32 FARMING ON FACTORY LINES 



Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of 

 account-keeping will realise that the profits or losses 

 on a farm in any particular year will vary according 

 to the values placed on the various assets at the close 

 of the year. For this reason it is necessary to say 

 a few words as to the basis on which the valuations 

 have been made. As regards live stock, in the first 

 year of the experiment these were valued by an 

 independent farmer of great experience — a relation 

 of the owner's — and the writer. The system adopted 

 was to assume that the bullocks — of which the live 

 stock consisted — had increased in value at the rate of 

 14/- per month from the date of purchase to the date 

 on which the valuation was made. Subsequent sales 

 — due to a fall in prices — proved that the live stock 

 valuation had been made too high, so that in the 

 following half-year the cash profits were about £100 

 less than the " paper profits." 



VALUATION OF LIVE STOCK 



In the second year the valuation of live stock was 

 made by the cattle salesman who was entrusted with 

 the stocking of the farm and the sale of live stock 

 when finished. He at the time of the valuation, 

 anticipating a slump, valued the cattle at from 30/- to 

 40/- per head less than they had actually cost two 

 or three months previously at his own auction. No 

 slump occurred, and, in consequence, at the end of 

 the half-year, by which time the bullocks on hand 

 when the valuation was made had been turned into 

 cash, the cash profits were approximately £300 higher 

 than the " paper profits." 



At the close of the third year most of the bullocks 

 had been on hand two or three months, and were 

 put into the valuation at cost price on the date of 



