CHAPTER III 



THE BLOTTER 



The sample blotter that follows contains many 

 more entries than would be necessary on an ordi- 

 nary farm in a single month. Most of them are 

 necessary here, however, as examples of the varied 

 transactions that occur in practice. In other 

 words, the year has been compressed into a sin- 

 gle month, but this fact need not mislead. In 

 practice, many more work- report entries and a 

 few other blotter entries would be necessary if 

 the entire year's transactions were recorded. 



In teaching farm accounts to students, the 

 difficulties have appeared to arise from a lack 

 of reasoning power. Too often pupils start 

 with the idea that farm accounts are to be 

 mastered in the same way that a lad masters the 

 spelling book. The effort is made here to enable 

 them not only to master the text but to appre- 

 ciate the fact that there can not he a debit with- 

 out a credit, nor a credit without a debit. Most 

 people take account of one side of a transaction, 

 sometimes the credit, sometimes the debit, but 

 seldom consider both at the same time. Any 



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