114 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



lie produces. When a farmer has this knowledge, lie will be 

 very careful to cultivate those crops only that pay, and leave 

 the crops that do not pay, to others whose circumstances enable 

 them to conduct such a business with more success. 



There is no systematic division of labor in agricultural 

 employment among us, and never can be, unless farmers learn 

 what each can grow to the best advantage ; and this can be 

 accomplished only by keeping accounts. If a farmer has lived 

 thirty years by his labor, and brought up a family, he knows, 

 of course, in a rude way, that his labor has been profitable, and 

 will guess that some crops have been more profitable than others ; 

 but tiie basis of figures and system is wanting to his judgment, 

 which becomes, therefore, valueless. In those countries where 

 agriculture has become a science, one farmer raises sheep, 

 another fats them ; one breeds cattle, another fits them for the 

 butcher ; one produces grain crops, another confines himself 

 mostly to vegetables. It will be so with us when we under- 

 stand our business better. The simple change of introducing 

 accurate accounts into the management of our farms, would 

 work a complete revolution in the agriculture of the county. 



The committee do not mean to endorse fully Mr. Thompson's 

 mode of keeping or rendering his accounts. There is no uni- 

 versal or uniform system of farm accounts known to farming in 

 this country. We should like to say much upon this subject, 

 if we had the time. The great difficulty with our farmers 

 seems to be in making an erroneous estimate of the value of 

 fodder used on the farm. If all the fodder is fed upon the 

 farm, and turned to beef or stock, or to milk or butter, the 

 cost of raising and harvesting and feeding it, like other ex- 

 penses, might be charged to the beef, or to the dairy products, 

 and the profit ascertained from the balance, including in that 

 balance the increased value of the farm: He chooses to sell his 

 hay in the form of milk, butter, or on the hoof, and the market 

 value of the hay, or what he might have sold it for, is of no 

 importance in ascertaining his actual profit, but only in ascer- 

 taining what his profit would have been had he sold it. But our 

 farming is a mixed husbandry ; we sell some fodder, some vege- 

 tables, and some stock, consume some, and feed out the remain- 

 der. For this reason it is perhaps best to value, credit, and 

 charge all the manure made and expended, on the farm ; to 



