624 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



line of work is paying. As a result, if they have a little more money to 

 their credit in the bank at the end of the year, they know they have made 

 some money. They don't know whether it was from feeding the stock 

 as they did, whether from selling the grain when they did, from the buy- 

 ing of more grain and supplementary feeds and feeding them on the 

 farm, or perhaps from building a silo. The time is past for that kind of 

 managing. Too much money is invested not to know exactly how the 

 work is paying. 



A book can be purchased for fifty cents that will do very well for the 

 farm accounts and records. In this an account should be opened for 

 every kind of live stock, every kind of crop grown, the machinery, and for 

 cash. Begin by taking an inventory of the farm, the winter months be- 

 ing the best time, for that is a slack time in work and also the time 

 of year when most of the business is settled up. After taking the inven- 

 tory, place the amount for each of farm property to its own account, and 

 record to each account during the year every transaction taking place. 

 At the end of the year, take another inventory and it will be easy to tell 

 how the business stands. By keeping a note book the work required by 

 each field could be charged to its crop and thereby the farmer could tell 

 exactly if the crop paid. Some say that this requires too much time to 

 make it practical for the average farmer, but it will not. A few minutes 

 time each day is all that would be necessary during the busy season of 

 the year, as the balancing of accounts could be done in the winter when 

 there was not so much work to be done. 



Any one desiring particular information oh some system of farm ac- 

 counts, should send for Farmers' Bulletin No. 511, to the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Division of Publication, Washington, D. C. 



As soon as farmers get to planning their work for several years in 

 advance as do the merchants, they can expect more uniform yields and 

 will be building up the soil instead of tearing it down, as does year 

 at a time farming. For example, it takes a man with his business talents 

 at work when it comes to plowing under the second crop of clover. The 

 tem-ptation is to cut it for seed or hay. In reality analysis has shown 

 that when all the clover crop is removed nothing is added to the soil, so 

 business instinct would demand that we plow under the second crop. 



TTie merchant has the traveling salesman to keep him posted on the 

 new lines of goods and in like manner the farmer has the experiment 

 station to keep him posted on all up-to-date practices found to be prac- 

 tical. Every farmer should have his name on the mailing list of his state 

 experiment station and he will receive free all bulletins and circulars 

 issued by the same. 



I sincerely believe that a definite system of farm accounts and records 

 will be one of the biggest forces in changing our system of farming for 

 the better. As soon as a farmer sees his efforts laid out before him in 

 pounds, dollars and cents, he will show an interest never before aroused 

 by association, or by reading the best agricultural papers. 



