488 FAPM MANAGEMENT 



colts pay the cost of horse work. In the rare cases where 

 horses are kept primarily to raise colts to sell, the horse 

 labor may be charged at a reasonable rate and horses 

 credited with this work. The loss or gain on horses is 

 then determined. 



295. Hay seed. If one is raising a fairly constant 

 area of alfalfa, timothy, or other long-lived plant, he may 

 keep a single account with the crop. The seed purchased 

 for next year's crop can then be charged to this account, 

 although it is really seed for future years. The crop 

 should then pay for about so much seed each year. If 

 one prefers, he may run an account with each year's seed- 

 ing separately. In the set of accounts given, the alfalfa 

 fields are kept separate, but only one timothy account is 

 kept. With annual crops, it is better to open a separate 

 account for each year's crop. 



296. Double cropping. When more than one crop is 

 grown on the same field at the same time, as when potatoes 

 are grown in a young orchard, the accounting becomes dif- 

 ficult. But if one is not prejudiced in favor of either crop, 

 he can arrive at a fair estimate. If he is prejudiced, his 

 results in this, or any other work on cost accounting, will 

 be useless. For instance, some persons have credited the 

 orchard with the value of the crop grown between the rows 

 of trees, in order to learn what it costs to grow an orchard. 

 In one case that has been quoted to considerable extent by 

 pomologists, the bean crop grown in a young apple orchard 

 more than paid for all costs of raising both crops. Hence 

 the apple orchard showed a very nice profit when it had not 

 borne an apple. By this erroneous method of figuring, 

 the apple orchard cost nothing ; but if all the land had 

 been in beans, there would have been no spraying or prun- 

 ing, the cultivation would have taken less time, and the 



