2OO SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



of an accountant endeavouring to show the net profits of a 

 ock of sheep. I will endeavour to strengthen this position 

 6y giving an example. 



The flock requires turnips, swedes, and mangel, and for 

 these foods we presume they must be charged. But before 

 doing this we must open accounts with turnip, swede, and 

 mangel, or treat all as "roots," and open a "root account." 

 The sheep account is thus debtor to the root account, and an 

 entry is made " Sheep, Dr. to roots." This is, we will pre- 

 sume, calculated on 3d. or 4d. per week per sheep, but whether 

 justly or not, no one could very well say. We must next 

 make some sort of a guess as to the manurial value of the 

 roots eaten, for it would be rather unfair to the root crop to 

 credit it only with 4d. for eatage, and with nothing for its 

 manurial value. This would lead to another assumption as 

 to the proportion of fertilising matter left in the land, and we 

 should require to debit a manure account or else a field account 

 with manure received by means of sheep. This might take 

 the form of " Gallows Field, Dr. to sheep folding," and would 

 necessitate either a sheep folding account or an entry on the 

 credit side of the sheep account. Or it might be treated as a 

 transaction between the root account and the field account, 

 such as " Gallows Field, Dr. to roots feed," and " Roots 

 credited by Gallows Field." The debt ought to be carried 

 on and divided throughout the rotation, involving a large 

 amount of calculation and a great deal of rough assumption. 

 When the sheep are debited with cake and corn, they should 

 also be credited with the unexhausted fertility due to these 

 feeding stuffs, and the crop benefited would be debited for 

 the same. Thus cross entries would multiply, and no one 

 could say where they had to stop. Many of them would be 

 mere bogus entries, for no one could say how far they were 

 realisable, as much depends upon season, and a heavy dress- 

 ing of sheep dung might possibly do harm to a barley crop. 



An elaborate system of farm accounts to show the net 

 profits from any department of a farm would therefore be 



