4 The Farmer's Business Handbook 



tion of their property; much less do they keep 

 a record by which they may determine whether 

 there were any losses or profits, and whence each 

 arose. 



Sir Henry Gilbert, of Rothamstead, England, 

 an eminent investigator, when visiting the United 

 States a few years ago, tried to find out 

 by many inquiries in well-to-do families what 

 proportion of the expense of an American house- 

 hold was incurred for meats, for breadstuff s, 

 for butter, for service, etc. He could not find 

 a single householder who could give him in- 

 formation on these points. The American too 

 often pays bills without inspection and does not 

 even preserve the receipts. This busy, scien- 

 tific worker could tell both the total and per 

 capita expenditure of his household for butter, 

 meats, bread, clothing, servants and other items. 

 But he was unable to make any comparison be- 

 tween English and American household expenses 

 because he was unable to secure the detailed, 

 or even the gross expenditure of persons in cir- 

 cumstances comparable with his own. 



While traveling in England I noticed that even 

 the third-class passengers with their harvesting 

 implements, on the railways going to the coun- 

 try districts, carried little blank books in which 

 they noted down their expenses. In America, 

 it is not uncommon to find a professor or a 



