BUSINESS METHODS 185 



records of implements, records of food given, of produce stored and 

 given out, of manure applied to the several fields, of the garnered 

 or carried crops, of live stock bought and sold, and, above all 

 things, where there are cows for milking, test records very carefully- 

 kept, and giving accurate details, mating records and so on. But 

 what generally counts as " book-keeping " ought to be simple as 

 simple can be. It is probably our persistent attempt to ape com- 

 mercial book-keeping for farmers which has, with the Income Tax 

 Commissioners' help, led us into such absurdities as crediting the 

 business with " paper " profits, more particularly on live and dead 

 stock, which possessions were acquired, not for sale, but for per- 

 manent use. 



There have been frequent attempts made, both sufficiently to 

 specialise accounts, so as to make them tell minutely every detail 

 worth taking into consideration, and, on the other hand, to simplify 

 them so as to make them such as a plain farmer, with plenty of 

 practical work on his hands, may be expected to keep. Neither on 

 one side of the problem, nor on the other, have authors of systems 

 intended to be ideal got to a point which might be accepted as 

 final. 



The United States Department of Agriculture, which has been 

 particularly active in this province of work, and has provisionally 

 devised a scheme which has met with distinct favour even outside 

 its own country, more particularly in Germany — to replace there 

 one of the most complicated, but, it is quite true, also one of the 

 most precise methods of account keeping going — admits this. 

 " The time is not yet ripe," so it declares, " for attempting to out 

 line a system of book-keeping for farmers." The actual commercial 

 book-keeping will not answer the purpose, except as a coping stone, 

 a final summary showing, after several transformations of " kind" 

 into money, how the ultimate result of the business year stands for 

 its owner, what is the profit or loss that he can either credit him- 

 self with or debit himself for. There are not a few accounts which 

 have more or less to be kept in " kind." For the money equivalents, 

 much too lightly adopted, are untrustworthy. Accountants have 

 racked their brains to discover some method appropriate under 

 the circumstances and yet simple, because our farmer cannot be 

 brought to take kindly to accounts, or marshal his account keeping 

 under so many heads, the meaning of which is apt to confuse him. 

 We in this country appear particularly backward in this respect. 

 A Department of Agriculture " Bulletin," issued in Washington, 

 says that about 40 per cent, of American farmers keep accounts of 



