186 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



some sort. We in all probability have nothing like that number to 

 show. The gentleman who keeps a separate ledger for every par- 

 ticular field stands altogether by himself. In America there are 

 some farmers who keep a separate ledger for each distinctive crop — 

 which seems a better arrangement. But such men are among the 

 large farmers only. However, the small farmers in the United 

 States, though backward in regulation account keeping, appear to 

 beat ours in the keeping of that most important of all books — the 

 "Daybook" or "Journal" — and in making full and accurate 

 entries in it. In the United States a good deal is done to encourage 

 agricultural book-keeping for farmers, large and small, and to 

 initiate farmers in the art of keeping them. The Farm Management 

 Bureau devotes a good deal of attention to this matter, and offers 

 literature and information freely. There are nearly a score of 

 " Bulletins " issued by it that it offers for nothing. And its officers 

 are at all times ready to give the necessary instruction. The Banks, 

 Bankers' Associations, Colleges and Farm Management Bureaus, 

 which offer to put farmers' accounts into shape, experience little 

 difficulty in obtaining the raw material of facts from their 'proteges. 

 There are a goodly number of such account-regulating bodies. And 

 they are liberal in distributing forms and " guides." The College of 

 Kansas having compiled a set of books considered particularly 

 suitable, the bankers of the State distributed them gratis by the 

 20,000. Some local banks, canvassing in this manner for the farmers' 

 custom, post up notices in their offices and windows : " This bank 

 will keep the farmers' books." There is nothing of the sort among 

 ourselves. And yet our agriculture — including under this aspect 

 very small farming, which, indeed, in the present connection, comes 

 more specifically into account — badly needs account keeping. The 

 small holder, like the large farmer, wants to know how he stands, 

 and on which part of his farming he gains and on which he loses. 

 The large farmer, on the other hand, may have partners or others 

 financially interested in his husbandry to think of. And then there 

 is the question of profit-sharing now distinctly coming to the front. 

 The public will not always be content to put up with strikes, and 

 contests, and bickerings, which turn the entire economic machinery 

 of the country out of gear. Profit-sharing is one effective means of 

 averting them. And it was in the United Kingdom that profit- 

 sharing in agriculture began, Lord Wallscourt in Ireland being 

 the pioneer. Mr. Strutt's arrangement with his labourers is not 

 genuine profit-sharing, but it comes very near it ; and its good 

 results prove^ that profit-sharing may be kindly taken to and 



