Knowing What You Are About. 287 



necessary. This I found true when I did keep account, that it 

 helped me about reducing the cost of production. I was natu- 

 rally figuring to grow the crop cheaper the next year. I have 

 given you examples of how this worked, in other chapters. It 

 was just this figuring that got up these sideboards for the wagon, 

 so I could earn $4 a day drawing wood, instead of $2.25, or 

 handle potatoes for half the money by using the bushel boxes. 

 Of course, one cannot keep exact account with a crop, but he 

 can come very near to it. Team, tools and driver, except costly 

 tools lie the binder and digger, cost me about $3 a day on my 

 farm, and I call it that in figuring. For the costly tools I add a 

 fair interest for their use. 



Nor can one figure exactly how much the farm pays him, 

 but he can come near it. I would not, of course, credit the farm 

 with every mess of potatoes dug from the garden, or every load 

 of wood or pound of butter. This would require too much 

 labor. But one can estimate in a lump what the garden is worth, 

 how many potatoes are used in a year, how much butter (I can 

 tell within a few pounds what we will use in a year), etc. These 

 articles may then be credited fairly, so as to give a good idea of 

 what the farm really does pay. And in figuring interest on the 

 investment one must remember that land is a very safe invest- 

 ment. Millions are loaned at 3 to 4 per cent., when the 

 security is good enough. We have money bringing us only 4 

 per cent., and could loan it for twice that, but it would not be as 

 safe. I believe that a little honest figuring would make some 

 open their eyes in regard to the profit of farming. But I will 

 say more on this point in Chapter XLJ. 



A friend wrote me not long since in regard to cost of team 

 work, saying he did not see how I could estimate the wear on a 

 horse, harness, etc. The interest on first cost would be simple 

 enough, but he was at a loss about these other points. I may 

 well take up a few lines to show how simple this seems to me, 

 after years of practice. For example, I have been in the habit of 

 allowing ten dollars per year per horse for wear or depreciation . Let 

 us see how it works. In 1882 I paid $150 for a team of rather cheap 

 horses in the fall. They were, perhaps, nine years old. They 

 were not as fine to look at as our best team, but good enough for 

 farm work. One was sent to the heaven for faithful old horses, 

 without pain, last fall ; the other we still keep. One worked 

 nine years and the other ten this fall. At ten dollars a head a 

 year, they have brought us $190 $40 more than cost. Our. 

 best work team cost in the fall of 1881 $380. Eleven years takes 

 off $220, making them worth now $160. They are seventeen 

 years old, but I would not want to take that for them. My 

 figures on the average anyway are about right. How about losing 

 a horse now and then ? I do not know. We never have lost one 

 that was of any value. As to harness it is not difficult to figure. 



