat, for the sake both of grain and straw.
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