Chapter VII 

 BUSINESS METHODS 



One lesson which the several inquiries into the condition of 

 agriculture instituted during the last twenty-six years have 

 thoroughly brought home to the public interested admittedly is 

 this, that our agriculture properly so-called, the cultivation of the 

 ager, and, indeed, all our cultivation of land, taken as a whole, is 

 not carried on on as businesslike lines as, in the interest of the 

 community, as also of the cultivator himself, it ought to be. Accord- 

 ingly, farmers, small cultivators and landlords — in truth, all classes 

 of ruricolce — indifferently, are being steadily admonished to bear 

 more and more in mind that their occupation is a business, and 

 wants to be conducted on business lines. One consideration which 

 ought to weigh heavily in the balance, as bearing on this point, is 

 that, according to the testimony of men well versed in agricultural 

 doings, during the prolonged " agricultural depression," not by any 

 means forgotten, it was not the best agriculturists, the men best 

 versed in vocational work, who weathered the crisis with least 

 hurt, but the business men, who came to agriculture, often enough 

 without previous technical knowledge, but with a mind trained to 

 calculation and experience in keeping accounts and drawing lessons 

 from them. 



We have, so it is true, now admirable business men among our 

 larger farmers, combining accountancy knowledge with admirable 

 vocational proficiency ; and among our smaller cultivators, also, 

 we have men who calculate closely, minutely and judiciously, and 

 make sure that they turn their land and their opportunities to the 

 best possible account ; and men, also, who keep books with a degree 

 of accuracy such as would do credit to any accountant. As regards 

 the last-named point, when we read of one of our leading agricul- 

 turists keeping a separate ledger for every particular field of his, we 

 feel disposed to ask ourselves how much further businesslike method 

 in farming could go. 



But, looking at the mass of our farmers as a whole, and our smaller 

 men, we shall have to own that there is a foundation for the charge 

 so often levelled at these two classes, and that licit her accurate 

 book-keeping nor businesslike thinking and calculating forms a 

 peculiar/orteof theirs. Many of them continue to allow themselves 



