VII 



RECORDS AND ACCOUNTS AS MEASURES OF 

 EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT 



Introduction 



The preceding chapter has had much to say concerning the work 

 of the organizer in directing the farm enterprise into profitable 

 channels. It is evident, however, that if he is to find and follow the 

 pathway of economic efficiency he must not rely upon his current 

 impression of what he is accomplishing, but must employ some definite 

 means of measuring his farm operations and keeping a quantitative 

 record of results. 



This does not mean that we should open up a complete set of books 

 and establish an accountant on every farm. Accounts are merely a 

 means to a particular end and should be the simplest means of securing 

 certain facts for the farmer. It is a mistake to suppose that all these 

 facts need to be reduced to dollars. The bank's records are in that 

 form because the bank's operations are all financial in character. 

 The merchant's accounts are quite similar. Many a farmer makes 

 hardly more cash sales in a year than the ordinary merchant does in an 

 hour. His whole year's business may be covered by the twelve 

 checks he receives from the creamery or an even smaller number of 

 remittances for stock shipped. If his family does all the work on the 

 farm and he settles his store bill quarterly, he can probably carry all 

 the figures of his money transactions in his head. 



To set these figures down in a careful set of double-entry accounts 

 would, of course, guard against errors and have a certain value. But 

 much more important for the success of his future operations would 

 be a record of the quantity and quality of milk produced by each 

 individual member of his dairy herd, or of the number of hours of 

 productive labor of each horse, the work record of each man hired, 

 and the amount of feed secured from various fields planted to the 

 different crops. The farmer very likely knows what income he 

 derived from his farm; what he needs to find out is which animals 

 or which fields contributed to that profit and hi what proportion. 



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