14 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



food production for the inmates, and in other ways be improved 

 as adjuncts to institution management. This request was made 

 the very last of October. During the month of November, 

 1921, the farms and their operations were studied as completely 

 as the length of the time and the season of the year would 

 permit by a man agriculturally trained and of large execu- 

 tive experience in both the practical and scientific aspects of 

 farming. 



These studies were made at the institutions with as much 

 thoroughness as an average of two days per farm for travel and 

 study would permit. Through this study a general picture of 

 the farming at each institution was had and recorded. Partic- 

 ular attention was paid to the methods of farm accounting in 

 use. It was found that while the financial administration of the 

 institutions, and hence of the farms themselves, was well handled 

 from the viewpoint of expenditures a»d receipts of the institution 

 as a whole, there was only very partial segregation of the farm 

 from the other departments of the institution. Naturally this 

 varied from quite a complete segregation at institutions where 

 farm projects were numerous to almost a disappearance of 

 lines of demarcation at other institutions. 



The immediate result of this first preliminary survey in what 

 is hoped may be merely the beginning of a co-operation between 

 this Department and the three commissioners above named, 

 is a request on their part that this Department make further 

 study of the methods of farm accounting, and in co-operation 

 with the Auditor's department devise and put into effect a 

 system of farm accounting of such a nature that the institution 

 office shall have records that will serve for the preparation of 

 the farm report for the Auditor; as a history for a guide for 

 further farm operations; as a measure of the efficiency of the 

 farm management; and as a comparative study of the opera- 

 tions at the different fa^ms from the agricultural viewpoint. 

 This will be undertaken very early in the coming year. 



It is believed that this co-operation will result in a better 

 management of the farms as institution adjuncts, and it is also 

 believed, from the standpoint of this Department, that from 

 the farm reports and the following out of suggestions that will 

 emanate from this Department there will accumulate a fund 



