398 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



feedable crops are sold. The animals are then the market, and the 

 price they return for these crops is measured by their efficiency. 

 The best of corn crops and hay count for little when sold to animals 

 that return much below market prices for them. 



E. Cost Accounting 



130. THE ACCOUNTING METHOD OF STUDYING THE FARM 

 ENTERPRISE 1 



BY H. C. TAYLOR 



Cost accounting is a method of ascertaining such facts regarding 

 the operation and results of a business as will enable the operator to 

 know what to produce and how to produce it in order to secure maxi- 

 mum profits from the business. The data secured by this method 

 may have some general value, but its primary purpose is to give a 

 basis for more intelligent direction of the operations of the factory 

 or the farm for which the accounts are kept. 



The one who plans the records and their tabulation must have a 

 clear vision of economic forces if he would plan a successful system of 

 accounts, for economic forces determine what should be done on the 

 farm. The system of accounts must show quantitatively the work- 

 ings of these forces at a given time and place. 



In agricultural accounting, the first problem is to contrive a system 

 of records which will show what to produce. This problem is more 

 complex in farming than in almost any other business. In very few 

 districts does the farmer devote himself exclusively to one enterprise. 

 This is not due to any peculiar characteristics of the men engaged in 

 the business, but is inherent in the natural conditions under which 

 crops must be grown. There are more or less definite times when 

 planting, harvesting, etc., must be done, and it is rarely found that 

 one enterprise, such as wheat growing or corn growing, occupies all 

 the farmer's time. 



The problem of first importance in the organization of a farm for 

 profits is that of correlating a group of enterprises upon one farm in 

 such a manner as will keep the labor and equipments employed as 

 nearly continuously as practical, and in that enterprise which will 

 yield the largest returns of all those which can be carried on at the 

 given time of year. 



1 From Research Bulletin 16, Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. 



