CHAPTER XXII. 

 Farm Records and Accounts. 



"I have brought with me to show you, young men, a little 

 book a book which may interest you. It is the first ledger I 

 kept. I was trained in business affairs and I was taught how to 

 keep a ledger. 



"This little book shows largely what I received and what I 

 paid out during my first years of business. 



"I paid my own bills, and always had a little something to 

 give away and the happiness of saving some. It is true I could 

 not secure the most fashionable cut of clothing. I did not make 

 any obligations I could not meet. I lived within my means, and 

 my advice to you young men is to do just the same. 



"Now let me leave this little word of counsel for you. Keep 

 a little ledger as I did. Write down in it what you received, and 

 do not be ashamed to write down what you pay away. See that 

 your pay is always in such a manner that your father or mother 

 may look over your book and see just what you did with your 

 money. It will help you to make money, and that you ought to 

 do." John D. Rockefeller. 



Big business depends more upon its methods of accounting, 

 for its success than upon any other one department in its organiza- 

 tion. 



Agriculture with its investment of over $32,000,000,000 and 

 its annual production of $9,000,000,000 is conducted almost 

 wholly without any system of accounts. In fact bookkeeping is 

 almost unknown to the average farmer of the United States. 



There is no doubt but that a strict accounting of the trans- 

 actions of the farm would result in almost a revolutionizing of 

 the whole system of agriculture and bring about a saving of 

 hundreds of millions to the farm interests of the country if faith- 

 fully put into operation on the majority of our farms. 



(386) 



