PRIMAKY RESULTS 61 



smithy accounts ; labour, and depreciation. As regards 

 labour, this is a small item, for the time of men working 

 with horses is charged to the job upon which they are 

 engaged, and not to the horses, so that the only manual 

 labour recorded in the ' Horses, Working Account ' is the few 

 hours employed on stable work, taking horses to the forge, 

 &c. The only other charge to be included is that for deprecia- 

 tion, and it must be noted that this charge has to be made 

 irrespective of whether the horse stock has actually fallen 

 in value or not. The principle upon which it is based is that 

 the depreciation on a horse, from his cost at maturity for 

 work down to his death, should be divided equally over his 

 whole working life, for obviously the cost of ploughing, say, 

 an acre of land, should be the same whether it be performed 

 by young horses or by old ones other things being equal. 

 The advantage accruing to the farmer who works a large 

 proportion of young horses, or the disadvantage of working 

 mainly with ancient animals rapidly depreciating, must 

 not be applied fictitiously to reduce or to increase the cost 

 of horse labour on the farm. 1 The farmer's success or other- 

 wise as a horse breeder or as a horse dealer is a matter 

 entirely apart from the cost of horse labour on the holding, 

 and must not be confused with it, but must be recorded in 

 a separate account kept for this purpose (see p. 47). Thus 

 it follows that the capital invested in horse-stock does not 

 enter into a labour-cost calculation, whilst, on the other 

 hand, depreciation is a charge which must be included 

 irrespective of the age of the animals concerned. It will 

 be observed that the sum charged in the example given 

 below is 3 per annum. Whether this is the proper figure 

 depends entirely upon the cost of a three-year-old horse 

 on the farm in cases where the horse-stock is home-bred, or 

 upon the purchase price if the farmer is a buyer and not 

 a breeder. The figure represents a maximum cost at three 

 years old of about 50 per horse, allowing an effective life 

 of fifteen years and a knacker value of 5 ; it must, of 

 course, be varied on every farm to bring it into accord with 



1 See Orwin, Farm Accounts (Cambridge University Press, p. 139). 



