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The Coiint>y Gcntlcmaiis Magazine 



known. If a gentleman keeps his own books 

 it is not necessary. 



The Ledger comes next, in which an 

 account, debtor and creditor, is opened for 

 every field, by name, in the farm ; also for 

 every article of live stock ; one for wear and 

 tear, &c., so as no money can be paid 

 or received, no exchange of commodity 

 made on the farm, without an account there 

 being open for it. Two of them should be 

 kept ; one the bailiff should post the cash 

 book into — that is, enter each article of cash 

 expended or received in its proper account ; 

 and also to substitute for a Journal, the use 

 of which book is too complex for a bailiff to 

 keep. 



What I mean by this, is the carrying trans- 

 actions that have an amount in value, without 

 any money being paid or received to their 

 regular account. For instance, an account 

 is opened in the Ledger for the six acre grass 

 field. On one side all the expenses, and on 

 the other the receipts for hay sold ; but, in- 

 stead of selling this hay, suppose it de- 

 livered from the stack to the horses, how 

 is this to be carried to account ? Li regular 

 book-keeping a merchant would enter this in 

 his Journal, horses debtor to six acres grass 

 for so much hay delivered, and then post the 

 sum to both accounts in the Ledger. But the 

 gentleman farmer turns at once to the account 

 of horses in his Ledger, and writes on the 

 debtor side, to six acres grass, so and so ; 

 and then, in the field account, on the creditor 

 side, by horses, so and so. 



In a word, he skips the Journal, and, at the 

 same time that he simplifies his account, 

 keeps them perfectly regular. 



All this I suppose to be done by the bailiff; 

 and all this is so very plain, that any ingeni- 

 ous fellow would form a clear idea of it in 

 half an hour. But the master should keep 

 the fair Ledger, in which he enters everything 

 in the same manner as in the other; but 

 reduces them to distinct heads. In the first 

 -Ledger they stand in confusion ; many small 

 sums of cash, and parcels of hay, corn, &c., 

 delivered at different times; his business, 

 therefore, is to throw them, at the end of the 

 year, into one view, under distinct heads. 



For instance, he finds a corn field account, 

 with a great number of sums of cash, and 

 corn sold, and some delivered at home for 

 cattle. He consolidates all the expenses into 

 a few totals, thus : — 



Six Acres. 



£ s. d. 



776 



^^31 7 6 £i\ 7 6 



Now, the advantage of having such a view^ 

 as this of every crop is immense. By look- 

 ing over the particulars of the expenses he 

 sees which run the heaviest, and knows from 

 thence the proper channel, in the like cases 

 for the future, for the chief expense to 

 flow in. 



At the end of every year an account must 

 be taken of all the stock, the implements of 

 all kinds valued and carried to the new year's 

 account accordingly; and, as the article of 

 w^ear and tear includes everything relative to 

 implements, the annual valuation will throw 

 into that account the decrease of value, as 

 well as articles of new expenditure. The 

 same observation is applicable to the ac- 

 counts of horses and draught oxen, which, 

 being valued in that manner, give the expense 

 of horses, &c., declining in worth ; an article 

 that is never dreamed of in common ; and 

 yet the sinking of a horse's value is as much 

 a part of the expense of tillage as the repara- 

 tion of the plough. By these general 

 methods a gentleman every year knows to 

 a shilling the year's profit or loss, and the 

 sum of money he has employed in agri- 

 culture. 



And these numerous and very beneficial 

 consequences are reaped at so small an ex- 

 pense of time and trouble, that it is amazing 

 we do not oftener see the practice. The 

 bailiff's share, which is much the most con- 

 siderable, can never amount to half an hour 

 in the day, if he writes a tolerable hand, and 



