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has been that the further you go in this business the more 

 complicated it gets, and you are apt to get discouraged. I 

 have stuck to the simple things. If I were to start in on that 

 proposition I should divide the taxes by the total acreage and 

 assign them at so much an acre. That, of course, won't b6 

 quite fair, I know. Or you could make another division like 

 this ; If you have a lot of timber or land not tillable, rough 

 Icind, I would divide it into tillable and nontillable and mako 

 the different valuations on that. But the only fair way is to 

 give a different valuation to every field, only if you attempt 

 it you are getting into complicated bookkeeping. We are 

 doing it ; we started this year. Every single field and each 

 orchard has its own valuation, according to what it is, to 

 what is growing on it and what it will produce, and the taxes 

 should be divided up acording to that valuation. But T 

 advise every one to start in a simple way, if he is going to 

 keep records. I have seen this thing a good many times, 

 and I will say now that the value of keeping records is 

 largeh^ in what you learn by it. I don 't care what you do, 

 hut I would guarantee that if any of you men will keep «. 

 record of this sort on your farm for one year if you threw 

 that record into the stove just as soon as you finished it, 

 it would have paid you big money, because you would have 

 learned a lot of things you never knew before and never 

 would have found out, although you lived on that farm a 

 lifetime. Keep a record ; it gives a distinctive point of view 

 in the business; that is what we are talking about. I don't 

 say that I would advise throwing them away by any means. 

 T would keep them. Every year you add to the record you 

 learn something more and you will see errors appear in the 

 year before that w^ill be straightened out, and in three or 

 four years you will have it down to a system, as Mr. Frazjr 

 has, so that you will know exactly how to go at it. 



I would like to say a word, too, regarding that manage- 

 ment item. He is talking about large proposition ; he has a 

 big commercial orchard under the charge of a man, and it is 

 right to charge that. Almost all of us, as I said, are John 



