24 DETERMINATION OF METHOD 



with consequent confusion in the crop-accounts already 

 open. Again, it is common knowledge, and in fact it is 

 not infrequently urged as an insuperable difficulty in the 

 way of anything like accuracy in agricultural costing, that 

 the cost of production on the farm cannot be ascertained 

 by clean-cut book-keeping methods, for it is a matter of 

 everyday farm management to apply acts of cultivation 

 and manuring to one crop for the ultimate benefit of two 

 or more following. The allocation of such costs to the 

 successive crops benefited is more easily performed, and 

 with less liability to error, when the records relate to fields 

 individually rather than to fields grouped for the purpose 

 of one year's accounts under the title of a particular crop. 

 The question is of some importance, and is dealt with again 

 later (see p. 80). Men working with live stock (other than 

 working horses) record their time according to the classifica- 

 tion of stock adopted by the farmer for the purposes of cost 

 calculation (for example, * two hours milking, seven hours 

 with sheep ', or ' two hours milking, seven hours preparing 

 food and feeding cows '). 



The Time-sheets when filled up record the time spent, 

 whether ordinary time, overtime, or Sunday time, by men 

 and horses in every department of the farm during one 

 week. Provision is also made for entering up any piece- 

 work performed, and by a summary at the foot of the 

 sheet the cash due to each man for the week's work is 

 shown. 



The advent of the Farm Tractor, and the rapid extension 

 of its use, makes it necessary to devise a means of recording 

 the nature of the various classes of work performed by it, 

 and the quantity of fuel, both petrol and oil, and of lubricants 

 consumed by it during its operation. It is necessary to 

 distinguish on the Record Form between the different 

 operations, field-work, threshing, chaffing, barn-machinery 

 work, and so on, as obviously the fuel consumption is by no 

 means constant for all classes of work. Table VI shows 

 a simple form on which to record the information required. 

 It is ruled to provide for one week's work at sight, and is 



