EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 653 



COST OF AN ACRE OF CORN. 

 From Illinois Farmers' Bulletin No. 10. 



EACH ITEM OF PRODUCTION FIGURED OUl^-^SIMPLE AND PRACTICAI- SYSTEM OF 



FARM BOOKKEEPING. 



Joseph R. Fulkerson, of Hazel Dell Stock Farm, Jerseyville, III. 

 It is not always the man who knows the most who makes the greatest 

 success, but the man who thinks. It is necessary to read, and as a rule 

 the one who reads the most thinks the most. The day of haphazard farm- 

 ing by plenty of brawn and no brains has gone by. No two farms are 

 exactly alike. Every farm is a separate and distinct problem, to be 

 worked out by itself. So much depends upon the man. 



LUMBER DEALER KNEW EVERY ITEM OP COST. 



A man said the other day, "Lumber is high." But a lumber dealer re- 

 plied that lumber had been too low and now simply had advanced along 

 with pork, corn and wheat. He was able to tell to a penny the cost of 

 the timber, the labor and freight rates; what it cost him to haul and skid 

 the logs; to put them over the saw; to stack and load the lumber and to 

 deliver it to the market; and what per cent of culls had to be reckoned 

 upon. That was a man who thinks. He knew exactly what it cost to 

 produce the lumber he was selling. 



I wonder if a boy here knows what it cost per acre for seed corn last 

 year; what it cost to plow the ground, to work it down, to cultivate it; 

 and what, from a previous record, will be the probable cost to husk and 

 deliver this corn. It is necessary that the farmer keep accounts and 

 know the cost of production, that he may be able to figure out methods 

 of cheaper production. The man who finds that there is "no money in 

 farming" and says, "I'm going to quit," doesn't think or he doesn't keep 

 accounts. 



FINDING THE COST PER DAY OF MAN AND TEAM 



We will first study what a man and team are worth per day. There 

 are four Sundays in a month and probably two other days on which the 

 man will not work. It took me three years to figure out the cost of a 

 horse's work. I found that the average price of farm horses was $125.00, 

 and figured that they were good for ten years' work, and worth $50.00 

 when 15 years old. You know what corn, oats and hay you feed the 

 horses. I gave them the usual amount of hay and then took it out of 

 the mangers and weighed it. A certain amount must be counted for the 

 horses' feed in the stalk field or the pasture. In Massachusetts or Penn- 

 sylvania the cost of the horse is figured at 40 to 50 cents a day. Here 



