28 DETERMINATION OF METHOD 



means by which to keep track of the distribution of artificial 

 manure. 



The only other record needed is one of Receipts and Pay- 

 ments. This, of course, is absolutely necessary, and it 

 must include everything bought or sold for the farm, whilst 

 excluding the farmer's private expenses. It is, in fact, 

 a simple but complete cash account. 



Nothing else need be required of a farmer co-operating 

 with a research institution in the work of the determination 

 of farming costs, or providing data for his own accountant, 

 and the necessary information is so easily and simply pro- 

 vided on the particular forms suggested, or on something 

 similar, that the returns should not occupy more than an 

 hour or so in each'week on farms where the number of men 

 employed does not run above, say, a dozen. The objection 

 urged against the system by critics on the score of time and 

 trouble demanded is quite without foundation ; the Labour- 

 sheet entails the most work, but this is nearly always 

 reduced from the maximum theoretically required by the 

 fact that a considerable proportion of the men will be found 

 to have been engaged individually throughout the week 

 on the same piece of work continuously, and one entry only, 

 instead of six, is called for. Thus, however busy a man 

 may be about his farm he cannot sustain the plea of having 

 no time in which to put down the data necessary as a basis 

 for the examination of his business organization. 



It is a somewhat different matter when one turns to the 

 analysis and elaboration of the farmer's data, and here, 

 in all probability, he will always require assistance until 

 such time as the provision of an office staff becomes recog- 

 nized as an essential part of the equipment of every large 

 farm. There is no reason at all why the farmer should not 

 employ his own clerk, or an accountant in the nearest 

 town, or why a group of farmers in one locality should not 

 combine to employ a competent recorder between them. 

 In other businesses of no greater magnitude than that of 

 many farms it is not customary to dispense with all financial 

 records, neither is it common for the head of the business 



