viii FARM ACCOUNTS. 



he undertakes. If he is not, his decisions are not based 

 upon understanding, but upon chance. Some feeble at- 

 tempts have been made to adapt a system to his needs but 

 only where the transaction involved was great enough to 

 warrant the employment of a special book keeper has suc- 

 cess been apparent. And these records were made more 

 with a view of accounting for the wages due employees, 

 purchases made, and monies received from the sale of 

 products than for determining profit and loss on production. 



This book is an attempt to provide a system of account- 

 ing directly applicable to all farm conditions; so simple 

 that any man of ordinary ability can apply it; and so 

 short that its value as a time-saver will at once be apparent. 

 The data used as examples were taken from the operation 

 of a farm in this state. Nothing has been changed for the 

 sake of appearances. All the problems of farm account- 

 ing resulting from actual experience, have here been faith- 

 fully met, and the many vexatious details that must be 

 carefully considered and heeded have been handled in a 

 way that will appeal to all who have tried to accomplish 

 the same results without knowing how it should be done. 

 Even the preliminary practice work, such as cash, personal 

 account with a neighbor, business account with poultry, 

 etc., is taken from actual life and represents every-day 

 transactions without any adornment to make them appear 

 as if on dress parade. In short, the data are real, live actual 

 records from the farm put into form as a guide to the 

 farmer desiring to know how to keep an accurate account 

 of his business. The day-book, the journal, and the cash- 

 book usually considered indispensable to complete account- 

 ing are discarded, and the records made direct on cards, 

 which combine all the essential features of the foregoing 

 books and the ledger as well. The essential features of this 

 work have been used in the class room for a number of 

 years with much greater success than when the older 

 methods combining the use of the journal, day-book, cash- 

 book, and ledger were used. 



In the preparation of this volume grateful acknowledg- 



