114 AN ALTERNATIVE BASIS FOR 



are more easily recorded in the crop account to which the 

 net costs on the various fields up to harvesting have been 

 transferred. Taking the case of a farm of 500 acres divided, 

 say, into forty fields, the multiplicity of accounts involved 

 under this system is easily imagined. 



It is fairly obvious that apart from the actual recording 

 of time, materials, &c., the main part of the clerical labour 

 necessitated under such a costing scheme is employed in 

 allocating the manual and horse labour to the various fields, 

 for the apportionment of labour on live-stock is a much 

 simpler matter, and it is now suggested that if the time 

 spent by men and horses on the land were allocated in the 

 first instance to the various farming operations, such as 

 ploughing, cultivating, rolling, harrowing, &c., instead of to 

 the fields, the saving in clerical work would be enormous. 

 In addition, a new and more accurate basis would be 

 afforded for the distribution of implement depreciation and 

 repairs, and the total cost of each of the various operations 

 performed on the farm arrived at in this way could then 

 be spread over the various crops according to a record of 

 cultivations carried out on each. Such a record is not 

 uncommonly kept, and it would, of course, be absolutely 

 necessary, and care would need to be exercised in the case 

 of double cultivations for cleaning purposes, or of re-sowing 

 after the failure of a crop, but these safeguards are needed 

 equally under present methods of costing. 



The method might possibly lead to slight inaccuracies in 

 particular cases, but a survey of the position suggests that 

 even if the cost of ploughing or harvesting two equal areas 

 on any farm varied to any appreciable extent, such varia- 

 tion would be due largely to temporary conditions such 

 as a break in the weather and that to average the costs 

 of cultivations over the whole farm would not upset con- 

 clusions in the long run. It might be desirable in certain 

 cases to be able to compare the costs of similar cultivations, 

 manurings, &c., as between one field and another, but 

 remembering that it is impossible to distribute Rent, or 

 Cleaning Costs, or Manurial Residues except on an arbitrary 



