75 
CHAPTER VI.—THE VALUE OF THE AGRICULTURAL 
OUTPUT. 
In the preceding chapters an account has been given of the 
production of the crops and live stock in England and Wales, 
taking each individual item separately. Some portion, and in 
certain cases the whole, of the crops produced are merely raw 
material used as food for stock and turned into human food in the 
form of meat or milk. If account is to be taken of output in 
the latter form, then the production of the former must be 
neglected in order to avoid duplication. Moreover, in the case 
of one of the most extensive crops, viz., grass, there is no means 
by which the total production can be measured. In order, 
therefore, to get any general view of the total output of agricultural 
Produce, it is necessary to estimate the quantities of the various 
products sold off the farms of the country for consumption else- 
where, and then, in order to add them together, to value them in 
berms of money. An estimate of this sort is necessarily a very 
broad one, as there are risks of error at every stage. On the 
other hand, these possible errors tend to balance one another 
and the final result is probably sufficiently approximate for the 
purpose in view. 
In making this calculation, the first step is to differentiate 
between that part of the produce which is sold by the farmer 
(or consumed in the farm household) and that which is consumed 
on the farm in the process of producing other commodities such 
as meat and milk. For this purpose the agricultural land of 
England and Wales is taken in effect as one large farm, and no 
attempt is made to take into account the crops and stock sold 
by one farmer to another. Thus, the output, calculated in this 
Way, is the estimated quantity of produce sold by farmers to 
the non-farming community, together with the quantity con- 
Sumed in the farmers’ own households. Table I in the Appendix 
gives on this basis the sales off farms of each kind of agricultural 
Produce, together with their value based on the estimated 
average price realised at the point at which the produce is first 
Sold, e.g., the local market for live stock, corn, dairy produce 
and fruit, the local auction for wool, the free-on-rail price for 
Potatoes and milk and the in-rick price for hay and straw. These 
Prices are taken in the main from the weekly returns made by 
the Ministry’s market reporters and published in the Agricultural 
Market Report; for wool and glasshouse produce information as 
to values was obtained from growers. The proportions of each 
kind of produce sold off and retained on the farm respectively 
are based on estimates made by the Crop Reporters.