150 AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE FARMER : 



tively simple matter to construct a system of cost accounts for 

 use on the farm, in practice, owing partly to the inter-depen- 

 dence of the various departments of the farm, and partly to the 

 relationship of manures, &c., to rotations of crops, the problem 

 IS extremely difficult and complicated. When the Institute 

 was established in 1913, the subject of cost accounting on the farm 

 was one that had received no attention in this country; there 

 was no literature on the subject, and nothing to guide the Institute 

 in methods and principles of work. Research has, however, 

 resulted in the formulation of a system which, though admittedly 

 not perfect, does show the cost of each operation on the farm, 

 and the profitableness or otherwise of each department. Certain 

 items, such as the distribution of the cost of fallowing amongst 

 subsequent crops, and the influence of manures applied to one 

 crop on succeeding crops, have of necessity to be dealt with on 

 an arbitrary basis, but experience has shown that the probability 

 of error arising from such cases is not of sufficient importance 

 to affect the practical value of the total costs as ascertained by 

 the method. 



Records have up to the present been obtained for upwards 

 of 60 farms, and the method adopted may be briefly indicated. 

 The farmer is supplied with weekly labour sheets which are in- 

 tended to show for each day the class of work done by each man, 

 the time devoted to it, and the number of horses used. These 

 are filled in and returned to the Institute, together with the farmer's 

 cash account. The remainder of the work is done at the Institute. 

 Here the labour sheets are carefully analysed, and the final 

 accounts when made up show the total cost of each department 

 of the farm (wheat, stock, milk, &c.), the total cost being ana- 

 lysed again into cost due to labour, food, manures, &c. In 

 particular the accounts show the number of days worked by 

 each horse during the year, and the total cost of its upkeep, so 

 that the economy exercised in the working of the horses can 

 readily be ascertained. 



In connection with cost accounting, the Institute is keeping 

 continuously in view the desirability of simplifying the method, 

 wherever this may be possible without affecting its accuracy. 

 The method now used is too complicated for a farmer who has 

 not an accounting clerk, but it may be found possible to modify it 

 in certain directions so that, in most of its stages at all events, 

 it can be done on the farm. In the meantime a simple system 

 o' departmental records has been devised which a farmer can 

 quite easily keep, and which will give him much more information 

 of his business than an ordinary financial statement, although 



